Every May, London Craft Week showcases the best in both international and British craftsmanship, with an array of events dotted around the capital dedicated to design, fashion, textiles, arts, crafts, culture and more.
Last week, the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust [QEST] hosted “Making it!” at Carpenters’ Hall, an event dedicated to showcasing excellence within the crafts industry, as exemplified by QEST-sponsored scholars and apprentices, all of whom gave live demonstrations of their work and exhibited their crafts.
Chika, one of our designers and a QEST Apprentice, represented Gainsborough. On display was a traditional hand-painted artwork, painted draft, a set of jacquard punchcards and the related woven archive fabric, produced on our 1930s Hattersley loom. The articles demonstrated the various stages a designer will go through to produce a woven fabric traditionally and provided an insight into the specialist work we carry out at our mill in Sudbury. Chika was awarded the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Apprentice Award last year to contribute to the specialised training necessary for any designer who joins the team.
Other exhibitors included craftspeople from a vast array of disciplines, ranging from shoemaking to sculpting. In the afternoon, award-winning furniture designer, John Makepeace, gave an inspiring talk on his work and special commissions whilst working in industry, followed by an insightful Q&A.
“Making It!” was bursting at the seams with creativity and talent and undoubtably a highlight of London Craft Week 2018.
