All Around My Hat
Willow
All around my hat, I will wear the green willow, and all around my hat for a twelvemonth and a day…
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Two
…and if anyone should ask me the reason why I’m wearing it...
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Willowwithes
…it’s all because we went to a willow chair-making workshop at the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific yesterday!
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Alder
First we made a sturdy structure out of Alder…
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Structure
…held together with spiral-shank nails…
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sit
…then we attached the willow withes to the structure with ring-shanked nails…
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Finished!
…and after a day filled with lots of bending and bracing and gripping and hammering…
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Offcuts
The offcuts were sent off to the giant compost heap…
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Throne
…and we took home a glorious throne-like willow chair!
Thank you to Andrew Kent from The Willow Way, who taught this excellent all-day workshop
click here for his website…
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…and thank you so much to the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific for offering this class
click here for their website
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Quimper Hittys 
What a beautiful chair! And lovely little willow crowns. I would love to take that class. I’m taking a broom making class today.
Thanks! We had a great time and are amazed and amused by our grand garden throne…I would love to take a broom-making class! I wonder if the horticultural centre offers one?!
What a gorgeous chair, K! It’s so rustically elegant!! Might the Hittys get one or two for themselves now that you’ve learned the language of chair making? You’ve got a beautiful reward for a day’s work, totally fantastic.
Thanks so much! It is rustically elegant – that’s the perfect description…The Hittys may get a new chair if I can find small enough sturdy elements for the frame and bendy enough for the rest. It would be fun to try! They do have a twig chair somewhere or other, I wonder if I can find where I put it when I was storing the garden things last fall…
What a beautiful chair! Amazing that you made it in a day. The girls look whimsical in their willow “crowns.”
Floradora and Tipsy were humming the willow all around the hat song all day! We did enjoy ourselves!
what a wonderful chair – and it only took a day?? Love how you worked the different colours in. Are the Hittys getting mini chairs?
Luckily for us, Andrew from The Willow Way had most pieces cut out and ready to assemble! It would have taken much longer if we had had to saw and chamfer as well as bend, nail and snip! As it was, it was really fun and did take all day. The Hittys may well get a chair or two, I am not sure when…
That is a fabulous chair! I made something similar (but simpler) with my grandchildren when they were much younger but sadly it has now disintegrated from being left outside. It was a fun weekend making it and surprisingly comfy to sit in.
We were warned that the glorious chair would last 3-5 years if left out over the winter but longer if under cover or longer still if indoors. We also have to coat the surfaces with linseed oil…hoping it will stay throne-like for a few years! It was surprisingly comfortable!
I hope it lasts a long time.
Gorgeous! I am very impressed!
Thanks so much! We are rather impressed ourselves (who say it as shouldn’t as my grandmother would have said!) I had the help of my middle son, and the Hittys – we all enjoyed the day.
that’s glorious
Thank you very much – we are lucky there was a class available, and room in the class for late subscribers (and room in the car to transport home the glorious chair!!)
Oh, that’s wonderful! I do wish willow wasn’t seen as an invasive species to be eradicated here, since I could make so much use of it. I’m originally from a part of the UK where withies were still in regular use and we had a couple of large old pollarded willows ourselves.
The Willow chair-teacher makes good use of pollarded willows along the power lines near here (with a permit of course)! We have several different kinds of willow around here, the different colours in my chair reflect at least three species!
I am so impressed by this magnificent chair!!! And you made it!!! that is so remarkable. A throne indeed.
We shall love sitting in the throne – maybe will boss people about!We love that it is comfortable, that we made it and that it looks so good in the garden!
Oh my goodness that is amazing! You now have a gorgeous handmade chair!
We do, and we love it! We are so lucky that the horticultural centre is so nearby and that the offered the class – and that they had space for us!