All Saints Church Edmonton Flower Festival 6-8 May 2011

Between Friday 6th May and Sunday 8th May there was a Flower Festival at my Church, All Saints Church in Edmonton, North London.

I volunteered to organise it, even though I had never been involved with a Flower Festival before and could only just about remember when the last one was held by my Church. I think this was about 15 or more years ago; I vaguely recall that my son James was about nursery age and he's coming up for 21 now! So a long time ago!!

I was possibly a little late in writing to other Churches and organisations in the area to see who would be interested in getting involved, but I was pleased by how many wanted to donate a flower arrangement. This was especially surprising given the current economic climate.

I had a day off work on Thursday 5th May as this was the main day that people could come into the Church to put their displays together. I also used the day to check up on the things needed for the refreshments we were going to serve on the Saturday and did some shopping down at Edmonton Green. However, the work I did that day pales into insignificance besides the work on arrangements carried out by Irene Money, the head of the flower arranging team at All Saints. She unfortunately had to re-do all the displays from Easter. She had hoped they would still be OK, but the flowers were beginning to die. She also did several other displays on behalf of other people; the Mothers' Union display, the display for Sheila Whetstone. the display for the Bennett family, as well as helping a couple of other people with their displays. Irene's displays are fantastic!

Did I do one? Well ..... No! Flower arranging is not my thing! Those with a good memory may recall that I was going to make lots of ribbon roses and make displays with those. However, apparently our Vicar is not very keen on artificial flowers and, in the end, I didn't feel that I wanted to spend lots of time doing something that wouldn't be acceptable. So ...... I wanted to do something, but what?

When watching the Royal Wedding and seeing how Kate and Wills brought trees into Westminster Abbey, it occurred to me that we have lots of small trees and shrubs in our garden that are in pots and that they might make good backdrops for other displays. On the May Bank Holiday Monday, John and I took lots of plants down to the Church. However, once again Irene come up trumps! She decided to use all these trees and shrubs to make a display with the theme of  'Tribute To The Royal Wedding'. Its all the greenery you can see in the photo below at the end of the table. The lace and satin are to suggest the wedding dress and the white daisy flower is the bouquet, not forgetting the inevitable flag!

Oh ..... and I did also spend all evening on the Friday making cup cakes! I haven't made cakes for a very long time but I was quite pleased by how they came out. I just forgot to take any photos of them. I made chocolate ones, lemon ones and ginger ones. John was very disappointed that he didn't get to sample any of the ginger ones as he loves anything made with ginger. So, I shall be making some more pretty soon for him ...... and I'll take photos when I do :)

The weekend finished with a Small Choirs Festival organised by our Choir Master, Mark Harris. This involved lots of small choirs coming together on Sunday afternoon to rehearse various pieces of choral music and then performing this music in the evening. The singing was fantastic! I do hope Mark organises another one. I wouldn't ordinarily say that choral music is quite my 'thing' and in the normal course of events, I may not go out of my way to attend an evening of choral music. However, I had volunteered to help with the refreshments for the choir and obviously stayed for the concert and I am so glad I did!!

Perhaps it was the setting in an atmospheric Church? Who knows! But it was a lovely concert and only goes to show that you never know what you might like!

Outside My Comfort Zone!

This post could have been called 'I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No!' ..... but that might give you entirely the wrong impression :P

My Church is called All Saints in Edmonton, North London. We lived in Edmonton for 23 years and even though we moved to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, about eight years ago, I continue to attend my old Church; it's only about 20 minutes car drive away.

This year is the Church's 875th Anniversary and last year people were asked to suggest things they'd like to see happen as part of the celebrations. One of the suggestions was a Flower Festival. However, at a meeting where each suggestion was looked at more closely and people were asked to volunteer to organise them, no one stepped forward to take on the Flower Festival. So I said I'd have a go!

Do I know anything about flower arranging? No! Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Possibly! However, I'll give it my best shot even though it is definitely outside my comfort zone!

I have already sent off lots of letters to various organisations to see if they want to make floral arrangements and have had quite a few more than I expected. I still have yet to encourage others in the congregation to make arrangements. However, the Church is rather large and it could be a bit of a challenge to really fill it up.

One area that I think people won't choose is the ends of the pews. On the one hand, there are a lot of them! 16 on one side and 17 on the other. Also, using real flowers would be difficult because water and the wood of the pews are not a good combination. However, there is an additional problem ...... Father Stuart doesn't like artificial flowers! Oops. What a dilemma!

However, I recall seeing flowers made from ribbon, so did a bit of searching on the Internet for instructions on how to make ribbon flowers. I actually found loads! What I was thinking was if I can make a few and they don't look too artificial, I can make something or other for the pew ends. So, the little white one that my fingers are holding was the first one I made ...... the ribbon twists were a little too tight I think. I then made the other white one and then the blue one, all from ribbon I already had in my needlework box. I'm actually quite pleased with how they turned out. I happened to mention to my Mum, that if I go with it, I'll use yellow and white as these will be the main colour of the flowers used at Easter ....... and bless her ....... she went out and bought me some yellow ribbon to have a go with. Thanks Mum :)

I shall try making a slightly bigger one in the yellow ribbon, which is wider than my white and blue ribbon, and see how I get on.