Craft and Chat 

“Craft & Chat” on Monday afternoons, 2.00 - 4.00 pm.

You can bring your own project to work on, anything from sewing, knitting and crochet to card making, wood carving and basket weaving. There are lots of talented people in the community, so we should be able to get hands on advice to develop our skills, instead of relying on u-tube!

From time to time we may invite someone to provide a demonstration or workshop, so that we also get the opportunity to try new things.

Everyone is welcome to these afternoons - women and men - and you don't have to be crafty and creative, you can just drop in for a cup of tea and a chat!

We will provide tea and coffee and something sweet to keep up our energy.

There will be a £2 charge to cover costs.

This is a new venture so if you have any suggestions or questions please feel free to call Lindsay 460685 or Sally 410956.

Smailholm Craft and Chat will be having a lampshade making workshop with Susie Finlayson on Monday 11th March, 2.00 -4.00 pm.

Susie will provide the drum shape frames, and the flameproof lining, and we bring our own fabric -

for the smaller lampshade (20 cm. diameter) the cost is £5 per frame, and the fabric should be bigger than 64.5 cm. x 22 cm.

for the larger lampshade (30 cm. diameter) the cost is £6 per frame, and the fabric should be bigger than 97 cm. x 25.5 cm.

The fabric should not be exactly cut to size as we trim it after the flameproof lining has been applied to it.

With regard to type of fabric basically not too thick and not too thin!!  You could use tweed/tartan but remember that the fabric has to be rolled over the wire frame and there is an overlap of about 1 cm. and at this point it can be hard to roll the double thickness over the frame. Definitely not a fabric that frays easily - we have had problems with this in the past!!

As far as pattern goes then anything is fine but you have to watch out for patterns that are quite big as you might not get all of the image fitted into the height of the shade.  Checks and lines are fine as long as you are confident following the lines.

It would be helpful if you can bring sharp basic scissors or rotary cutters and boards.

As well as the cost of the frames, we need to pay £4 each towards the cost of the hall, and expenses for Susie and Rhona.

Please can you let Veronica - vrross7@gmail.com - know if you want to book a place – you don't need to specify the size of lampshade when you book.

N.B. - if you don't want to make a lampshade you can still come along with your own craft, or just to watch - and chat - and help with the tea and cake!