Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman
Connect bud vases with a fresh foliage open weave
- 2 February 2022
- click to send Christine a smile
Place a few bud vases in a long container.
Fill all the vases with water.
... So that you create a long section for the woven panels to remain hydrated and bud vases for the flowers to sit perfectly upright.
Add your flowers into the bud vases.
To contrast the weave that I will add I wanted my flowers to look almost wild. So measure out what you want to be your highest flower to get the proportions right and then snip and add the rest of the flowers so that they appear wild and not too styled.
Cross your foliage on a flat working surface to start the weave...
And simply weave the foliage in an over and under basket weave pattern.
Oh you know I love weaving! If you want to learn a lot more about weaving with grass and foliage turn to page 226-235 of my book. But to get you started I have also linked a basic Tutorial below this post.
For more information about my book:
The Effortless Floral Craftsman
Make sure the foliage curves towards the same direction to create a minimal weave.
I also have a bonus tip for you this week in our email to show you in detail how to weave so that the foliage can be easily be moved and hydrated. Make sure to sign up if you are not yet receiving my first-thing-every-Wednesday-morning-to-tell-you-the design-is-ready notification email. The sign up is below this post.
Carefully pick the weave up...
And place it in the long container in front of the bud vases.
Adjust the weave so that it leans from the inside out to fill the container.
Turn the container and push the bud vases against the woven panel to make space for a second panel.
Weave another panel just like the first...
So that it can back the first weave...
And slip it into the water filled container.
Adjust the weave so that it mirrors the opposite side to finish off the design.
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Tutorials
For this tutorial I focus on a simple weave pattern that does not require you to soften or prepare the leaves to be more durable or flexible. This is the starting point in...
Give your woven grass a water source by designing the basket in a vase rather than placing the vase in a basket
Suspend flowers over a water filled container by weaving a natural grid.
Weave a basket from lily grass and then cut and curl the edges
Weave a canopy or parachute shaped armature in a way that you can place the stems in two vases to keep it hydrated.
Loosely weave grass on a piece of driftwood for an informal armature
A single lily flower design dressed up with a grass veil.
Favourite Flowers
The Afrikaans name is tjienkerientjee (named after the sound the stems make when rubbing together in the wind) Chincherinchee, wonder-flower (because they last so long),...
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