This stainless steel container belonged to Michelle Lunn, one of our
members, who passed away some time ago and whose
containers were sold at the last II meeting. I wanted a memento of
Michelle, who was a fellow student when I studied under Carlyne Patterson. 

Hello everyone,

I'd like to start this post with some good news. I recently completed the exam for the promotion to Riji and I've just received notification from HQ advising that I was successful. So, in mid-March, Sam and I are booked to fly to Tokyo for 'Flower Thanks Day' to have it presented to me. I'm really looking forward to returning to Japan and seeing again people who were very kind to me when I was there and whom I now consider friends.

This dear little creature is a possum. (Apologies for the poor quality of the photo) I think he is the Common Brush tail possum but I can't be sure. Anyway, he is one of many that live in and around our garden and are less than welcome when they eat the fruit from our trees. However, this little one has become almost a pet. He has taken to sleeping on the windowsill of our bedroom between the glass and the exterior blind. He usually brings with him branches from our weeping willow to make his bed. Our cat finds him very interesting and we've  become quite fond of him, so much so, that we avoid retracting the blind when he is sleeping there.

And now to some ikebana. For class last week I had set the theme  of using branches in one arrangement and then taking the arrangement apart and using the branches in a completely different way.

Some examples follow.

Emily Karanikolopoulos
First Arrangement
Siberian Dogwood and ginger lilies

Second Arrangement
Siberian Dogwood stripped of leaves and joined
to create triangles. And pink and white Belladonna
lilies

Bredenia Raquel
First Arrangement
Pomegranates and cotoneaster branches

Second Arrangement

Robyn Unglik
First Arrangement
Hawthorn, Agapanthus and bleached fern

Second Arrangement

Lucy Papas
First Arrangement
Persimmon, Hydrangeas and Lisianthus

Second Arrangement

Helen Novic
First Arrangement
Metal mesh painted red, wisteria vine and New Zealand flax
(Helen chose not to use branches)

Second Arrangement

Vicky Kalokathis
First Arrangement
Weeping willow and Pandorea

Second Arrangement
Willow stripped of leaves and clivia 

I would like to leave you with this freestyle arrangement by Aurelia Dong.

Bye for now,
Emily

Aria Emily

Hi everyone,

Well, she has arrived, quite late but, my goodness, she was worth the wait. And her name - Aria Emily. And like her brother and two cousins, she has brought great joy to the whole family.

And speaking of the other grandkids, the two eldest, Hermione and Xavier were flower girl and page boy at a family wedding yesterday. Please forgive a proud grandma for including the following picture.

And now to ikebana. I recently came across a flowering Eucalyptus Macrandra  growing on a median strip near by. I used it in the wall arrangement without any other material. The interesting thing about this tree is that it had buds, flowers and seed heads all at the same time, thus making it ideal for the lesson 'Only one kind of material'.

Buds

Flowers

Seed heads

Last week we had our AGM and first workshop for the year. My sisters in law, Betty and Toula ran the workshop which had as a theme 'Use your imagination with balloons; in water or with other material'. They put a great deal of effort together with imagination and creativity and conducted a workshop which was both informative and enjoyable. I have included a couple of photographs of their work but I urge you to go to our webpage to see the rest as well as the work of the attendees.

Betty Karanikolopoulos
Palm spathes, balloons and onion flowers in a
ceramic container

Toula Karanikolopoulos
Hand painted balloons, Rope that has been wired and begonia
leaves in a self made container

The next two arrangements were made with branches of my persimmon tree that broke accidentally. I should point out that persimmon branches break very easily. So, naturally, they had to be arranged but the fruit are very heavy and the challenge was to find containers that can hold them.

This is a Graham Wilke container which is quite heavy. I placed the branches
diagonally across the container for stability and added the now ubiquitous hydrangeas

This tall vase filled with water has enough weight
to carry the four persimmons. I added an hydrangea
and Crocosmia for colour

And a couple of arrangements just for fun:

I dedicate this arrangement to my cousins, Steve and
Nieves, who gave me this orange metal piece as part
of my Christmas gift. Do they know me or what?
I used with it crocosmia

And this I dedicate to my sister, Vicky for giving me
the bull rushes to which I added aquilegea leaves

By the way, hitherto, I have not included my email address in my 'Complete Profile'. I have just amended that so, for those of you who have tried to contact me but were unable to do so, you can now email me.

Until next time,
Emily

Hello everyone,

And a very happy 2016 to all

I delayed publishing this post because I had hoped to be announcing the arrival of our granddaughter, who was due last week but who is stubbornly refusing to leave the comfort of the womb. So I decided to go ahead with this post and leave the announcement until the next one.

Most of the ikebana I do, outside of preparations for class, is opportunistic. That is, I work with material that I find at the time.

The next arrangement I made with this lush young pine I found growing by the side of the road on a recent trip to the country. It is quite big and heavy and this container was ideal, firstly because it is big enough and, secondly, because I already had some serious mechanics in it for a previous arrangement. 

You may remember this from my previous
post

This large vine arrangement was another opportunity, which could not be missed. Our new next door neighbour was cutting back the much overgrown wisteria from our common fence. By the time I became aware of it, he had already cut the pieces indiscriminately but I managed to get quite a few good ones that I joined together to create my wall arrangement. With it I have some dietes leaves and hydrangeas.

With this extreme weather we've been experiencing I managed to keep my hydrangeas from burning by covering them with old sheets and watering the whole plant, sheets and all, several times a day. Fortunately, we have large rain water tanks that allow us to do that.

These two palm leaves were also a lucky find and I made this arrangement, fitting the theme 'Only one kind of material'. I gave myself the challenge to use all of the two Palm leaves, so I created another three arrangements from the left overs.

 

With gloriosa lilies

Again with Gloriosas

With hydrangea

You may have noticed that all the flowers in this post are either hydrangeas or gloriosa lilies. I've already explained the reason for the former and for the latter, it is because they are tropical flowers and less affected by the heat. In contrast, my roses are cooked to a crisp. But then, there are always my trusted agapanthus.

We have several large Elm trees on either side of our back yard, which, unfortunately are infested by Elm Leaf Beetle. We treat the trees periodically but it seems the pests have weakened one of the trees to the point that some large limbs have broken. We called in David, our lawn mower man to cut and take away the branches. He, very kindly, cut some stems with his chain saw for me for ikebana. They have beautiful, almost iridescent lichen growing on them and, when I have some time I want to play with them. This next little piece, however, was just crying to be used. I put it in this container I made many years ago but which I use infrequently because of the narrow neck.

I leave you with another arrangement with 'Only one kind of material', this time with agave in another self made container.

Bye for now,

Emily

Hello all,

Finding time to write this post has been difficult at this crazy time of year but I wanted the opportunity to wish you  all a very happy and safe festive season, in whichever way you're celebrating it.

As for us, our plans were right on track to have nearly fifty people for a buffet lunch featuring a lamb on the spit. However, the total fire ban, which was announced for tomorrow has ruined our plans and we are scrambling around for a plan 'b'. I'm sure we will manage and that no one will go home hungry but this extreme heat will make things much harder. So, I'm writing this post after midnight hoping to publish before Christmas Day.

Some time ago I was about to throw out this unremarkable object, a rack from an old dishwasher, when Lucy came up with an idea for its use. She suggested we each take turns making an arrangement using the rack as unconventional material. So I put it to the girls, some of whom managed to make one.

 

Lucy Papas

Margaret Wilson

Janette Fonda

Helen Novic

Bredenia Raquel

Vicky Kalokathis

Emily Karanikolopoulos

At our last Sogetsu workshop, which was conducted by Lara Telford, we were to do an arrangement along the style of one of the Iemotos. I chose Sofu Teshigahara because I particularly like the way he used 'mass' in  his arrangements.

I leave you with this arrangement that looks like it's about to take flight. The flowers of this strelitzia reginae grow as tall as two metres and the heads are so large and heavy that they bend down creating these interesting shapes.

I wish every one of you a very happy New Year.

Emily

It would not be spring without my Japanese iris.Their perfection must be enjoyed in
 an ikebana arrangement.
I made this container many years ago. The surface at the bottom is made from
crushed green and blue glass

Hello all,

My apologies for my lengthy absence from this blog and, I confess, the reason I'm writing now is because we have a power failure and I can't do the things I had planned for tonight. I will spare you the details of my hectic life with one notable exception - the Baptism of my little granddaughter, Althea, which took place yesterday.

I was heavily involved in the preparations of the baptism with the cake, the flowers and making dresses for the girls as well as my own outfit.

Our princess with her very proud papou!

And here she is modeling

The Christening cake

This large arrangement was placed at the entry of the restaurant

So now, back to ikebana.

Two lessons ago I set the theme 'glass containers' and below are three examples I made. It was just coincidence that I have used two containers in each one.

Loquat branches and Siberian iris in large containers

The vases have holes through which the stems of the
osage oranges pass

Squiggly grass and Siberian iris

For the last two classes with Elizabeth, we were to do an arrangement 'with leaves and roses' and an arrangement 'in an ordinary household item', respectively. Below are my two pieces.

Dorianthus palmeri leaf, fish bone fern, spuria iris leaf
and rose (Mr Lincoln)

 

This dogwood was given to me as a seedling by my friend Hazel McNaught, whom we lost
many years ago. Her dogwood is now a small tree and much loved.

And for my last lesson of the year we all did 'a celebratory arrangement'. We had quite a lot of fun with this and I'm including most of the arrangements made.

Helen Novic

Margaret Wilson

Robyn Unglik

Nicole McDonald

Soo Mei Leong (Book 1)

Vicky Kalokathis

Bredenia Raquel

The next three arrangements are by Lucy Papas, who is quite prolific.

And the next five arrangements are by me. OK, so I went a little overboard!

I would like to leave you with a piece I call 'the embarrassment of riches', in which I used three of my giant strelitzia nicolai flowers and monstera leaves.

Bye for now.

Emily