Fabrications in Hackney is hiding an exciting secret in the basement – a brand new Imaginerium workshop space for craft classes and fun.

Established over a decade ago in Broadway Market, Fabrications is a studio, gallery and shop that has already made a mark in the London craft scene, bringing contemporary textiles to a wider audience and actively supporting craftivism – using craft to change the world for the better.

On Saturday I was invited along to an open day to see the new space and sew a grocery bag based on the design of a standard a carrier bag, but from pretty offcuts of fabric – a perfect example of recycling and modern design. (You’ll need a large grocery bag if you go to Broadway Market, especially if you love fresh walnut bread from artisan bakers and your willpower is enfeebled by the siren song of a nice bit of cheese.)

The room is kitted out with all the essentials you’ll need to make beautiful things, including new sewing machines and tea. A large glass roof at the back lets in lots of natural light. The new space is a warm, welcoming and friendly place.

The classes reflect designer and Fabrications owner Barley Massey’s passion for upcycling, eco design and passing on useful traditional skills. You can learn to knit, sew, quilt and make clothes. There are also classes where you can transform the boring things in the back of your wardrobe into something new and personalised, make yarn from old clothes and a craft club where you can bring along your latest project for advice.

fabrications1.co.uk

Artist Sarah Bridgland sent us this report from The Apple Cart Festival.

A couple of Sundays ago, I led a workshop at The Apple Cart, a new festival in leafy Victoria Park.

Blending music and comedy with interactive art, cabaret and magic, The Apple Cart had the feel of a family-friendly village fete.

The workshop was part of The Candlelit Matinee, an interactive arts event ran by community arts charity The House of Fairytales. Festival goers were invited to take part in a range of art projects, workshops and performances, all presented under the canvas of an atmospheric grand circus-style marquee.

There was much creative fun to be had, for kids and adults alike. Highlights included shadow puppetry with The Little Theatre of Dolls, printing and drawing with kids’ arts and science magazine Okido and my very own workshop, make a matchbox sculpture. You could even star in a silent movie with BFI Education.

The event proved to be hugely popular for young people of all ages and their families.

You can keep an eye out for more fun and innovative House of Fairytale events here.

Do you have any memories you’d like to share from a London festival this summer? Let us know in the comments below, or add your photos to the Visit London flickrpool

London’s Science Museum was full of woolly monsters at the weekend as Stitch London took up residence to explore science through craft.

Stitched Science included an exhibition of scientific objects made by knitting, crochet and sewing, from embroidered cells to a rather charming knitted Professor Brian Cox. The highlight was the incredibly beautiful Orion Nebula pictured above, which was knitted by Lisa Bentman.

Craft workshops took place under a large knitted solar system. The workshops included pompom planets, knitting Mars monsters, recycling plastic bags into yarn and cross stitch classes. In case you’re wondering how scientific this actually was, I joined the Knit a Neuron workshop and while we knitted, PhD students explained enthusiastically how neurons work and their role in the brain. The Woolly Thoughts workshop explored maths and the science behind altered perspectives.

If you’re sad you missed the opportunity to make a Martian at Stitched Science this weekend, the Science Museum will be holding a Real-Life Gaming Festival at the end of September where you can enjoy being chased round the museum by aliens and rope other visitors into playing games you’ve invented.

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk Free entry. Real-Life Gaming Festival 28 September – 2 October 2011.

The Women’s Library in East London has gone craft crazy. The current exhibition Hand Made Tales: Women and Domestic Crafts, explores the role of sewing, gardening, knitting and cooking in women’s lives. If you enjoy making things, you need to find time to visit this exhibition.

Hand Made Tales is full of beautiful hand-made items, as well as craft tools, vintage craft books and haberdashery. The exhibition explores connections between craft and history – in times when women had limited rights of ownership, they took care over the items they made. The exhibition also considers emotional connections made by craft, for example when we treasure and use our grandmother’s button jar, sewing box or knitting needles.

To complement the exhibition, artist Nicola Malkin has created some art pieces which have been scattered around the building, including giant knitting needles on the wall.

Last Saturday, London branches of the Women’s Institute took over the exhibition with a fun day of craft demonstrations, tea and free talks.

The most interesting speaker was Anne Stamper, the WI Honorary archivist who explained how the WI preserved, shared and developed craft skills throughout the 20th century, supporting rural communities and holding major exhibitions to showcase expert work.

It was also fascinating to see demonstrations of traditional craft and it inspired me to go home and teach myself tatting (with a lot of help from YouTube tutorials!).

Hand Made Tales runs till 26 March 2011. Free entry. The Women’s Library has an ongoing programme of thoughtful talks, walks and events. www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary

The fabulous Christmas Craftacular was held at Bethnal Green’s York Hall yesterday. Women, men and someone dressed as a panda queued round the block in the sunshine to buy handcrafted presents.

Organised by Bust Magazine, this popular craft fair brought the best independent designers together for a cool indie shopping experience. While the DJ’s played the greatest hits of Tiffany, hoards of shoppers descended on the 50+ stalls selling handmade cards, bags, jewellery and other cute gifts.

As well as shopping, there was a Tatty Divine tombola, crochet your own moustache classes with Prick Your Finger and Christmas bauble decorating with The Make Lounge. I spent a fun hour helping out with the bauble making and couldn’t resist decorating one of my own to take home.

The next Craftacular will be in 2011, keep an eye on their website to find out more. www.bust.com

If you can’t wait that long, you’ll love We Make London’s 2010 Christmas Fair, 4 December at Chelsea Town Hall. We Make London has an equally brilliant mix of exciting talented designers and is perfect for present shopping.

Don’t forget to check out our Christmas Shopping in London guide.

It’s the Tower of London, but not as you know it! This one is made from paper and on display at the V&A Museum of Childhood as part of their Cut it, Fold it: Build it with Paper exhibition.

If your early years were spent happily cutting out little tabs and assembling elaborate cardboard castles you’ll love this exhibition. The models on show are absolutely stunning and very carefully made (not one of the modellers had resorted to selotape!) The tiny elaborate buildings include Hampton Court Palace, shops, parks, houses and tourist attractions from all round the world.

One of the most interesting items was a lovely example of cinema merchandising, a printed kit for building Mr Blanding’s Dream House from the 1948 Cary Grant film.

The only frustration is that when you’ve seen this exhibition, you’ll be desperate to make paper models and the museum shop didn’t have any. Thankfully the internet does, so here’s a free paper model of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre we found for you to stick to your fingers!

Cut it, Fold it: Build it with Paper at the Museum of Childhood. 9 October 2010 – 9 January 2011. Free entry. www.vam.ac.uk/moc

A gorgeous new craft workshop space called Homemade London has just opened in Portman Village. Last night I popped along and learned how to make a fully lined designer tote bag, made new friends, and did a vanishing trick with a piece of gooey chocolate cake.

Everyone was having so much fun that friendly passers by kept popping in to see what we were up to, admire our bags and find out how they could sign up for the next class!

The class includes tuition, fabric (vintage and designer – my bag above is made from a Marimekko print) and, bliss, a light supper, which is very welcome when you’ve just dashed from work to a class and won’t get home till late.

Homemade London has plenty of sewing machines and space for creating. You can learn how to sew bags and lingerie, make jewellery or sniff out your perfect perfume.

As well as classes, Homemade London also offer a sewing café – you can rent a sewing machine or overlocker from £10 an hour during the day or evening and work on your own projects. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s worth a visit just to see the astonishing sewing machine wallpaper!

Even the location is perfect, if you’ve been shopping on Oxford Street all day and found nothing but inspiration, you can pop round the corner and whip up your perfect accessory!

Classes from £99, Sewing Cafe from £10.
www.homemadelondon.com

Loop, London’s lovely luxury yarn boutique had an opening party at the weekend to celebrate moving to a shiny new shop in Islington‘s Camden Passage. Nearly 150 customers queued up outside on Saturday morning to be the first through the door!

The new Loop looks right at home nestled between antique shops and exclusive boutiques. Loop now offers a larger selection of stock and a lovely light upstairs space for classes and gatherings.

Head to Islington and check out Loop’s new shop for yourself. You’ll find everything a knitter needs at Loop – wool, needles, books, comfy chairs and a very friendly welcome!

Loop, 15 Camden Passage, Islington, N1 8EA
Check out www.loopknitting.com for a full list of classes

We asked Katherine to tell us more about quilts in London:

What are you doing with Liberty this spring?
Liberty commissioned five new quilts from me for their exhibition Quilty Pleasures. They are also displaying the Action Man and Barbie quilts which I made 2007 after graduating. One of the quilts I’ve created is made from Liberty fabrics and clothing donated by the staff. The Liberty quilt will be auctioned on ebay to raise funds for the Variety Club charity.

Why did you start making quilts?
As a textile designer I’m concerned with our current throw-away culture. For me a quilt embodies the anti-throw-away. The sense of passed on skill and knowledge is a prominent aspect of my work and I run regular hand-sewing patchwork quilting workshops in London. I ask everyone to bring their own favorite textiles to work with and join in a discussion about the memories assosicated with these pieces.

Where are your favourite places to buy fabric in London?
I love to look in all the markets for bits of fabric. I also visit two textile recycling factories in London were I’ve built relationships that allow me to look through there, sorting piles for fabric off cuts or garments that will be suitable for my work.

What inspires you about London?
Finding new areas and new communities. When Bricolage had our pop-up shop in Brixton Market, I really enjoyed the vibrancy of the local community. Having many galleries and exhibitions on your door step is also an amazing source of research for a designer – I can’t wait to see the V&A Quilts!

The Quilty Pleasures exhibition at Liberty is only on until the 12 April, so get down there quick!

The Quilts 1700-2010 exhibition opens tomorrow at the V&A in London and features a fabulous line-up of vintage and contemporary quilts.

Everyone loves snuggling up under a warm, cosy quilt and knows that vintage quilts were handmade with carefully collected fabric scraps. Did you also know that quilts have also been created for political protests, made by men, quilted from illegal fabric and have been used to preach religion? You’ll be surprised what you discover at this exhibition.

I love textiles and have been very excited about seeing this exhibition ever since I heard about it last year. I will confess to a little gleeful skipping on my way to the preview. The lady who entered the exhibition in front of me gasped “Oh my goodness!” in excitement as she walked through the door!

One of the main themes of the exhibition is how quilts tell stories. Some have beautifully embroidered pictures of people, animals and events. I loved the Alphabet of Love and Courtship quilt from 1875-85 which features embroidered pictures of women being courted by men with luxuriant squirrel-sized moustaches – swoon!

The materials can tell us about the life of the quilter; one quilt is made from scraps of uniform material collected by a 19th-century military tailor. An unfinished quilt still has the tacking and paper inside (cut from the family’s household bills and papers) and has been displayed so you can see the back and the tiny stitches.

The detailed quilt by Fine Cell Work (prisoners in the UK who have learned to sew to a very high standard) tells the story of life behind bars. Another quilt features a portrait of Caroline of Brunswick in the centre, demonstrating the quilter’s political allegiance with her cause.

Quilts were often made by Victorians to either preach virtue or as an activity which would distract the weak-willed from the lure of taverns. One enormous quilt certainly would have kept the quilter from disreputable pursuits as it’s made up of thousands of tiny squares!

The exhibition feels quite traditional, even the contemporary pieces by artists like Tracey Emin reference fairly standard techniques and concepts. I fell in love with all the vintage quilts but I’ve seen contemporary quilts which make much more challenging use of the techniques, skills and material choices of quilters at other textile exhibitions.

Quilts 1700-2010 more than lived up to my expectations and I’ll definitely be going back for a second look. You should book your tickets now because it’s selling out fast!

Quilts 1700-2010 is at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 20 March 2010 to 4 July 2010. www.vam.ac.uk