Exhibitions, yarn shows and fibre festivals
I'm launching some knitting kits soon and I shall be selling them as well as paper copies of my patterns at two Christmas craft fairs. Craft in the City The first craft fair is Craft in the City in Waterstones, Bridlesmith Gate, Nottingham 10 am–5.30 pm Saturday 30 November and…
A fair has been held in Loughborough for nearly 800 years. The original charter was granted in 1221 by King Henry III for a fair on St. Peter's Day (in July). Later, a second charter extended it to three days and in 1228 a third charter changed the dates to…
Whilst wandering around the Norwich city centre the day after a wedding, we thought that we should visit this city properly. So, during the Autumn half-term, we stayed there for a few days. Norwich was England's second city from the medieval period to the start of the Industrial Revolution. It…
A few weeks ago I visited the MA Expo at the School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University. This is where students show key pieces of work made during their Master's degrees. It's always interesting because there is a great variety of work being displayed, which reflects the range of MA…
This is only the second exhibition in which I've been involved in the installation. It is a strange process - installing artwork. We started with a plan of where each piece would go; only a few changes were made and this is to be expected because some decisions have to…
There seems to be at least one yarn or textile festival every weekend at the moment. I've been suffering from real indecision about which ones to visit. Last weekend was one of my few free weekends until December, so it was fantastic to be able to visit a local event.…
In my last post, I showed you some of the beautiful buildings in Lavenham. These were financed using wealth generated from the wool trade during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There are many areas in the UK where, at some point in their history, the economy has been based on…
There are many towns in East Anglia where you can still see examples of late Medieval or early Tudor buildings. The Tudor period was from 1485–1603 (the reigns of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I). These buildings were constructed during the wool industry's boom years.…
This year we decided to have a Suffolk seaside summer holiday. We've flown over, and travelled on and under the sea, but not actually been to the coast for a long while, so we were excited about this holiday. We're a bit too old for buckets and spades, but we…
Inspired to quilt Many years ago, I visited the American Museum in Britain. Inspired by their collection of patchwork quilts, I decided to make one myself. The fact that I had no experience of patchwork or quilting did not put me off! I chose a design, bought some fabrics, cut…