Long Before We Gather

The quiet work behind a Fern & Fable workshop

A Fern & Fable gathering doesn't begin when eight people sit down around the studio table.

Sometimes it begins months earlier, with three oranges, a kitchen knife, and an oven set very, very low.

This morning, that's exactly what it looked like in the cottage.

I'm starting to gather and prepare materials for a Yule Broom workshop planned for later this winter. The workshop itself hasn't even made its way onto the calendar yet, but apparently the oranges didn't get that memo.

They're already in the oven.

And this is one of the parts of creating workshops that I don't think you necessarily see when you arrive at the studio.

The gathering starts long before you arrive

By the time you walk through the cottage and find your place at the big table, there are baskets and bowls filled with interesting things to choose from. Ribbons. Greenery. Bells. Dried botanicals. Little treasures I've collected because maybe this will be perfect for something someday.

That abundance doesn't appear overnight.

For the Yule brooms, I'm imagining fragrant winter greenery, beautiful ribbon and torn fabric, bells, dried oranges and other natural bits and pieces—all gathered around a simple little broom and made completely individual by the person holding it.

But first, those materials have to exist.

So while September is still doing its thing outside, I'm slicing oranges for December.

Some workshop materials get ordered.

Some are thrifted.

Some are found outside.

Some come from the ridiculous collection of things I've saved because I was absolutely certain they'd eventually have a purpose. (Vindication!)

And increasingly, I want some of them to come right from here—from the cottage garden, the surrounding landscape and things I can grow, gather, dry and preserve myself.

That's part of what I want Fern & Fable to become.

A little less “craft kit.” A little more gathering.

I've realized that I don't want to hand everyone a perfectly identical package of supplies and say, here, make this.

I'd much rather put beautiful materials in front of you and say:

What speaks to you?

Maybe your broom ends up wild and asymmetrical with trailing fabric and crooked bits of cedar boughs.

Maybe somebody else's is restrained and simple.

Maybe you discover that you have extremely strong opinions about where one tiny brass bell belongs.

Excellent.

That's the fun part.

But before any of that happens, though, there's this part.

The quiet part.

Testing ideas. Ordering one broom at a time just to see whether it's the broom. Collecting greenery. Drying flowers. Dyeing fabric. Pressing leaves. Thrifting odd little vessels. Making samples. Discovering what works—and occasionally discovering what very much does not work.

And apparently spending a Sunday morning checking on citrus drying in the oven.

It's easy to think of a workshop as the few hours we spend together around the table.

I'm beginning to think of it differently.

The gathering begins long before we gather.

It begins here—in all these small acts of making, collecting, experimenting and saving.

And someday this winter, one of these orange slices will probably find its way onto someone's Yule broom.

They may never know that it started here on an ordinary September morning in the cottage kitchen.

But I will.

And I rather like that.

xo Karen

And I rather like that.

xo Karen