All the fun of the fair

I was in my local pub on Friday night when a friend of a friend - a 'craft-type'- tipped me off about a winter craft fair, which I knew nothing about and was happening today very near where I live.

So today I went along to the Morley College Winter Fair in South East London in the hope of picking up a few Christmas gifts and some inspiration for my own projects.

Morley College has a lot of successful arts and crafts courses - everything from book-binding to shoe making - and it looked as though all the courses were represented in some or another at the craft fair.

Give or take a couple of stalls it was all quite professionally made stuff. I was quite taken by some beautiful lavender filled fabric door stops and cross stitched cushions. By far my favourite exhibitor though was a lady called Rosemary Muntus. Have a look at her beautiful textile artworks here. Though to be honest the photos on her website do not do justice to how beautiful her work is.

While there were certainly things I liked, I didn't end up buying any thing for Christmas gifts (I'm desperately trying to avoid self-gifting, as I have mentioned before!). So while I was a little disappointed not to come away with anything, I did leave the fair feeling fired up to start exhibiting in craft fairs myself before long. If all goes to plan, this time next year it will be me on the other side of the stall selling my wares.

I have also enrolled on a short course at Morley College but I can't say too much about that at the moment. I shall reveal more at a later date!

Knitting and the pursuit of happiness

When I was young my mother taught me, amongst other things,  how to knit, how to sew and how to bake a mean jam roley poley.

She gave me an appreciation of the joy to be found in a box of buttons and the excitement to be had in discovering a new shade of wool.

What I didn't know then but I do now is that my mum has ongoing clinical depression. She always has had it and probably always will. Back when I was young and to this day, my mum uses craft as way of treating her depression.

She doesn't call it depression. To people of my mum's generation there is still a stigma associated with the condition.

To my lovely beyond words mum, what she has is 'trouble with her nerves'. When my mum feels like her 'nerves' are playing up she reaches for something, anything, craft. She will go from one craft to another until she finds whatever it takes to lift it.

I am very much my mother's daughter and like my mum, I too have depression. There are times when it is so bad that every day is a struggle to stay alive and times when it's just enough for me to feel down and angry with myself and the world. And some days, which are getting more and more frequent, when I feel happy and pleased with who I am.

Just like my mother I am finding that craft, and knitting in particular,  is helping to treat my depression.

This blog entry is for everyone with depression. When all else fails, get knitting!

My mum - crafter extraordinaire and the most wonderful woman in the world - will be 72 on Monday.
Happy Birthday Mummy and thank you for the craft gene :)  xxx