Last weekend, I headed over to Wiltshire to run a full day rag rug workshop at The Craft Space in Trowbridge. Katie, who coordinates all the wonderful workshops there, grew up with craft in her blood. Her mother is the owner of popular Trowbridge craft shop, Fabric Magic, so Katie grew up sewing, stitching and making beautiful handmade things – lucky thing! Although Katie is a dressmaking genius, rag rugging is probably one of the few crafts she hasn’t tried, which is where I come in. I’d been looking to run my Ragged Life Rag Rug Classes in new locations across the UK for a while now, but I’d never made it out further West than Reading. Hence the Wiltshire Rag Rug Workshop at The Craft Space was organised. Below are a few photos from my first class there last weekend and if you’re interested in booking onto a future Rag Rug Workshop in Trowbridge, you can find upcoming dates here. Hope you love The Craft Space as much as I did!
My First Wiltshire Rag Rug Workshop:
On Saturday, 10th June, 2017, I set off from Hertfordshire to Trowbridge at 6:20am…. yes, super early! I’m definitely not a morning person, but the sun was shining and I could already tell that it was shaping up to be a nice day (which made the 6am start that little bit easier).
The Craft Space is pretty striking when you arrive – bright blue doors and a jolly orange sign set into a rustic brick wall. Apparently the building used to be a weaving factory so Katie is keeping its crafty heritage going.
The welcoming blue doors of The Craft Space in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
I always like to get to any class I’m running early, so that I can set things up exactly as I like it. The Wiltshire Rag Rug Workshop was no different and I arrived at 8:40am for a workshop that began at 10:00am (oops, slight miscalculation on my part but better early than late!) After manoeuvring all my rag rug materials inside, I set out the table for the four ladies I would be teaching that day.
I like how kooky The Craft Space is with its mismatched chairs and piles of craft books in every nook and cranny.
Setting up for one of my rag rug workshops is like laying place settings for a fancy party.
I was so in love with the yellow dress on the mannequin in this photo. Apparently it’s a vintage Vogue pattern and Katie runs dress making classes on how to make it…. another time perhaps 🙂
The Craft Space has many of the original features from when it used to be a spinning factory. I really liked the period windows.
After making sure the table was looking spick and span, I laid out a few of my rag rug pieces for a spot of inspiration. For this workshop, I brought along my Cosmic Rug, Matisse cushion, Spring Basket and a few other small projects from my book “Rag Rugs, Pillows & More”.
I brought along lots of different coloured rags for the students to use during the workshop.
As you can see, the products I brought along are pretty bright to match the sunshine outside!
And then the workshop began… My four rag rug beginners were enthusiastic, funny and great company for the day. They picked up both the techniques well and I can’t wait to see their creations!
My rag rug friends hard at work.
Action shot of the ladies getting their rag rugging on.
So that was my first ever Wiltshire rag rug workshop 🙂 I had lots of fun and can’t wait to run more workshops there in the future. If you’d like to find out more details on my rag rug classes, head over to www.raggedlife.com or email me at elspeth@raggedlife.com
p.s. As if you needed another reason to book onto a workshop in Trowbridge, it’s only a hop and a skip from the beautiful city (or town?) or Bath so you can make a weekend of it like I did. Below are a few photos I took in Bath, which will hopefully inspire you to visit if you haven’t already.
We walked from our accommodation, High Orchard, just outside of Bath into the centre of town through beautiful Prior Park which had spectacular views over the city.
Prior Park is known for having one of only four Palladian Bridges in the world!
At the bottom of the hill you got a great view of the bridge over the lake.
Bath is known for the unique stone that was used to build pretty much all its buildings. Fun fact is that attempts to use Bath stone in London didn’t go well because the porous rock didn’t react well to the polluted, sooty air in the Victorian capital.
I’m not sure what these umbrellas were for but they sure looked jolly in the centre of town.
And no trip to Bath would be complete without a customary trip to visit to The Royal Crescent (excellent photography cutting off my foot by Christian) 🙂