Best of British 2011

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will baddeley wrote:A beautifully hot day in Birmingham today. Very hot in the demo tent but Fiona came to the rescue with two....Yes TWO, tubs of ice cream. Great to finally meet up with Bobby Little and Mike Rose and great to see Smithy again too but all too fleetingly. Lots of lurkers too. Have taken plenty of pictures to post soon. Even hotter forecast for tomorrow.

Really good to meet up with you Will, yes too short the time . One day we can sit and have a drink. So much to see and do and so many good people from the forum to meet.

Yesterday I contented myself that, even if I was missing the show, at least I got myself a nice piece of yamadori as compensation. Having seen the pics above I'm beginning to think I've been ripped off!
Some absolutely stunning trees on view, and I'm particularly impressed with the accents and kusamono, definitely a step up from the norm imho. Tony's dragonfly accent, the shohin Quince, the two sekijoju compositions and the amazing Olea(?) stand out to me so far. I can't wait to see more pics appearing over the next few days.

Note to self: Next year, come Hell, high water or birthdays, I'm going to BoBB.

What a fantastic show. Total respect to the organisation ... Faultless apart from the floorboards moving and making the trees foliage wobble

Good to see you again Smithy and nice to chat with young Mr Tickle; that Dragon-fly accent was brilliant, those wings were incredible.

Nice to finally meet Will B as well. All in all a great show.

Mike

Mike Jones wrote:What a fantastic show. Total respect to the organisation ... Faultless apart from the floorboards moving and making the trees foliage wobble

Good to see you again Smithy and nice to chat with young Mr Tickle; that Dragon-fly accent was brilliant, those wings were incredible.

Nice to finally meet Will B as well. All in all a great show.

Mike

Always a pleasure meeting up with you Mike. I never got to say hello to Tony ,he was either deep in conversation or on stage.

Hi all,

This is my first post in this forum.
This what I got today.

Welcome to IBC, Francis. It was nice meeting you after a long time.
Hope you enjoyed the show.

Had a great weekend and it was nice to meet so many of old and new friends.
Was great to see Smithy again. and Will and Fiona, Tony and all the others.

Hope to see you guys again.

Cheers

Just landed back at home and disgorged the trees, tools and Enrico from the car... totally knackered but am happy that the event went well... the exhibition quality was truly excellent and the having 'Long John Silver' on board was a bonus... he is not a patch on Bob Full report from me when I can type sense

Smithy... sorry we did not get a chance to chat

Will nice job assisting Salvatore. The tree looks great.

What kind of tree was that other demo tree?

Salvatori's demo tree on the first day. Salvatori spent the day talking to the public while we needle plucked the tree.

While the raffia was going on, Salvatori gave me the job of stripping and tearing back the cut stubs to make the deadwood more convincing.

Once the deadwood and raffia were done, three 4mm wires were placed the length of the branch and then wrapped with black amalgam tape.

The following day, we spent a couple of hours wiring the whole tree in copper while Savatori answered lots of questions.

Tree from the back and almost finished.

A very good first styling and a strong tree.

On the first day, Tony and Enrico Savini worked on Tony's Sabina Juniper. I was unable to get a before shot as I was dripping with Pine sap and Tony was such a blur, my camera didn't have a fast enough shutter speed. Another excellent result.

Alex Evelyn worked all day on sunday with a Welsh Scot's Pine

Alex worked very hard to achieve an excellent tree. Even with an unwanted intervention from another demonstrator.

Great result from Alex too.

On Sunday Enrico Savini held a workshop for a few students. Here Matt Addie working on a smaller Itoigawa.

Whats this in the pink shirt? I had to rub my eyes and it was Tony working for a second day. Either heat stroke or too much full fat Coke. Unbelievable!

The finished tree. Tony actually pushed Matt over to get in just one more photograph.Such a shrinking violent.

People were taking bets as to whether this tree would be finished by closing time. The owner was from Norfolk and they managed to complete the styling with half an hour to spare. Those "extra" fingers do have their advantages.

A very old Chinensis

Great photos. Thanks for sharing.