Easter Eggs On The Menu

A non-fattening Buttons Egg!

I was trawling through my newsfeed on Facebook on Friday evening when I came across a comment by a friend whom I met through the Friendly Elks group*. The post Susan had commented on was about a workshop taking place the following day (yesterday), on which there were places available. Now, at this point, there are two things about me you should know: the first being that I love going to workshops, and the second that I can sometimes be a bit of an opportunist. Family and friends may not agree with how I have qualified that last statement – ha ha ha!

“Aha!” thought I, “an interesting situation may be developing here!” (Can you guess where this is going, yet? No, I thought not!)

I searched around on Facebook, typing comments in several places that looked promising, asking if there was any possibility that I might attend the workshop. During my snoopings, I discovered that the person hosting the workshop, Lynn Holland**, is also a member of the Be Creative group on Facebook. (There are well over 700 members of the group now, so I hope I may be forgiven for failing to immediately recognise her name.) I was hoping that the Be Creative link would help to elbow me in to the workshop. Whoopee! Something worked because, shortly after posting all the comments, I received a message from Lynn. After a quick telephone call my place was confirmed.

In the very early hours of yesterday morning, I set off for “the end of the world”, otherwise known as Whitworth. Whitworth is rather like the end of the world because it is poked away in a locked cupboard in the farthest reaches of the attic of the House of Lancaster. It feels extremely remote and isolated from Preston, the administrative centre of Lancashire. Most Whitworth people would be more likely to identify with Rochdale than Preston and, certainly, many of them feel that Whitworth is neglected and virtually forgotten by Lancashire.

Sorry, I seem to have wandered off at a bit of a tangent, for a while!

When I arrived at Lynn’s home I couldn’t have asked, or expected, such a warm welcome. It was a delightful start to the day. She took me on a quick tour of her lovely home, including her workroom, which I fell in love with. There is a huge picture window overlooking the Rossendale landscape – beautiful! Several of her textile pieces were in the workroom and I was immediately taken with them – lots of vintage textiles and embroidery.

The tour ended in Lynn’s sitting room where there are breathtaking views across Rossendale, Manchester and beyond. After catching my breath, I met Sally, who would also be doing the workshop. We were joined a little later by Rose and Gail.

Lots of different colours were chosen – photograph courtesy of Lynn Holland

The workshop itself was centred on Easter crafts. The first thing the four of us made was a button-covered easter egg. Lynn had set out a gorgeous array of buttons, ribbons and trimmings that we could use. Predictably, I chose a purple/pink colour scheme. Rose settled on yellow/green which, as you can see, looked very Spring-like; Gail decided on blue and white, which looks wonderfully fresh; and Sally chose the stunning red/black combination.

After lunch, which included delicious homemade cake, we each made some Easter cards:

Photo courtesy of Lynn Holland

Photo courtesy of Lynn Holland

Photo courtesy of Lynn Holland

At the end of the workshop, Lynn gave each of us an Easter goodie bag to carry home our makes.

Easter Goodie Bag

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and meeting such lovely people. There’s something special about being with like-minded people, isn’t there?

The egg I created – photo courtesy of Lynn Holland

* The Friendly Elks are a group of us who knit and sew for charity. We meet, usually once a month, at Annie Peaches Tearoom which is located in Lamberts Mill in Rawtenstall.

** If you would like to see some of Lynn’s work, her blog can be found HERE.