London Bust Craftacular

As promised, here is my report on the Bust Craftacular 2008 in London.  The venue, the St Aloysius Social Club, was, in all honesty, a bit of an odd choice.  I could see the logic in picking a spot hard by one of London’s main railway stations, but to get to it punters had to go down Eversholt Street, which featured such establishments as the Euston bookshop (not really a bookshop), Euston Videos (not an indie version of Blockbusters) and Transformations, a cross-dressers’ shop.  It was also to prove a tight squeeze for the large crowd which the event drew.

The BF and I arrived before noon, as I had heard there was a prospect of a goodie bag for the first 100 people, and if there’s anything I like, it’s a freebie.  The bag consisted of a Tatty Devine tote with a smattering of promotional material from people such as ClothKits and Rowan, one of the event’s sponsors.

Of more interest to me was a Sublime Stitching packet (Dutch-Russian) and two free magazines, Yarn Forward and Sew Hip!.

 

I was surprised that issues of Bust weren’t even available for sale: I’m not complaining, as I managed to wangle myself a free copy by virtue of my early arrival, but I still felt it was a tremendous oversight on the part of the organisers, as they would have made a killing.

Like Mondoagogo, I was less than impressed by the distinctly shoddy presentation of the programme for the event.  This was inexplicable, considering the purpose of the show, as a showcase for craftspeople and arty types generally.  It wouldn’t have killed them to farm it out to one of the crafty people featuring that day to knock together, who might have done it for free because of the advertisement it would have given their business.  It was pretty light on information, too – no short blurbs for any of the stallholders, just a name and indication of where they might be in the room.  As Mondogogo points out, it really didn’t have to be pink, but more to the point for me is that, seeing as it’s the London Craftacular, could we call it a programme?  Did we all get that memo?  Great, thanks.

As I said above, the venue was quite small and was soon uncomfortably packed, making browsing an obstacle course rather than a pleasant wander, but this should only encourage the organisers to choose more ambitiously next year.  The music was a fun addition and, according to the official Bust blog’s report, was a great success in the evening too.  The quality of products on show was very high and sellers were personable and happy to chat to the punters.  Of particular merit out of the nearly thirty stalls were The Great Cake Escape (I can verify the heart-shaped chocolate cakes are very acceptable indeed), the Experimental Letterpress Workshop, Custom Made, Love from Hetty and Dave and Bobby Dazzler.  On the whole, things were very affordably priced, which was a boon; I picked up this pretty bracelet from Kirsty Kirkpatrick, a maker of recycled and reclaimed jewellery, for just £13: 

I also got to meet the lovely Top Bird of Wee Birdy.  We dipped out of the melée of the fair to have a cup of tea and to discuss the vagaries of craft shops in the UK, Australia and Ireland amongst much else, and it was a pleasure to finally get to meet her.  I expect her report may well be a good deal more satisfying than this one, as I managed, yet again, to forget my camera, and so all the above photos are, as you’ve probably noticed, taken after the event.