There’s still time to come and see the beautiful lace made our late President, Patricia Bury. The craft fair is open today and Sunday 8th May. There is something for everyone to see, and if you have ever wished for an opportunity to ‘have a go’ at lacemaking, please ask one of our demonstrators to show you how on our ‘have a go’ lace pillow at Living Crafts.

The next three days were fantastic! There were so many visitors to Living Crafts, held in the grounds of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, and most of the people who looked at our lace display wanted to try their hand at bobbin lace with a little help from our demonstrators. Over the four days of the craft fair we helped in excess of 175 people discover how to make the basic bobbin lace stitches on our ‘Have a Go’ pillows. As the weather warmed up so the number of visitors seemed to increase over the weekend; the country fair atmosphere was enjoyed by all.

Yesterday we arrived later in the day than usual, to put up the display at Living Crafts, as the weather was so dreadful when we were about to leave home. Most people had stuck to their usual timing and had almost finished their displays when we got there, and left while we were putting the finishing touches to ours. We were so glad we were there late. The sky darkened and the wind increased in strength and the display boards throughout the tent began rocking and banging against the marquee walls. We quickly removed the last of our fans and looked on in horror at the hail stones, blown under the ceiling, melting on the tables where the boards had stood!

Today was a little better. It was cold and we had some heavy showers but we all enjoyed making lace together and were happy to have such a huge amount of interest shown in our lacemaking. The ‘Have a Go’ pillows were a huge success and we were able to hand out details of lace classes around the area and put people from further away in touch with the Lace Guild.

Members of our group will be demonstrating Lacemaking at Living Crafts again this year and offering visitors a chance to ‘have a go’ at lacemaking, on specially set up lace pillows. The theme of our 2019 display at Hatfield House is Fans.