Today I am finally plucking up the courage to talk to you, about how you can help to support my work with basketry and natural crafts and also have fun learning and making along with me. Have you ever wondered what that red “Become a patron” button is all about? It will take you to my Patreon account.

I set it up nearly a year ago and have skilfully avoided using it since! But thanks to the encouragement and support of some of the lovely people that I have got to know through my work, I have now started regularly posting there.

Whilst I will always continue to write about my work and share my experiences here on my blog, Patreon gives me the opportunity to spend more time making tutorial videos and also videos to explore my current work and some insights into my island life.

It’s a new skill for me to learn – well quite a few actually! Film editing is something that I know nothing about and it is surprisingly difficult to stay nicely framed, when your hands are energetically going about their work. Not to mention my rather basic filming equipment (my phone!).

I will tackle it how I tackle most things in life – just start and then work with passion and determination.

Learning from doing is such a valuable experience and gives you the confidence to try more and more new things.

That’s why I love sharing what I do.

Over the coming months, I will be showing how to prepare your materials, how to begin your own basket, coil basketry, twining, plaiting, dyeing fibres and a whole lot more.

I hope that some time in the future, I will be able to offer short courses at my workshop, but for now, myself, Matt and our children are sleeping in it, while we wait to renovate our derelict farmhouse.

Working on Patreon, gives me the opportunity to start sharing my craft now. And it’s not a one way street. The conversations that I have here, on Instagram and on Patreon, make me push myself further, make me ask new questions and help my work to keep evolving.

So however you choose to follow along, I would like to say a great big THANK YOU! You all make such a difference and help me to continue on this wonderful journey with plants.