christmas craft markets

Well, it's December, which can mean only one thing - the countdown to Christmas has started; everyone has opened the first door on their advent calendar, are thinking about the best time to put up the tree and fretting over how few presents they have bought. For the Makedomenders, part of the excitement of December is visiting Christmas markets searching for those elusive perfect pressies. Luckily, this year London has quite a few original Christmas Craft fairs going on.

We Make London are getting in there first, having their spectacular fair at the Chelsea Town Hall this Saturday, the 5th December. There is a £2.00 entrance fee, but there are loads of great stalls. Our top tips for the sellers you must visit are the Skein Queen, Namolio, London Clay Birds and Knit Happens.

Next up on the 12th December is the Bust Christmas Craftacular on the Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green. This is a hot ticket event, with the summer Craftacular a huge success. Our hot tips for this event are loop and the crafty workshops with various folk including the wonderful Prick Your Finger, with the festivities helped along by fabulous djs and Christmassy drinks.

The Craftacular aftershow party will be held at yet another independant fair, Kristie and Coralie's Christmas Cooler in Kings Cross. The Make Do Mend team will be at that one, to teach some craft, we will also be bringing along some knitting and crochet kits and showing off our wares. The Cooler will be on for three consecutive weekends from the 3rd December, with different exciting workshops and fantastic independant small designers each weekend.

So those are our tips for the most fabulous fairs this Christmas, race you to the best pressies!

launch party!

After much anticipation, the Make Do Mend Grand Launch finally went ahead last Thursday night at the wonderful 40 Winks.

It was a really fun, chic and cosy night with crafting over three extravagant floors.

Downstairs in the homely kitchen, we had cake decorating with the lovely Mae Len, using Christmassy snowflake icing and ruby red glitter.

In the ground floor's opulent opium den, we had lashings of the sparkly stuff, mince pies and talked making, doing and mending. We also gave all the guests their little sewing box.

On the first floor we petted the stuffed dog in David's bedroom and had a crash course in corsages and Christmas baubles with an informal class run by Bee and Claire.

A huge amount of fun was had by all, thank you all for coming and sharing a fabulous evening with us.

Now the fun really begins as we start to teach the world to knit, sew and crochet!

sewing kits

Last night was the official launch party of Make Do Mend. Here at the Makedomenders headquarters we are still sifting through fabulous pictures of the mad creativity rush in the opium den at 40 Winks. So to tide you over until we post them, here are some colourful images of the goodie boxes we gave out to all attendees; little cubes of lovliness containing a sewing kit full of vintage buttons, ribbons, yarn and fabric.

Corsages and Christmas

At the lovely venue of High Tea in Highgate more classes are planned. On Saturday 12 December, 10am - 12pm, the makedomenders will be holding a crochet workshop for corsages and Christmas baubles for all improver crocheters.
All for £30 you will receive tuition in some new crochet techniques to add to your repetoire of basic stitches and all yarns and hooks and lovely gifts and decorations to take away and make your Christmas really creative. In addition, you can guzzle on delicious tea and cakes at this very special venue.

knitting lesson london

The makedomenders are going to be running a series of classes in Highgate at High Tea of Highgate, the lovely tea shop we have posted about before. First up will be an introduction to knitting on the 5th December:

Beginners knitting class 10am - 12pm

£30, including all materials needed to make a simple cowl and tea and cake.This short course will teach the very basics of knitting; casting on and off and knit and purl and will begin a basic cowl project which can be completed at home.

More classes soon!

SweetHerts

Last night was the launch of the SweetHerts Sisterhood, a Hertfordshire based monthly meeting for women (and a few brave men!) to try out lots of exiting crafts while quaffing wine and eating sweeties! Make Do Mend were there to teach the group how to make fabric flowers, which were creatively made into hairclips, brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets.
It was all huge amounts of fun, and all agreed that it must definitely become a regular occurence, with talk of cake decorating, retro make up lessons and more. There are whispers that next month the theme will be Christmas card making, so drop Louise and Fiona a line at SweetHerts@hotmail.co.uk if you live in the area and want to pop along.


See, we weren't just drinking wine for the fun of it, the glasses were very handy for drawing out our peonies!

Beautiful ribbon rose hairclips

Now, that is how to make a suffolk puff!

Beautiful bunting...perhaps bunting stitching could be yet another SweetHerts class? Any further suggestions to the SweetHerts Sisters...

hot tickets!

Make Do Mend are having a launch party.

We have been busy making our invites, by hand of course! They shall be going out this week.

The venue is 40 Winks in East London which is stunning; we just can't wait. Will post pictures of crafting and cake eating galore here very soon.