We can’t quite believe it’s that time of year again and are well aware there’s only a few days left of this year’s London Craft Week but with tiny toddlers and silly full time jobs, here we are.

This is how we’re going to make the most of what’s on over the weekend -

• Slow Ways: Our Common Ground

• Don’t miss ‘The Cockpit Effect, 40 years of supporting excellence’ exhibition

• Rachael caught some beautiful, rare short films about making from Hot Air Balloon makers in Mexico to recycled glass blowing in Hebron at the Barbican on Wednesday, and can’t wait for Yarn Stories this afternoon. There are almost always tickets on the door if you’ve not got one yet

• Partnership Editions at Wild at Tart, we’re looking forward to seeing Rachna Garodia’s weavings

• The Art of Making for a snoop round The Art Worker’s Guild

• Go see Tessa Silva’s dreamy new, squishy textile chairs at the House and Garden Craft Prize

• 100 donated ceramics supporting Firedup4’s Clay Clubs

• Always inspiring, Ferren Gibson is chatting to Abigail Booth at 8 Holland St’s South of the River this afternoon

• Go see Leonie Textiles weaving, live

• *Last minute addition* Intoart + Sotheby’s Tékhnē, Craft Skill Knowledge

Craft Crits are back

Our Craft Crits are back on MONDAY 1st JUNE, 7 - 9pm in Brockley, South East London.

It’s been a little while since our last one… the bump you might be able to spot in our photos is well over a year old now. Chloe has some beautiful new basketry she wants your thoughts on and Rachael might have finished a quilt top, that she started in 2021, for you to take a look over.

All about joyful discovery and collaboration, our Craft Crits have been a regular meet up for makers, artists and craftspeople to get together and discuss their work, their latest project or their next. Just like a ‘Crit’ at art college.

We’ve loved hosting these evenings before and are pleased to be able to open them up again. If you’ve been to a Crit before, we’d be so pleased to see you again and to hear about what you’ve been up to. You’re also very welcome to come along, listen and add your thoughts on others work if you’re not quite ready to share what you’re working on.

Tickets will be available very soon. In the meantime, we’d love to hear if you can make it below.

Craft Crits

Where Craft Show will be Christmas shopping this year…

No Winter Craft Show from us here this year but instead, we’ve put together a bumper list of craft we’d love to get our hands on and all the winter markets, fairs and exhibitions we’ll be taking a look at this December.

It’s #SmallBusinessSaturday today, a little antidote to Black Friday yesterday, so it feels like a great time to highlight all the wonderful makers and businesses we admire and who’ll do little dances when you order your Christmas presents from them.

Rani Ban summed it up best below -

Looking ahead to the New Year, keep your eyes peeled for news about our Craft Crits. Whether you are taking on a new project you want to talk through, experiencing a creative block or just want to chat all things craft, these sessions are in lovely, small groups. Everyone has the opportunity to discuss a piece, project or concept and get a bit of collective feedback on where to go next. They are a brilliant way to start your making year.

Winter markets and open studios to see

In London -

• Museum of the Home’s Winter market - 29th November, Hoxton

• Drawing Room’s Winter makers market - 29th Nov, Bermondsey

• Praxis Studios Winter open studios 29th - 20th Nov, North London

• Troy Town Ceramics at Sadie Coles, 4th - 20th Dec, Central

• Cockpit Winter Open Studios, 5th - 7th Dec, Deptford

• Centre Half & Friends Christmas Open Studios - 5th - 7th Dec, Elephant + Castle

• Pexmas, 6th + 7th December, Peckham

• Jochen Holz + Attua Aparicio open studio - 6th + 7th Dec, Stratford

• Stable Christmas market - 7th December, Clapton

• Birdsmouth Christmas Sale - 13, 14th and 20th Dec, North London

• Gathered Hands - December 13 and 14th - Clapton

Further afield -

• Water Lane’s Winter market - 28/29/30 November, Kent

• Mimmo Studios Christmas pop-up, 27th Nov - 7th Dec, Cheltenham

• Goodwill evening at House of Goblin, 5th + 6th Dec, Stroud

• Helgate Pottery Christmas sale - 6th Dec, Norwich

• Stockport Ceramics fair - December 13th - Stockport

Handmade things we’d love to open at Christmas

• Skye Corewijn’s toasty, speckled coffee cups

• Handmade glass bead earrings from Sarma Works

• Sunny serving plate

• A Palestinian embroidery kit from the Tatreez Collective

• Ribbons and bells

• Shiny little decorations or these magical painted porcelain baubles

• Lily Pearmain’s tiger striped candle sticks

• Folka’s swan ornaments 🦢🦢🦢

• Handmade two-tone trousers for littles

• Zero waste, linen bread bags

• Printed placemats, only available from Birdmouth Studios Christmas Sale

• The best checked bags made from carefully sourced vintage fabrics from Shanghai

THIS SUNDAY 6th JULY

Come together for a day of textiles and fundraising for Palestine with brilliant teacher and artist Caitlin Hinshelwood and Craft Show on Sunday 6th July at Praxis Studios, N16 6UN, North London.

This Sunday only, it’s an amazing opportunity to see this exhibition of textile art from all your favourite sewers, printers, weavers and makers. From banners, patchworks and t-shirts to silk scarves and textile sculptures, we’ve been blown away by the textile response to our call out for work.

You’ll see pieces from Lora Avedian, Aya Haidar, Imogen Denton, Bug Clothing, Cesca Dvorak, Cutts and Sons, Fadhel Mourali, Woo Jin Joo, Papilionaceous Silks and more than 30 other artists and makers. Lots of this work has been made specially for this show, it’ll be your one chance to see it all together and even better, take it home with you.

Most of the textiles in the exhibition will be for sale over the day, with all sales being split between Thamra, Palestine Red Crescent Society and The Tatreez Institute. For this special fundraiser, nothing will be more than £100. It’s a wild chance to own some of your favourite makers work. We can’t wait for you to see.

Alongside the exhibition, there’ll be the most perfect selection of textiles made in Palestine for sale, as well as books from Common Threads Press, badges, pins and perhaps a sweet treat or two.

With the exhibition as your backdrop, join us and make in community.

There’s a rare opportunity to add your stitches to The Grief Quilt, a beautiful project lead by Public Library Quilts and students from UCL that marks grief and resistance with stitches. The quilt will be on show all day ,11.30 - 5.30pm with makers on hand to help you make your additions.

Textile artist Nowshin Prenon will be exploring the colourful textile craft of winding between 12 - 2pm. Nowshin will guide you through creating a small textile artwork in the colours of the Palestine flag to take home with you.

In the afternoon, sit down with textile artists and teachers to make a banner. With plenty of colours, templates, inspiration and materials provided, spend some time making together. No textiles skills needed, banner making is a brilliant way to get involved and use textiles to communicate, show solidarity and resistance.

Tickets from £5 on the door or online and there’s lots more info to come. All profits will be split between Thamra, Palestine Red Crescent Society and The Tatreez Institute.

We’d love to see you there. Please share far and wide. Free Palestine 🕊️

Book your ticket

I can't make it but I'd like to donate

Need more craft?

• Pre-order Until Palestine is Free for more Grief Quilt insights

• Dreaming of being in this field, our kind of Glastonbury activity

• Call for submissions for this very special table top exhibition

• Don’t miss Chinoko Sakamoto’s latest exhibition here in London

• Gathered Hands

• BOWLS, POTS, VESSELS, URNS, CREATURES, TABLES, LUMPS

• On colour and the art of winding

• Stitching constellations

• Cotton / silk poppy print keffiyehs (find one on the wall at Textiles for Palestine but you’ll have to be fast if you want it…)

One whole year since A Textile Assembly

With London Craft Week 2025 opening next week ( a guide to everything we want to see below) it’s hard to believe that it’s been one whole year since our all-textile show A Textile Assembly at Staffordshire St.

It’s been a busy year since. Chloe welcomed a brand new Craft Show baby a little earlier this year so whilst there’s no exhibition from us here be sure there’s lots going on behind the scenes.

A quick glance over the glowing photos from A Textile Assembly and we’re blown away by the wonderful makers and artists who trusted us with their work for this special show. It’s impossible to choose a favourite still-life or corner; Tom Collison’s soft sculpture talking to Tessa Silva’s solid, stitched milk creations or Louisa Loakes’ ticking lines behind the woven tops of Merissa Hylton’s half-textile, half-ceramics or a walk around Ferren Gipson’s handwoven and patchworked quilt to get a glimpse of the back, just as bold as it’s front.

More thoughts on A Textile Assembly

Our chat with Decorating Dissidence

What to see at London Craft Week 2025

With no all-encompassing show to prepare for this year, for the first time in a long time, we’re looking forward to visiting some London Craft Week events over the next week, 13th - 18th May.

London Craft Week has changed so much since we first took part in 2017 and while there are still only a few exhibits south of the river, what is most exciting to us here is just how many textiles there are on show now.

There’s always lots to see so we’ve put together a little list of what we’ll be hoping to see over the week -

• The Art of Making at the Art Worker’s Guild

• Celebrating pajaki craft with Karolina Merska

• Join a quilting bee with Public Library Quilts along with evening of talks about the history of quilting and curating quilts (they’ve just released more tickets…)

• Bound: Embroidered Realities at Batsford Gallery

• ‘Object Narratives’ a workshop with Helena Lacy

• Secret Ceramics

• ‘Texere’ Felt x The Peanut Vendor are taking on the all-textiles show this year, catch some favourite makers like Joke Amusan and + Alice Burnhope

• Smoky Softness, ceramics and woven textiles from Cesca Dvorak

Need more craft?

• Cotton / silk poppy print keffiyehs

• A favourite open studios

• If you’re finishing up a Textiles BA, this is for you

• It’s Mend It May, join a 4 week repair course and more on textile waste

• Made in Guatemala

• Self Made, a ceramics show at the Foundling Museum

• Make sure to donate to brilliant Intoart’s fundraiser, they’re holding a pot-a-thon

A day of thoughtful present making with Craft Show’s Chloe and Rachael.

Inspired by a time-honoured tradition within our textile-girl friendship group, every year we make each other a present to sit under the tree for secret santa. 

Strange and wonderful things have been found under the tree over the years, from nude-embroidered cushions, neatly folded napkins, stripy ceramics made in Romania, perfect ribboned scrunchies, handmade quince chutney to personalised sketchbooks and crocheted checkerboard cloths.

It’s a special tradition, with no element of competition or pressure, just a lovely way to show each other we’ve been thinking of them and a chance for us to get making. The tradition has lasted 10 years already and we thought it’d be a fun one to share with you all. In December we’ll be holding a day of making presents. 

Make the presents, make the presents will see 3 workshops over the day, in a beautiful cosy studio setting, in Hackney. There’ll be twinkling tunes and lights and something mulled, we’re sure.

As always, there’s a discount just for newsletter subscribers: SUBSTACK15

Make a tassel charm

Chloe’s favourite gift to make at this time of year is a tassel charm.

A natural continuation from an obsessive exploration of tassels, these wreath like sun and star charms make the perfect wall or tree decoration to welcome in the winter.

Choosing from a range of different coloured wools and yarns, first we will make a simple tassel to warm up and get our creativity flowing. We will then use this simple and meditative technique to create our own circular charm designs, using a small wooden ring for structure. 

Your palm sized charm makes for the perfect festive gift for your pals or yourself, and chances are you will have the bug to keep making more.

Make a tassel charm

Make a set of bundle dyed napkins

Rachael’s go to gift is a stack of neatly folded, naturally dyed napkins. 

Make these with her using a favourite and very simple natural dye technique, bundle dyeing. 

After some fun experiments on paper, Rachael will show you how to get the best colours from what nature has to offer at this time of year. From foraged plants to floristry waste all the materials will be provided, it’s a lovely introduction to colour from plants and an intuitive way to play with colour. 

You’ll leave with your own little stack of two cotton, bundle dyed napkins for your Christmas table or to give as a colourful gift.

Make a set of bundle dyed napkins

Make a bracelet for Palestine with Beading for Palestine 

A fun workshop experimenting with colourful beads to raise much needed funds for Medical Aid Palestine. 

Sit with us and our incredible collection of beads and jewellery making paraphernalia and design your very own bracelet. Take inspiration from our carefully chosen books and examples and spend some time designing your jewellery whilst raising funds. 

Whether you want to play with colour or spell out a message we’ll have plenty of beads for you to experiment with and you’ll come away with a bracelet (or necklace if you’d like to add that to your ticket on the day).

It’s a lovely, grounding and meditative way to spend the evening, come alone to chat with a like-minded group or book with your pals, we’d love to see you there.

Beading for Palestine has been making bracelets and necklaces to raise much needed funds for essential charities and initiatives in Palestine. They’ve raised over £800 so far making jewellery inspired by textiles and patterns. One Beading for Palestine necklace has been designed with Aya Dawes, who is currently displaced in Gaza.

Made a beaded bracelet

Need more craft?

This month our heads, hands and feeds have been full of beads. Here are some of our favourites

• These beautiful beads support the people of Palestine and they’ll make one to match your favourite shirt for you

• Beads found on the Thames foreshore

• Beads made from plastic bottles

• Absolutely in awe of this beaded vest

• Shell earrings so beautiful we wanted to gatekeep

• Beading daughters drawings YIKES and making a brooch 

• Turns out you can bead anything

• Foraged second-hand beads made in London

• Shopping for beads in Japan

• 17th century beadwork

• Clay bead mosaics

Craft Crits

Our Craft Crits are in full swing and we can’t tell you how much we’ve been enjoying them.

It’s been a real privilege to see what you’re all working on and get a glimpse of sketchbooks and plans before they’re ready to be out in the world. We’ve found them really useful for our own practices too.

Bring along your current project, ideas for a new project, meet other makers and chat through your inspirations, the third Thursday of the month, in Brockley. We can’t wait to see you there. Remember to use SUBSTACK15 if you’re joining us.

Join us for Craft Crit

In the run-up to a Craft Show, there is always a beautiful back and forth between us and the makers. Their thoughts and their fears, pictures of half-made work, how they might hang it and what they might do next. It feels like a special peak behind the studio door. We’ve learned that everyone works in such different ways and we never tire of listening and learning about how each maker approaches their making.

Over the last 8 years of Craft Show, we’ve often felt like we are sitting on a treasure trove of insight and access that we finally have the space to share with you. Each month, in our newsletter, we’ll share a studio visit with a maker we are curious about.

At the top of our list to visit was Woo Jin Joo, whose meticulous and captivating embroideries we’ve had the pleasure of exhibiting at three of our most recent exhibitions - they are always one of the most stared at and chatted about pieces.

We visited Woo Jin on a hot and cloudy August day at her peaceful studio in Cockpit Arts Deptford. Up on the second floor with three long windows offering a generous and leafy view of the trees and the new Craft Garden.

Woo Jin comes to the studio every day if she’s not teaching elsewhere. She works with BowArts as an artist educator, holding arts and crafts workshops in primary schools. As an embroiderer and textile artist, she mainly teaches textile crafts like felting and hand stitching.

Woo Jin’s studio was clean and neat and felt much more serene than we imagined stepping off the busy Deptford street. Ever nosey, as we walked in we found we were already distracted by a pair of golden fluffy, embroidered legs extending from the wall in a pair of high heels.

Thanks for opening up your space to us Woo Jin. We’re sitting right in it but where do you do your making and what do you call it? 

I work at my studio, based in Cockpit Studios Deptford, South East London. Cockpit is a craft and art studio provider offering over 175 independent studio spaces in London. I’m part of the The Bagri Craft Award, for makers of Asian heritage. It’s a three year award. Fully funded for the first year, half for the second and a third funded for your third year. So this year, my first here, it’s all good. Ideally I’d like to stay but it all depends. I don’t think that I’ll want to leave.

A lot can happen in three years but you do have the good view… Do you only work here? Is this the space you do all your making? Do you ever do a little bit at home? 

I bring a lot of work home with me. A lot of hand stitching, any edges that need finishing and I do a lot of my drawing at home too. It’s mixed but any machine embroidery or any messy work happens here in the studio. 

Hand stitching? On the sofa? 

Yeah with a show. Especially if I want to switch off my brain.

These are beautiful. (Pointing to neatly stitched embroidered and appliquéd samples on the desk).

These pieces are for an online workshop with TextileArtist Stitch Club. Their members will explore mythical folklore landscapes using hand stitch and appliqué, embracing their imagination during the creative process. I’ll be sharing imagery from East Asian mythology, folk art and craft as a starting point to inspire their compositions. I’ll show them how to move into the fabric, making stitch marks and they’ll embroider their own landscapes.

What a beautiful workshop. We need to sign up. Did you get started in hand stitch and then move onto machine stitching? 

No, I trained as a print designer for my BA and by the end, I realised I hadn’t done any print. I’d made objects out of found beach plastics instead. I was always more interested in object making. I started working with digital embroidery in my final year and then continued with it on my masters, where I started to do freehand machine embroidery too. I think from there on, I was in love. You can see it here on my RCA final pieces (pointing to heavily embroidered, sculptural bags on the shelf next to us, you can see them below. Sleeping characters that feel like they could jump down from their shelf any minute if we spoke too loud). They’re all freehand machine embroidered and that’s where I started to learn the process. Later I went into hand embroidery, so it was the other way round really.

Do you know why you were drawn to textiles and stitch? What was print not doing for you? We know it’s a hard question…

I still love print and I think it’s coming back again. The way I work in print; building layers, images and things like that. I love working with existing prints and patterns. This (pictured below) is a current piece I’m working on with found textiles. I enjoy how pre-existing prints play together with my stitches. I love the randomness.

After a foundation course, I wanted to choose between Fine Art and Textiles. Textiles felt more natural for me at the time and I knew I really liked the textile tutors at Central St Martins, where I was studying. So I went into textiles. I really enjoyed the drawing element of print designs but found myself drawn back to Fine Art so I transitioned away from just making print designs. 

Did anyone help you make that decision? What led you there? Was it the processes involved in textiles? 

I just love the processes involved in textiles, I never knew you could use machine embroidery like this. In my final year, my tutor showed me how to embroider onto dissolvable fabric, which is a process I use a lot to make these textures. I use it for all my sculptures and I wanted to keep exploring that. Once I found freehand machine embroidery, the more I did it, the more I found it interesting; the way you can distort surfaces and you can warp and form shapes with lines. Celebrating the preexisting nature of the object but still changing it with your own character and lines. 

What does a day in your studio look like? How do you get started? 

It’s very mixed, depending on what I’m working on. Right now, I work on both a sculptural piece and a two-dimensional piece at the same time. This is my digitised machine that will do a basic running stitch on it’s own, while I have this machine running I can work on something else. 

The first thing I do is change the backing fabric and get this machine running. 

The very first thing you do? You don’t even have a coffee first?  

Well I have a coffee but I do like to get this machine on first and then sit down to drink it. In my head, at least this machine is going even if I don’t do anything else. I’ve had the machine for close to 2 years now before that I made these running stitches on my own, sat at a machine. I soon realised I could not be spending all my time sewing straight lines so I got this machine with the fund of A-N Artist Bursaries*. 

*This bursary is open for applications now, apply before the 31st October.

I always have the machine going first so that I know I’m at least making something that day. It's so satisfying and means I’m working all the time, even if it’s while I have my coffee. Then I will sit for a bit and think about what I need to do.

Sometimes it’s a lot of admin, emails and planning for projects. I’m currently working on a project for a Korean restaurant in Bristol called Dongnae, for their interiors. I’m working on some of my Water Deity pieces, so if I had one of those to work on I’d be hooping up fabric and freehand machine embroidering for the afternoon. They’re at the framers now. 

I listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks while I work too. I like How to Academy and 99 percent invisible, sustainability and random facts and a little bit of news. 

What’s your favourite tool in your studio?

This one here. It’s an Irish embroidery machine, specifically used for freehand machine embroidery. What’s special about this one is how easily you can control the width of the stitch. You can go from a thin, straight line to thick satin stitch. It gives you freedom to create what feels like hand drawn lines. Like drawing with stitch. 

It’s definitely my favourite tool, I knew that I’d want to keep doing this process after studying. It worked out well, my final graduating piece won the Fine Art Textile prize at Festival of Quilts so I was able to use that money to invest in this machine and get started. 

The piece that won the prize, sits right there next to the machine it paid for. That’s a nice story already.

I know, I had people interested in buying them at Open Studios but I want to keep these. They’re a part of my story. I’m working on some more collectible pieces, I suppose, working into bags in the same way, using found patterns and hoping to morph, scrunch and shape them with my stitches. 

And of course, the feet. It’s amazing how everyone just loves the feet. 

They have such character, they’re alive. 

I’ve called them Dokkaebi’s feet, which is what a lot of my sculpture is. The Korean mythology of Dokkaebi, objects having spirits.

(Dokkaebi are legendary creatures from Korean mythology and folklore. They are often described as a spiritual possession of an inanimate object)

That’s how I initially started making these sculptural pieces and shapes. Someone then told me they just wanted the feet and I was like ‘that’s a good idea’. A lot less work but still magical.

That leads us nicely to how much do you work in collaboration and taking on others feedback? If people commission your work, is it a conversation with them or do you lead it in the direction you want?

I’m usually open to hearing what they want and what they’re looking for. But, I guess, it’s also important for me to give my opinion on what they suggest. Even if I didn’t it’s always going to be my ‘handwriting’ going into it. 

I am very open to people’s suggestions. Having people come to the studio is so helpful, I can show things they might not see at an exhibition and hear people's responses and their ideas like whether they’d like furniture or wearable pieces. It’s good to have feedback at that stage too.

Do you get most of your feedback from these moments with the public now or do you have tutors through your bursary? 

At Cockpit, they do have the Business Incubator as part of the award. It’s more focused on the business side of your practice, like how to price your work, how to find an audience and how to write up an agreement.

I did have a mentoring program which really helped me redefine my work. I started out with narratives focused on sustainability but the more I make, while it’s still important, I realised I was most interested in the narratives, the storytelling and folklore elements. Now it’s a lot more about making our own personal myths, building our own mythology. The mentoring showed me that I didn’t need to stick to one narrative, it could evolve and be reframed. 

We’ve a series of Craft Crits running at the moment, we love them. Did you have crits and group tutorials when studying? How did you find them?

Yeah we had tutorials and group tutorials. I loved them too. I do really enjoy the research element of my work. It’s a lot of reading and a lot of writing and I really enjoy that process. I guess now, I need to do a lot of applications, which is less enjoyable as you’ve got to sell yourself and say ‘Hey, I’m great’ but I find those tutorials, writing and reflecting on my work, gave me a confidence and a knowledge of what I really want to say. 

Do you have a sketchbook or a notebook? 

I recently started a new one. There’s not too much in it yet but it’s usually just sketches of things I want to make. I want to work with ceramics and metal too and not limit myself to only textiles. I’m obsessed with metal right now. I want to learn to soft solder and make my own frames for my pieces and I’m thinking of making a little ceramic incense burner with my embroidered feet, (pointing at a perfect little illustration of a ceramic pot with legs). I want to get comfortable with other mediums. I’m excited by other mediums but sometimes I feel that ‘I’m a textile artist’ then I try to remember I’m an artist first. 

Before we snoop at your bookshelf, one last question. Do you call yourself an artist?

Yes.

Craft bookshelf

Books about craft are a huge inspiration for us here at Craft Show. We're always on the look out for particularly good ones and have a real soft-spot for a 1970s craft book. You'll see their influence in our writing, when we get to teach and lead workshops and when we visit makers studios.

We’re always so interested in crafters' bookshelves. Do you have books that inspire you or that you use for reference? Talk us through them.

I love my books here. This one is a book of Korean folk paintings, it’s my favourite. It was the first one I bought and is so inspiring. It’s nice and small, I love to take it to workshops with me. 

The Book of Symbols. Reflections on Archetypal Images is a good reference point, if you want to use any symbols or if I’m looking at a certain animal. It can lead you off on a tangent.

I have a book on Bojagi, Korean embroidery and it's from a Korean craft museum. A mixture of traditional embroidery, more bojagi examples and a page of little thimbles.

I love the Korean folk paintings, it's so full of mythology and good fortune, good omens but there’s also a lot of ‘I want a son’ rather than a daughter and a strong male dominant thread through it.

Perhaps that’s what you're readdressing, making your own mythologies and telling these stories as a woman? 

It’s not something I’ve deliberately focused on but it might come into my work in the future, as I tell my own mythologies, I might want to subvert these male dominant stories. 

‘Korea’s mythical drawing collections’ is a book of harder to find Korean drawings. There are 17 volumes and I have 5 of them. I love the randomness of them, I want to collect them all. 

Whenever I feel stuck, I love having my books here and just looking through them. Immediately you feel like there are some many ways to approach anything. 

Thanks so much to Woo Jin Joo for generously welcoming us into her peaceful space. If you want to see more of her mythical creatures make sure to follow along here or visit on of her upcoming shows

- Lore. Sunny Bank Mills Gallery. 19th October - 24th December

- Bound. The Department Store, Brixton. 7 - 13th November

- Cockpit Deptford Winter Open Studios. 29th November - 1st December

All about joyful discovery and collaboration, Craft Crits will be a regular meet up for makers, artists and craftspeople to get together and discuss their work, their latest project or their next. Just like a ‘Crit’ at art college.

We hope these Craft Crits will allow the little community we have grown during our exhibitions to continue all year round, in a cosy space as we head into Autumn, the perfect time to think about our crafts and practices. Each session will be structured and led by Craft Show’s Chloe and Rachael, we might even bring some of out own work to chat about. You’re welcome to come along, listen and add your thoughts on other’s work if you’re not quite ready to share what you’re working on.

If you’re thinking about joining us we have a little newsletter discount for you,

SUBSTACK25

We’d love to see you there.

Join a Craft Crit

Going to the Knitting and Stitching Show?

Two of our Craft Show favourites have beautiful exhibitions coming up at this year’s Knitting and Stitching show.

House of Quinn and Caitlin Hinshelwood are both taking over spaces at the show and we can’t wait to see their new work.

If you want to come along, we’re so excited to have THREE pairs of tickets to giveaway. The giveaway runs all weekend, make sure to take a look and tag a friend enter.

AMAZING GIVEAWAY

Need more Craft?

A quilt for lovers

Don’t miss Art Without Heroes at the William Morris Gallery

At home with Rachel Scott Bowling and her patchwork dresses

40 under 40 in Craft

Behind the Stitches at Museum of Cambridge

Craft for Palestine next weekend to celebrate Stitching the Intifada

Journalling with Thread

Turning Earth’s open day is next week

More ceramics at Out of the Woods

A crochet workshop in Brockley

A few weeks back we spent a magical evening sewing, eating and getting to know people over a quilt. 

Jess Bailey of Public Library Quilts joined up with Caitlin Hinshelwood to continue work on a grief quilt for Palestine. They gathered together a group of makers, writers, arts workers, students and sewers to add more stitches to the quilt over the evening. We were all invited to embroider a name, add a shape or simply tie a knot to help hold the quilt together. 

The quilt started life at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art’s Palestine zone, a space curated collectively by a group of students in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. A space for education, conversation and for stitching.

The quilt holds the names of Gazan poets, including Dr Rafeet Alareer who wrote the beautiful and much shared ‘If I must die’ poem. Rafeet went to UCL and the quilt holds his name along with many others. 

We didn’t manage to join when the quilt was at Slade but were very grateful when Caitlin reached out to let us know the stitching would continue at the gallery space in her studios and that they’d be holding quilting bee to add the last stitches. 

Jess had ordered food from the iconic Londis N16 and everyone gathered on a Friday night after work with drinks and the contents of their sewing bags, very hastily grabbed in Rachael’s case and not holding anything useful other than some pre-cut fabric triangles that turned into a touching little kite.

Some of the patches on the quilt are printed by Peckham Keffiyah, a community group showing love and solidarity with the people of Palestine through printing workshops. The geometric elements of the prints take inspiration from keffiyeh.

It was a gentle and thoughtful space with moments of chatter and moments of near silence. All full of kindness and support for each other’s stitching decisions which meant our minds could wander to thoughts of Palestine too. Questions like does this kite need a tail? Where should I put this leaf? Does my orange need more detail? were all met with quiet and warm encouragement so there was plenty of space for tougher questions too.  

In Jess’s words it was ‘a good old fashioned quilting bee.’

The quilt will live between Jess in London and Jamila in Cairo and be used as a banner at marches.  You can visit it this evening too at Rabbits Road Press.

Read more about the grief quilt

A grief quilt for Palestine

Visit the quilt tonight

The joys of making together

The making of most things requires many hands (see this week’s Craft Bookshelf). Whether it’s a car in a factory line, a fast fashion dress or a patchwork quilt. It is unusual for anything really to be made entirely by one person or even just a machine. In this age of faceless, mass consumerism, we often forget the work and people involved in even the most common and cheap of items. Those who make art collaboratively remind us of the joy and labour of making, and the work they make is all the more important because of it.

Some other beautiful and important community craft projects -

The quilts of Gees Bend. ‘Piece alone but quilt together’ said Loretta Pettway in recent, brilliant podcast about the art of a quilting bee. She shared beautiful memories of quilting gatherings in each other's houses and looking up at the underside of quilts when she was a child. 

The Kinfolk Archive Quilt was also finished at Jess and Caitlin’s quilting bee. Many hands tied in the corners and made the last knots together. Embroidered with the names of important Black female writers, it will travel with the Lil Free Bird Library and be a place to read for black children.

The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt celebrates the lives of those tragically lost to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 90s. You can see the quilt online, it’s a touching tribute to what we all lost due to the AIDS crisis.

A Celebration of black women’s hair through knitting - Black Girl Knit Club hosted workshops over 6 weeks to create a monumental yarn bomb at East Londons Stratford Cross. The workshops reflected on the historical and cultural significance of hair within the Black community.

Stitch School’s ‘Peckham Supper Cloth’ a massive embroidery sampler stretched over a table. During our second ever Craft Show in 2018, Mel and Stitch School set up their table in the gallery and visitors stitched all weekend - some coming to chat and some wearing their headphones for a quiet moment of making.

Communities in Spain coming together to crochet sunshades to help lower the temperatures on their streets.

Our own Common Cloth communal weaving looms, first conceived for Peckham Festival in 2017 have been a mainstay of Craft Show events. Touring different galleries and exhibition spaces (including a very exciting stint at The National Portrait Gallery) inviting visitors young and old to add to the tapestries. 

In a similar fashion, the wonderful Sara Kelly has created an entire Loom Room for Glastonbury and has worked on many collaborative projects sharing the joys of weaving.

Craft Crits

Our Craft Crits are coming back this Autumn and we can’t wait to share them with you. They’re something we’ve been offering up in one form or another since all the way back in 2010…

We will be running monthly Craft Crits - regular meet-ups for makers, artists and craftspeople to get together and discuss their work.

Working as an artist or maker, we often find ourselves working alone, longing for someone to bounce ideas off. These sessions will be loosely structured on an art school group ‘critique’, a way to support each other in our creative practices.

For those of you who studied a creative subject, a group critique might be a part of art school that you remember. Led by a tutor, a small group of students would sit together, and one by one you’d be asked to introduce a project you are working on, inviting observations and comments. We think they can be incredibly useful either to soft launch an idea in a small group or to alleviate creative block and get your ideas flowing.

Bring along your current project, ideas for a new project, meet other makers and chat through your inspirations, one Thursday a month in Brockley. We can’t wait to see you there.

Book your tickets here

Craft bookshelf

Books about craft are a huge inspiration for us here at Craft Show. We're always on the look out for particularly good ones and have a real soft-spot for a 1970s craft book. You'll see their influence in our writing and when we get to teach and lead workshops.

Many Hands Make a Quilt: Short Histories of Radical Quilting by Jess Bailey for Common Threads Press has just been reprinted so had to feature on this week’s Craft bookshelf.

This is from our well-leafed-through copy which you might have spotted on the shelf at A Textile Assembly. It’s a celebration of the power of quilting and stitching together, we can’t wait to get our hands on the updated version.

We stepped in to Intoart’s summer exhibition last weekend and it really was like stepping into a new world. The show celebrated all the ways art infiltrates our everyday life. The artists and makers work in a wide range of mediums; ceramics, textiles, paper and furniture design, exploring a huge range of themes and they’re all deeply invested in the transformative act of making itself.

“Art can be a spaceship, a mirror, a portal, or a petition. It imagines how things might be and challenges how things are. The exhibition ‘Live in a New World’ includes paintings, sculptures, textiles and prints that explore human connection, Disability representation and the materiality of popular culture. You’ll encounter imagery of pub signs and monster trucks, hip-hop royalty and roller coaster rides. Collectively, the artworks refuse to accept imposed limitations and offer portals to a more equitable and liveable new world.’’ 

Nancy Clayton’s larger-than-life textile paintings filled the space as you walked in, standing tall and soft even against the huge and industrial Copeland gallery. A grey day in the gallery had the acidy-bright colours that the artists use glowing. Nancy’s pink backdrops were really singing, highlighter colours highlighting a beautiful double portrait.  

As always, we were drawn around the gallery by the textile works on show. Danielle Green’s illustrative ‘Banner of Supreme Authority’, screen printed on silk made expert use of an acidy yellow, not unlike the pieces we were lucky enough to have on show at Craft Show’s A Textile Assembly in May. Her intricate lines have you almost reading her pieces. 

Lisa Trin’s Rose and Crown quilt hung banner-like in the room. It was easy to spend a long time in front of this one. At first glance, simply boldly screen printed but a few moments with it revealed hours of lively embroidered lines and appliqué. It was fun to learn later that expert embroiderer Lora Avedian, who is the queen of embroidered florals and roses, had helped Lisa actualise the piece, with the help of some QEST funding.

We still love ceramics, of course, and couldn’t resist Dawn Wilson’s ceramic drawings. Checkerboard tiled floors, flowing patterned skirts and a table full of flowers gently carved into the clay. Craft as storytelling at its very best. 

As a part of the exhibition, we were really excited to hear a little more about Intoart’s new publications, a growing series of books on the artists working in their studio, beautifully designed and printed in the UK. Each one is a perfect pastel colour and we want them all.

Follow along with Intoart

Other shows not to miss this summer

School of Traditional Art’s degree show, on until 4th August. Serious crafts.

At Sutton House from 19th July - Lost by Schoolgirls: A display of 17th century papercuts, rediscovered by brilliant Dr Isabella Rosner.

Life Vessels at The Horse Hospital, new ceramics from Rose de Borman.

Dominique White: Deadweight at Whitechapel Gallery for ropes and textile-y structures.

Thread Count Part 2 is on until Sunday in Suffolk.

Primordial Soups for huge, milky Tessa Silva structures.

Quilting the Hawaiian Landscape in Oxford.

Need more Craft?

Lessons from the dolls house with Decorating Dissidence

Does anyone still have a studio in London?

Let them eat clay

‘Assemble to Honour’ - an incredible grief quilt

Who can practise tatreez? 

A virtual lecture on Hawaiian quilts

Don’t miss the launch of Issue 2 of A Yarn and Fibre Publication 

Crochet a piece of nature with Kimberley Cookey Gam

Immaterial: Blankets and Quilts, talking to Loretta Pettway Bennett on the Gees Bend Quilts 

Learn to crochet at The Feminist Library summer fayre

Craft bookshelf

Books about craft are a huge inspiration for us here at Craft Show. We're always on the look out for particularly good ones and have a real soft-spot for a 1970s craft book. You'll see their influence in our writing and when we get to teach and lead workshops.

Jenny Dean’s Wild Colour is a natural dye library of its own. She’s a natural dye legend and we’ve always wanted to join one of her courses at Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft.

The colour swatches and great big images of the plants itself make it such a useful and visual book. This is a scan of Rachael’s old and much loved copy but Chloe’s been after her own copy for years and finally treated herself for her birthday last week, make sure you’re following along with her natural dye journey on Palm Yarns, natural fibres and now, lots more natural colour.

We had the most fun visiting two Textile Design BA degree shows. The first was at Central Saint Martins in the always-good-to-visit Coal Drops Yard. The work at CSM is exhibited in a purpose-built gallery (sadly no machine snooping for us there yet…) and is shared with the Jewellery & Objects BA students, which made for a beautiful, eclectic show. 

We particularly loved Jess Fraser’s print collection ‘Platonic Harmony’ which explores female friendship and platonic relationships, through natural screen print and tangible textiles. The warm and juicy colour palette Jess achieved with natural pigments on her base of fluffy wool felt is a joyful combo. Read more about the collection here.

Hung right next door was Olive Kelly’s weaves, with the most exquisite fine crochet details inspired by her great-grandmother’s handmade doilies. Chaieun Jang’s brushed, colourful weaves caught our eye, along with Yuying Wang's knitted Bench Dragon. We were also rather taken with the character of Linlin Guan’s repurposed forgotten objects.

We were lucky enough to chat to Katarina Scheufele and hold some of her hand-carved wooden rings and bracelets, which explore the hierarchy of material and sand raking patterns in Japanese Dry gardens. Another jewellery favourite of ours was Honor Beddoe’s tasseled silk creations, inspired by the landscapes of Scotland.

It was wonderful to see the student’s textile banners and signs in support of Palestine too, calling on UAL to call for a ceasefire and divest.

Honestly, we could share lots more, it was such a talented bunch (the weavers are on fire) and we’re left with more photos than we know what to do with. After CSM, we headed straight down to Chelsea, which holds a special place in our hearts as it’s where we studied. A week doesn’t go by without us missing the dye labs and hank winder.

The Chelsea show is held in the studios where the students work, so it feels more like we are getting a look behind the scenes. We were really drawn to Susu Liu’s pair of wall hangings inspired by the dry brush technique and empty space of traditional chinese ink painting. Kangyu Wang’s delicate sculptures crocheting two pebbles together, exploring thoughts around patience and courtship. Kitty Carlton-Smith’s magnetic/exuberant weaves are a reflection of reawakening to life, after a period of depression where her world turned grey. Joe Jacob’s repurposed materials designed for menswear were rather lovely too.

We hopped across the corridor to pop our heads into the Fine Art degree show because, of course, Textiles is Art and were met with a wall of granny squares - or are they ceramic… Arabella Muir’s sculptures combining crochet and clay were our star of the show.

We left the show with a bag full of cards and lots of exciting new makers. Maybe you might get to see some of their work in real life on our Craft Show walls one day soon...

In the studio

It’s been a month of studio visits since the summer shows. There was lots to see behind the brightly coloured doors, propped open welcomingly, at Cockpit Art Deptford. 

A sunny(ish) Sunday saw us wandering over to their open studios, where lots of Craft Show makers work. We knew there’d be some familiar faces and friends to catch up with but we weren’t quite expecting Alice Burnhope’s Standing Stones to be the very first thing we saw. As we poked our head round the first corridor it was like stepping into a tiny corner of ~ A Textile Assembly ~ again. 

Woo Jin Joo, whose work also graced the walls of ~ A Textile Assembly ~ was the studio we were aiming for but we made sure to meander and pop in when something caught our eye, most often a useful looking piece of textile machinery or some busy hands working away. 

Woo Jin had carefully curated her work space, telling us the story of her work up until now; from her degree show pieces to an exciting new sculpture that walks across the room, to works-in-progress stashed below the benches, which she pulled out for us to see. Almost shrine-like, in the centre of the studio, was her sewing machine where she embroiders layer upon layer of her shiny textile portraits and stories. Just a few moments at the machine was a glimpse into the hours of work each piece holds. Much more on this to come as we’ll be heading back to see Woo Jin and hear more about her work very soon. 

We stumbled across Cawley Studio tucked away, recovering from a busy sample sale the day before by weaving perfect little bags from ribbons. Each ribbon was a piece of fabric leftover from pattern cutting, such a beautiful way of using up something that might otherwise have been wasted. We might have to give it a go with our own over-flowing fabric stashes.

Downstairs India Copely showed us the patchworks she’d been working on, a new direction for her work with swirling shapes and checkerboards. She pointed out more Cawley fabric mixed in, shining silks that might otherwise have been thrown away from their studio upstairs. 

In the weaving studios we could not take our eyes, or our hands, off Lisa Mota’s intricate work, quickly realising why it was so tactile. Real human hair. From donations, local hair salons and Ebay. We had an interesting chat about the complicated ethics of working with something like hair then got lost in her serious collection of craft books.

It always feels extra special to get to see behind the scenes at an open studio, while we love to see what everyone’s been working on we’re equally as intrigued by where they’re making it, what they’re surrounding themselves with and what they have on their craft bookshelves. We’ll be delving into this a little bit more over the next few months and taking you with us for studio visits and interviews on what crafters studios really look like and how they spend their studio time, whether that’s in a studio like at Cockpit Arts or their kitchen table.

Craft bookshelf

We couldn’t help getting distracted by the crafters bookshelves while we drifted round the studios and special thanks to Patrizia Sascor, a basket maker at Cockpit Studios Deptford who let us pull this one from the shelf and leafed through it with us. 

Baskets as Textile Art by Ed Rossbach, full of weaving inspiration and a look at basketaking as the, often forgotten, textile art that it is. Patrizia thinks you can still get a copy online, we’re off to take a look..

It was our first show exclusively celebrating the craft of textiles, though we couldn’t resist sneaking in some medium-bending ceramics and even some delicate work made of milk… We’ve long dreamt of an exhibition of our favourite textile makers and Staffordshire St offered up the perfect opportunity, with a space almost made for a textiles exhibition. We wrapped around and threaded through beautiful industrial beams, with pieces floating away from the walls offering glimpses of the back.

~ A Textile Assembly ~ was a full circle moment for us, having met on our Textile Design BA all those (15!) years ago. To us, textiles are worth celebrating and there’s plenty of work to be done to make sure they get the attention and gallery space that they deserve. 

One of the most special parts of putting on a show like this, for us, are the moments before and after the show, when we’re in the quiet gallery getting to know the work that so many wonderful makers have trusted us with. It’s such a joy to get so close and to hold (with very clean hands) these beautiful works that we often only get to see online. We always have this in mind when we open the doors too. We want you to get close to these wonderful textile pieces, to see all the stitches and get a glimpse of the back, which can be just as intriguing as the front and might even let you ponder how it’s been made.

Watch our film celebrating A Textile Assembly here.

There’s lots more to come from us on this too over the next few months. As you might have noticed, this time we’re writing to you from Substack. You can expect some more regular contact from us along with lots of your favourite makers, celebrating craft and the act of making. Up next, come along to the summer’s Degree shows with us.

A Textile Assembly reading list

A new and interesting part of collaborating with Staffordshire St was formalising and sharing some of the things we normally keep to ourselves when putting on a show. Our favourite was a reading list to support the show. 

We take huge inspiration from writers and books. Books about craft, textiles and the art of making all form the basis from where our shows and workshops jump from but we’d never thought to put together a formal reading list for a show before Staffordshire St asked us to sit down and write one. Choosing just 10 wasn’t easy.

We had many of the books in the gallery space for you to flick through whilst you take in the show. We’ll share more from the long list that we whittled it down from over the next few months too.  

Women’s Work: From feminine arts to feminist art by Ferren Gipson, whose beautiful quilts were on show as a part of A Textile Assembly

Many Hands Make a Quilt by Jess Bailey for Common Threads Press

The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood and the Mind-Baby Problem by Julie Phillips

Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre and Textiles by Dr. Sharbreon Plummer for Common Threads Press

The Embroiderers directed by Maeve Brennan, a film you can find online

Textile Structures by Helen Hutton

De-/Anti-/Post-colonial Feminisms in Contemporary Art and Textile Crafts by Katy Deepwell

Siri Hustvedt on Artemisia Gentileschi, Louise Bourgeois, and more on The Great Women Artists podcast

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

Fray: Art and Textile Politics (2017) by Julia Bryan-Wilson

Need more craft?

• Don’t miss this summer’s BA Degree shows, we’re heading here this weekend

• We’re looking forward to Cockpit open studios in Deptford this week 

• There’s also a very special Garden Party at Cockpit this Thursday 

• You can now take a look at all Ferren Gipson’s quilts online

• Don’t sleep on textiles

• A virtual lecture on queering the loom

• Craft workshops you can do with your baby

• If you’re in Bruton this weekend

• The textiles of Bridgerton

Woo Jin Joo stitching in her studio at Cockpit Deptford, we’re excited to visit her this weekend.

Craft book shelf

Books about craft are a huge inspiration for us here at Craft Show. We're always on the look out for particularly good ones and have a real soft-spot for a 1970s craft book. You'll see their influence in our writing and when we get to teach and lead workshops.

This week we’re having a look through an old favourite, practical encyclopedia of crafts, which was borrowed from grandparents and we never want to return it. It has an incredible array of projects, sampling different crafts and looking at ways to reuse waste materials you may already have. It’s everything we love in a craft book.

We pulled this one out looking for inspiration for an appliqué workshop Chloe is teaching this week, and it has not failed us. The book was previously owned by the incredibly named Noelle Peach, who had the most wonderful stickers to label her books. If anyone knows where we can get our hands on something similar, let us know.

OPENING THIS WEEK

A Textile Assembly opens TOMORROW and we can't wait to see you there. 

We've assembled twenty of your favourite artist makers with the common purpose of exploring textile construction and the stories that are woven into them by the act of making.

It's a rare opportunity to see their work up close and in person, to really see how the makers have put them together and what their fabric is made up of.  

A Textile Assembly is made up of  Alice Burnhope, Caitlin Hinshelwood, Danielle Green, Deborah Manson, Ferren Gipson, House of Quinn, Jacob Monk, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, Kimberley Cookey-Gam, Leily Mojdehi, Louisa Loakes, Merissa Hylton, Pamela Abad, Poppy Fuller Abbott, Samantha Russell, Sarabi Hawke, Tessa Silva, Tom Collison, Vicky Cowin, Woo Jin Joo brought together by Craft Show and Staffordshire St. 

Come and see us this week, 13th - 19th May 12 - 6pm, Staffordshire St, Peckham. 

As part of our exhibition A Textile Assembly at Staffordshire St, we have  a playful workshop bringing together patchwork and stitch with us, the curators of the show, Chloe Phelps and Rachael Pilston.

The workshop will start with a walk around the exhibition with the curators, exploring the textile techniques on show and gathering inspiration from the incredible makers in the show for your own small textile sample.

From there, Rachael will lead a brief introduction to natural colour and patch working, helping you to come up with your own simple patchwork design. Selecting fabrics from Rachael’s own stash of fabrics naturally dyed with food waste or foraged materials, you’ll learn to hand-stitch each of your patchwork pieces together into your own design.

Chloe will then teach you how to finish the edges using stitch and how to embellish your patchwork with embroidery. Working with a selection of sustainably sourced yarns and threads, and some very special hand-spun yarns too. Finally, we’ll add a small loop to hang your work on the wall.

What else not to miss at London Craft Week -

• Beyond Craft at B.T. Batsford Books 

• See Christabel Balfour 's most recent work and catch her in weaving action

• “Beyond the Loom: Contemporary Expressions of Sadu”

• A nature inspired clay workshop with Freya Bramble Carter

• Sculptural basketry and colourful ceramics at Future Icons

• Rush matters at Toast

• We wish we could join this Yemeni embroidery workshop

• Don't miss brilliant Georgia Bosson's quilts next weekend 

• 
  

In May, we have a series of exciting workshops right in the heart of the exhibition at Staffordshire St during London Craft Week, filling the space with the hum of people chatting while their hands are busy.

After our sell out night of Palestinian textiles we are thrilled to be working with The Tatreez Collective again, this time to host their 2 hour Introduction to Tatreez workshop. We'll learn the importance and history of Tatreez before embroidering our own traditional motif, whilst listening to Dina and Yomn's Arabic music and drinking sage tea sat in the middle of the exhibition, A Textile Assembly. 

The Tatreez Collective @thetatreezcollective is committed to documenting the cultural heritage of Palestine through the art of Palestinian embroidery. The word ‘tatreez’ is Arabic for embroidery, and while the term is used to refer to embroidery more broadly, in the Palestinian context it is understood to refer to cross-stitch.

We (Chloe & Rachael) will be hosting a workshop together exploring patchwork and stitch techniques, inspired by the textiles in the show. Over this 3 hour workshop you will make your own embellished patchwork using naturally dyed fabrics and sustainable yarns.

The wonderful Imogen Denton will be sharing her knitting tips and teaching one of her own patterns in a relaxed Saturday workshop with the option to add in a vegan lunch, suitable for beginners and intermediate knitters. 

Need more craft?
 

• Don't miss 'Careworn' a textiles exhibition from Sophie Nichole Dodds 

• The 1973 International Biennial of Tapestry 

• My Grandma's doilies are not a joke

• Natural bleach painting? 

• Contribute to this crochet exhibition - Threads of Protest

• A brilliant textiles exhibition in Leeds

• Add your own square to this quilt for Palestine

• Tender resurrections at Bosse and Baume Gallery

• A calm moment in Kimberley Cookey-Gam's studio

A Textile Assembly, our latest exhibition, opens in a month as a part of London Craft Week, 13th - 19th May 2024. 

Something a little different for us here at Craft Show, A Textile Assembly will be an exhibition of textiles and textile art. Showcasing the work of both celebrated and emerging makers, the exhibition will explore textile construction and the stories woven into them.

It's a very special first for us, a show focused entirely of textiles - if you've visited a Craft Show before, you know that textiles are always a huge part of the show; from favourite textiles makers to our handmade fabric installations. 

Textiles are storytellers. They have a language we all speak as we all spend our lives wrapped and dressed in, sleeping under and sitting on them.

Historically Art and Craft have been deliberately separated, amplifying certain voices while quietening others. By placing works of craft and textiles in a traditional gallery setting, ‘A Textile Assembly’ begins to undo this imbalance, giving these objects space. The stories of the makers, those who taught them and the makers that came before them have been dyed, stitched, woven and knotted into the objects themselves.

We've assembled an incredible group of artists and makers, bringing together works from quilters Ferren Gipson and House of Quinn; weavers Jacob Monk, Pamela Abad and Vicky Cowin, printers Louisa Loakes and Caitlin Hinshelwood, natural dyers Samantha Russell and Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck and crocheter Kimberly Cookey-Gam along with many more, including works that push the boundaries of what we think of as textiles. 

Hands-on workshops will be at the very centre of A Textile Assembly, taking inspiration from the exhibition.

Craft Show will be leading a workshop, which starts with a walk around the exhibition with us, the curators, exploring the textile techniques on show and gathering inspiration for our own textile constructions bringing together patchwork and stitch to construct a small textile sample. 

From natural dye, embroidery, patchwork, weaving and knitting, the exhibition will be alive with the hum of conversations and craftspeople sharing their skills.

We are super excited to be welcoming back Yomn and Dina of The Tatreez Collective. An uplifting and engaging workshop where we'll learn about the art and history of Palestinian embroidery while sipping sage tea .

Need more craft?
 

• Watch Faith Ringgold tell it like it is in this documentary 

• Add your own square to this quilt for Palestine

• The dwindling art of sanquhar gloves

• On modernist weavers

• Natural bleach painting?

• A long read on Anni Albers' weaving

• Really looking forward to this exhibition of hand woven rugs that explores the Afgan diaspora in the UK

• Mesmerising machine knitting 

• Decorating Dissonance on Faith Ringgold

• Sam Russell has an indigo dyeing workshop this weekend

Books about craft are a huge inspiration for us here at Craft Show. We 're always on the look out for a particularly good ones and have a real soft spot for a 1970s craft book. You'll see their influence in our writing and when we get to teach and lead workshops. 

Here it's just one page of a book that's always on the top of the craft pile here, Women's Work by Ferren Gipson. It's packed full of phenomenal female makers and artists and is such a generous insight into the act of making as a woman. We're feeling so lucky that Ferren will be joining us for A Textile Assembly with her personal quilting practice.

Here is Ferren's introduction to the incomparable work of Faith Ringgold who passed away this week, if you don't know her work let Ferren tell you all about it in Women's Work, it's the best place to start. 

It's been a month since our incredible evening of Palestinian textiles. We're so pleased to be able to tell you that we raised a MASSIVE £1854.68 which has already been split between The Palestinian Red Crescent and the brilliant Tatreez and Tea.

That's not to mention the huge amounts everyone spent supporting the brilliant makers at the event and the donations they've made since. Haringey Justice for Palestinians sold £800 worth of beautiful handmade textiles from Palestine, we've both got perfect new embroidered purses here. 

Just as importantly, it was a very special evening of solidarity. We watched Maeve Brennan's 'The Embroiders' tell their stories of stitching and resistance in front of Yomn from The Tatreez Collective's  exquisitely embroidered family heirloom thobes. While we watched the film, the thobes were glowing from the the light of the projector and it gave them a powerful presence, they almost seemed to stand side by side with Yomn and Dina while they talked us through the meanings behind Palestinian embroidery, tatreez. 

It was so good to be in a room full of people expressing their solidarity through textiles ad we know lots of you are still thinking about it.

Caitlin Hinshelwood who helped put this special evening together shared a few words about the power of textiles and reminded us all of Wafa Ghnaim's words 'to keep Palestinian embroidery alive, we must keep Palestinians alive.'

An actual newsletter exclusive for you - we're so pleased to be able to say that this years Craft Show is taking place as a part of London Craft Week at Staffordshire St Gallery, in Peckham. If you caught our last newsletter you'll know that we were expecting to show at Craft Central this year (along with kicking off our Craft Crits and super fun textiles courses) but as we're sure you've seen Craft Central went into administration last month and there has been some serious scrabbling around behind the scenes to make sure this show, that we are so excited about, could happen.

'A Textile Assembly' is a group exhibition by Craft Show, showcasing the work of celebrated and rising textile artists and makers and we'll be exploring the theme of textile construction and the weaving of stories and structures through our curation.

The exhibition explores textiles, from block printing and knitting to crochet to weaving and stitch. It'll showcase the work of 20 talented textile artists and makers with a strong storytelling element, using craft objects, floristry and exciting exhibition design to play with current themes in craft. Objects of craft often tell the stories of those whose voices have been quietened by the traditional art world and 'A Textile Assembly' will play with that, showing work made locally and bringing well-known artists and makers to Peckham and South London.

A programme of hands-on workshops and talks will take place right in the gallery space amongst the exhibition. From natural dye, embroidery, patchwork, weaving and knitting, the exhibition is alive with the hum of conversations and craftspeople sharing their skills.

So much more to come but lots to look forward to this London Craft Week 12th - 19th May. 

Need more craft?

• Ferren Gipson on quilts, identity and ancestral work

• Can't believe it's time to dye your eggs already...

• Crafters of today

• A very meaningful quilt

• Domestic life in textile art

• Learn to hand build ceramics over looking the Thames Arts and Crafts doilies

• A brilliant circular materials hub

• Decorating Dissidence's piece on Romanian artist Geta Brãtescu

• Can't think of a better way to spend the afternoon than decorating eggs with Folka 

Books about craft are a huge inspiration for us here at Craft Show. We 're always on the look out for a particularly good ones and have a real soft spot for a 1970s craft book. You'll see their influence in our writing and when we get to teach and lead workshops. 

We thought it was about time we shared them with you so look out for them at the bottom of each newsletter, we'll share retro ones and perhaps a few new books too. This one by Candace Ord Manroe 'Decorative Eggs' is a seasonal favourite here.