Craft, Cookery and Gardening Courses in Lincolnshire

Courses and Workshops 2010

Our Courses cover a range of topics from Cookery to Crafts.

All courses last for 1 day from 10.00am (unless otherwise stated) and continue all day with a special home-made lunch and a glass of our own special apple wine, finishing about 4.30-5.30pm (depending on course). The maximum number of people on the workshops are small (4 to 8) to ensure everyone has time to create something special to take home. The cost ranges from £50 to £75 per person and includes materials (except where stated) plus lunch, tea, coffee and wine. Our aim is to have fun and learn new skills in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere

If you would like to attend one of the courses please ring Sherry on 01526 378717 or 07979 750750. Or you can send me an email at sherry@manorhousestables.co.uk.

To reserve a place on one of our courses, please fill in the Booking Form and send it back to me with your deposit.

For a Booking Form, please Click here

For a printable Summary of our Courses please Click here

For a Booklet of our courses with full descriptions, please Click here

September to December 2010 Courses

Lotions & Lavender - Wednesday 19th Septebmer

Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Make your own beauty products using natural materials and plant essential oils to use yourself or to give to friends and family. You do not need any specialist equipment and all materials are provided on the day. We start the day with lavender & mint tea and freshly-made lavender scones followed by a talk about the wonderful properties of lavender and a short walk around the garden. Before lunch we will learn to make soaps and bath melts and following a scrumptious lavender-themed lunch we will create several face care products each tailored to your skin type using essential oils of your choice. Recipes will be given out on the day and reference material and other lavender products will be on sale in our shop. 10am – 5pm. £65. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. Tutor - Sherry Forbes - www.manorhousestables.co.uk

For more information about this course and about lavender, please see July's article in the Lincolnshire Pride magazine here - http://www.lincolnshirepride.co.uk/challengerob/96-july10-news.php

Corn Dolly Workshop – Wednesday 22^nd September. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Corn dolly making is an ancient craft practiced by our ancestors as part of their harvest festival. It was thought that the ‘Spirit of Fertility’ lived among the corn so at the end of the harvest the last sheaf of corn was used to make the corn dolly where the spirit would reside for the winter to be ploughed back into the field in the spring to ensure a good harvest. Today, many people who are interested in local traditions are fascinated by the beautiful weaving techniques and local designs involved in corn dolly making. It is appropriate that thatcher and straw-worker Amanda Davies has been able to come back here again to teach us her fascinating craft as the autumn equinox and ‘harvest-home’ time approaches. You will learn to a range of weaving and plaiting techniques all suitable for beginners. 10am – 5pm. £55. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.strawcraftsmen.co.uk

Rachel’s Cutting Garden – Wednesday 29^th September. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Be inspired to sow and grow your own bouquets. Rachel Petheram who runs the cutting garden at Doddington Ha Floral Bouquet - Cutting Garden Course ll returns again this year to teach us how to create our own cutting gardens. Rachel is passionate about natural seasonal flowers and about producing flowers in a sustainable way without using harmful pesticides or chemicals. By growing your own flowers you are also able to reduce air miles, help the environment and have fun growing them too! On this workshop you will learn how to plan and plant your cutting garden. Autumn is a great time to get started so you can start reaping the floral harvest from early spring next year. In the morning Rachel will help you with site plans, suggest which plants you can grow in your garden and provide you with invaluable tips and other gardening advice. After a lovely home-made lunch Rachel continues her hands-on advice in the raised beds in the Manor House Gardens to show you how to create your own Cutting Garden. 10am – 5pm. £60. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.catkinflowers.co.uk

Alison’s Willow Workshop – Sunday 3^rd October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Join us on another of Alison’s Basket-making workshops. In just one day you will learn to make a lovely rib or frame basket with a handle using Al Rib framed willow basket ison’s beautiful willow. The technique was traditionally used by agricultural workers or travellers who made the small round baskets from hedgerow materials, but they are also ideal for a variety of uses today such as storing eggs or fruit. Alison is ‘a great admirer of willow in all its many varieties and forms’ and she grows some of her own or sources it locally. The willow she brings to this workshop includes a variety of different species each of a different shade, from light brown to russet to dark chocolate, and they can all be incorporated into your basket. Once the frame is made, weaving the coloured rods is fun, easy to do and very rewarding. The end result – a beautiful basket with a variety of uses which will last for many years! 10am – 5pm. £60. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.lincolnwillow.co.uk

Felt Flowers & Beautiful Beads – Wednesday 6^th October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Feltmaking is a traditional craft based on very simple, age-old Felt beads techniques which can be used to produce a wide range of unique items. Sue from Hawkmoon Crafts was originally inspired by the sea and now makes felt pictures framed with driftwood collected along the Humber. She also makes jewellery, felt flowers and other items. In this workshop Sue will introduce you to the various techniques and fibres used in t Felt flowers & beautiful beads course he feltmaking process, look at a range of handmade felt items and then teach you the basic principles of this traditional craft. Using merino wool, which comes in beautiful vibrant colours, you will, in the morning, create a fabulous flower which will not wilt or fade! Then in the afternoon session you will design and make a set of unique hand-rolled spiral beads with which to make a stunning and original piece of jewellery. At the end of the day you will take home some new skills, plenty of inspiration and some fantastic and wearable pieces of art!! 10am – 5pm. £60. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.hawkmooncrafts.co.uk

Handmade Papermaking using Flowers, Herbs and Natural Dyes – Wednesday 13^th October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Papermaking is a popular course for adults as the process is quite simple but the applications are endless. Jonathan returns to r Handmade papermaking course un this fascinating course again and he will be showing us how to make paper from recycled paper pulp and other natural materials. Everyone will have plenty of opportunity to make their own paper which will be both seasonal and very special. We will gather plants which grow in the Manor House gardens (or you can bring your own dried flowers, herbs, or other plants) and by using different colours of recycled papers as well as the herbs, flowers and other material, everyone will be able to produce sheets of paper which are all different and unique. As we become more confident we can Handmade Paper also experiment with embedding leaves, petals, dried fruit and seed heads with some very stunning results. Jonathan will also tell us about using natural dyes, fibres and some more unusual materials which can be incorporated into paper. Finished pieces can be used for writing, drawing, painting or making notebooks, greeting cards, printed on or used as mounting card for pictures and painting. Run by Jonathan Korejko from Timberland. 9.30am – 5pm. £65. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. http://www.timberlandand.co.uk

Jenny’s Jams and Sherry’s Scones – Wednesday 20^th October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Learn to make scones, jams Jenny's Jams course and Jenny's scones chutneys on today’s varied course and pick up tips from expert jam maker, Jenny Smith from Jenny’s Jams. Our day will start with a hands-on baking session using several recipes for both savory and sweet scones. Our hard work will be rewarded by a Jenny's Chutney n opportunity to sample our freshly-made scones with some of Jenny’s jams and chutneys, followed by a short talk about the different types of fruit and vegetables suitable for jam and chutney making that we can grow in our own gardens. We take a short walk around the raised beds in the Manor House gardens collecting beetroot and apples which we use for making our chutney and see what we can find in to use in our jams. This course also includes a jam-themed lunch with quince wine. You will take home your jars of home-made jams and chutneys along with your new-found skills! 10am – 5pm. £50. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.jennysjams.co.uk

Learn to Knit and Purl – Sunday 24^th October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Learn to knit a lovely colourful scarf this autumn in a beautiful rainbow of colours. This course is for complete beginners as we will spend the day learning how to cast on, knit, purl and cast off as well as making a start on our own scarves. The morning will be spent learning the stitches and after some practice we will start on our scarves using beautiful Colinette 100% pure cotton wool which comes from Wales Knitting Course and is dyed in many beautiful colours. The price for this course includes £25 to cover the cost of the wool and a pair of bamboo needles. After our lovely lunch we will carry on knitting our scarves so that by the end of the day we will have had enough practice to feel confident to complete the project at home. Any problems afterwards and you can come back for help! If required, there will also be a short demonstration of how to make a fringe once the scarf is completed. It’s great fun and very therapeutic too! 10am – 5pm. £55. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. Tutor - Sherry Forbes - www.manorhousestables.co.uk

Lotions & Potions – Wednesday 27^th October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Make your own beauty products using natural and organic ingredients including plant essential oils. You will create your own range of products for yourself or your friends & family. We start the day with a talk about the use o Lotions & Potions course f chemicals, preservatives and other materials used in commercial beauty products and then compare this with the type of ingredients that we are using in today’s course. Specifically we will look into the use of essential oils in skin care products and discuss the use of different vegetable oils for different skin types. During the day we will create a face mask, cleanser, toner and lip moisturising cream specific to your skin type, all for you to take home at the end of the day. You do not need any specialist equipment and all materials are provided on the day. Recipes and other handouts will be given out and reference material and other lavender products will be on sale in our shop. The course includes, as usual, a lovely organic lunch using fresh garden produce and home-made apple wine. Please note that this course is suitable for complete beginners but it also contains completely different material to the August and September courses. 10am – 5pm. £65. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. Tutor - Sherry Forbes - www.manorhousestables.co.uk

For more information about this course and about lavender, please see July's article in the Lincolnshire Pride magazine here - http://www.lincolnshirepride.co.uk/challengerob/96-july10-news.php

Painting Lanterns for Halloween– Sunday 31^st October. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. Paint a glass lantern for Halloween, led by Extraordinary Glass Painter, Linda Harker. The Celts celebrated t Extraordinary Glass Lanterns heir new year on November the 1^st, a day which marked the end of the summer’s harvest and the beginning of the dark cold winter. Samhain, celebrated on the night of the 31^st October , was a dark and festive night where traditional autumn harvest foods were eaten, great bonfires were built and hearth fires were lit in homes for protection during the coming winter. Today we are celebrating Halloween by painting glass lanterns for use this Halloween Eve and to help lighten the dark winter nights ahead. Designs will include suns, moons and stars and other celestial and seasonal designs. Lunch will include an autumn harvest of pumpkin soup, slow roasted vegetables, apple crumble and quince wine. 10am – 5pm. £60. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. http://www.alford.info/craftmarket/ceramics-LindaHarker.htm

Candle Making Workshop – Wednesday 3^rd November. Please click here for a printable version of this course information. We continue with the fire and candle theme as we ap Candle-making day proach the darker nights of winter and the festivities of Bonfire Night. Back again this November, Dawn from Kettler’s Cottage Crafts will show us how to make several types of candles in this popular workshop. Today she will show us how to make scented soy wax and beautiful beeswax candles, then use gift wrap to turn your special candles into perfect presents. Dawn is committed to providing products that are as natural and environmentally-friendly as possible and sources ingredients locally. Soy candles are mad Soy Wax Candle e from a type of soybean oil and are a very good alternative to paraffin candles - the wax comes from a natural renewable source and is not made from petroleum (like paraffin candles)and burning of soy candles does not increase the CO2 level in the atmosphere. Beeswax candles are also a great alternative to paraffin candles – they are brighter, last longer, smell like honey, do not produce smoke or soot and, of course they are sourced naturally from bees. Honey will be the themed ingredient at lunchtime! 10am – 5pm. £50. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.kettlerscottagecrafts.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Silk Screen printed Christmas Cards – Wednesday 10^th November. Please click here for a printable version of this course information The first of our ‘Home-made Christmas’ workshops, we start by making Christmas cards. Jonathan Korejko is back again, this time teaching us how to make cards using screen and relief printing techniques. We will learn how to use the screen printing equipment, prepare hand-cut paper stencils and finally print on the paper and card employing techniques of colour and over printing. Once the cards have been made, greetings can be printed inside the cards using a portable relief printing press. The end result is a limited edition set of greeting cards for you to give to your friends and family! Once you have mastered the screen printing technique, you can screen print other festive items on paper or cloth, for example, serviettes, Christmas tree ornaments and gift tags. All the equipment and materials required for this course are supplied. 10am – 5pm. £65. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. http://www.timberlandand.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Rachel’s Wreaths – Sunday 28^th November. Please click here for a Rachel's Wreath making Course printable version of this course information Rachel is back again to show us how to make beautiful Christmas wreaths from natural home-grown seasonal materials. In last year’s workshop we all made the most beautiful wreaths which were much more luxurious than any wreaths sold in the shops. Rachel provided the ring and moss but most of the material was collected from our garden in the morning and made into wreaths in the afternoon. All types of material can be woven into the wreath, not just holly - I used lavender in mine and it looked and smelled beautiful! The wreath is yours to take home at the end of the day to proudly hang on your door. A warming lunch of slow-roasted vegetables from our garden, apple crumble with cream and a glass of mulled wine will complete this very special day. 10am – 5pm. £65. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.catkinflowers.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Make your own Mincemeat and Create a Super Cranberry Sauce – Wednesday 1^st December. Please click here for a printable version of this course information Jenny is back to teach us how to make some special treats t Mincemeat Pies his Christmas. Mince pies are one of the greatest food treats at Christmas so delight friends and family by making your own flavour-filled mincemeat. And you will also add a touch of luxury with an explosion of flavour that is Orange, Cranberry & Brandy sauce – great with turkey and delicious with cold meats. Lunch will definitely have a festive theme today as we try out Jenny’s newest creations. 10am – 5pm. £55. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.jennysjams.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Weaving Willow Wreaths, Stars and Hearts for Christmas – Sunday 5^th December. Please click here for a printable version of this course information Make your own beautiful Christmas decoratio Alison's Willow Hearts ns from local, natural materials, made from colourful willow varieties, birch and dogwood. Alison will show us how to make beautiful large willow hearts which can be decorated with evergreens flowers and berries for Christmas but can also be redecorated at other times of the year to suit any occasion. You will also learn to make small stars, circular wreaths and kissing bows which can be re-used year after year. We will collect the greenery and berries from the garden but you can bring your own along with you if you wish. Another wonderful willow weaving day with Alison Walling who is passionate about willow and grows her own or sources it locally. A warming home-grown winter lunch will be served. 10am – 5pm. £60. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.lincolnwillow.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Stained Glass Christmas Decorations – Wednesday 8^th December. Please click here for a printable version of this course information Enjoy creating your own Christmas themed suncatchers using the copper foiling construction. You will learn to cut glass to a pattern and copperfoil, solder and polish it ready for display at home. No experien Stained glass Christmas Decorations ce is necessary and all the tools, safety equipment, patterns and a selection of sparkling glass will be provided. This course is taught by Gillian Wing whose love of stained glass dates back to when she was introduced to the craft at a studio which specialised in producing pieces for use in colour therapy healing work. Learn this beautiful craft and create something special at this wonderful time of year. A lovely lunch will be served with a festive colourful theme. 10am - 4.30pm. £65. Max 5. Lunch & materials included. www.strawberryglass.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Straw stars for your Christmas Tree – Sunday 12^th December. Please click here for a printable version of this course information Amanda Davies comes back again to show us how to use strawcraft to make Christmas decorations. Making straw stars is a craft that goes back to times when people couldn’t afford decorations at Christmas and therefore used a material that was common in most households. Straw Stars are very much a part of the German and Scandinavian Christmas traditions and Christmas shops in these and other countries such as the Czech Republic sell straw stars at Christmas-time. In Germany Christmas decorations tend to be much less bright and gaudy than in Britain and are often made of traditional materials like wood, glass or straw. Straw is not only cheap, it is also easy to bend and cut and making stars are quite simple but fun to do as the variety of shapes and sizes are endless. A Christmas tree decorated with straw stars and other natural materials will be on show in our shop during the course to give you additional inspiration! 10am - 4.30pm. £55. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. www.strawcraftsmen.co.uk

Home-made Christmas: Last-minute personalised presents for your friends and family – Wednesday 15^th December. Please click here for a printable version of this course information Do you hate the shops at this time of year? Are you looking for something special for a friend or member of your family? If you would like to create a personal present for someone you know and care for, why not spend a relaxing day today away from the mad crowds and enjoy a day of making creams, lotions and bath products from natural organic ingredients. We will learn to make soaps and bath melts in the morning and create several face care products in the afternoon each tailored to you and your chosen recipient using essential oils of your choice. We can personalise and gift wrap the products before you proudly take them home at the end of the day. You do not need any specialist equipment and all materials are provided on the day. Recipes and other handouts will be given out and reference material and other products will be on sale in our shop. A festive lunch with home-made mulled wine will make this a very special lead-up to Christmas! 10am – 5pm. £65. Max 6. Lunch & materials included. Tutor - Sherry Forbes - www.manorhousestables.co.uk

For more information about this course and about lavender, please see July's article in the Lincolnshire Pride magazine here - http://www.lincolnshirepride.co.uk/challengerob/96-july10-news.php

Gift Vouchers

Gift Vouchers for future Courses are now available for you to purchase for your friends and family. Purchase a Voucher and it will be personally designed for you in a card with a message of your choice.