Friday, 12 June 2009

Exeter Festival Craft Fair ;-)

Each year, the City of Exeter upholds the tradition of celebrating the Lammas Fair.

The annual ceremony of the Proclamation of the Lammas Fair, dates back more than 900 years!
We were there today, to watch this fascinating , colourful piece of tradition.
and the procession to the Guildhall (which , incidentally, is one of the oldest in the country),
led by the Mace Sergeant,whose very important role is to carry the Lammas Fair Glove!
The Lammas Fair Glove is a sign of Royal protection of the peace.
The glove is a large leather stuffed glove,attached to a long pole and decorated with ribbons and a garland of flowers.

Meanwhile, taking place on the Cathedral Green, was the annual craft fair...and although the weather was dull and overcast, it stayed dry for our time there. We wandered around the tents looking for anything a bit 'different'.Although I love jewellery and ceramics, there always seems to be an excess of these kinds of crafts.

This was a lovely stall. 'Petite Fleur'
You can't see closely but this lady makes many of her items using the technique of paper napkin decoupage.

I loved these wood crafts.



These berets appealed to me too.



Beautiful art work.





And then there was driftwood... there was a lot of it around this year.


Not to mention slate!

I always love to see terracotta


And then came the treat of the day for me...
I met a lovely, fellow blogger, Helen!
Her tent was filled with so much gorgeousness...she uses lots of vintage bits...just my thing!
So we swapped links...here's her blog and also her website. Both are well worth a visit!
Fabulous cushions!

Wonderful quilts!



Using vintage children's books...

Fab hand knitted goodies...
Cards...

Beautiful buntings...

More quilts


It was all lovely...






Finally, having heard about this from Nich, here's a little 'funny', which can be seen on the door of an Exeter shop ...

Tee hee!!
Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted by at
Labels:

16 comments:

  1. galant12 June 2009 at 20:38

    What wonderful stalls at the Craft Fair! Really gorgeous stuff. Love those berets!
    Margaret P

    ReplyDelete
  2. LissyLou12 June 2009 at 22:27

    What lovely things, i love the little story book bags x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Floss12 June 2009 at 22:47

    Lovely! I will have to show my mum, and we will share a bit of Exeter nostalgia and then have a chuckle at the shop sign! Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. the homely year12 June 2009 at 23:01

    What a great craft fair. The quilts are really beautiful...such colours, can't resist fabrics like those. Must look at the web-site.
    Margaret and Noreen

    ReplyDelete
  5. THISNTHAT13 June 2009 at 05:17

    Thanks for the 'virtual visit'. It all looks good. Wondered where the slate guy was from our Friday market ... now I know!
    Lesley X

    ReplyDelete
  6. Josie-Mary13 June 2009 at 06:29

    Great photo's, I'm going after work tonight. I know that sign... I walk past it every day!
    Are you free friday 19th? Fancy Totnes? :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ragged Roses13 June 2009 at 09:18

    Lots of lovely things at that Craft Fair, Sal, thanks for sharing the photos. Good to see that someone is keeping those MPs under control ...
    KImx

    ReplyDelete
  8. galant13 June 2009 at 19:31

    Went to the Craft Fair today (Saturday) ... nice weather, not too hot, and 102 stalls to see. Had breakfast first in Cafe Rouge and watched Morris dancing and Punch & Judy ... all the traditional things which make up an English fair, it was just lovely.
    Didn't buy anything,though. Whilst lots of things looked lovely set out on stalls, I didn't really see anything that I wanted to buy as a single purchase and put in our home. And whilst I admired the decoupage which is your main photo, Sal, the woman on this stall was swift to point out that the containers/cachepots must not be washed because of the decoupage. So, as they have to contain plants, to me they're as much use as a chocolate teapot. Yes, they had a small plastic inner liner, but even so, I like things, if used for plants, which can withstand water. So a case of style over substance.
    I enjoyed seeing the decorated berets, too, but whilst they made a good display, I really couldn't see myself wearing them. Ditto the hats on a hat stall. And then I looked at leather belts at £45 each. They really were just a strip of leather, with holes punched for the pointy thing on the buckle to go through. No tooling as far as I could see, no unusual colours, just black and tan. I want something a bit more adventurous for my £45, I'm afraid.
    Then I saw a stall where some chap had made pictures from his photographic work. I wanted to take a picture as a memento but was quickly asked not to! I supose they thought I was about to copy the pix (I was using a Nikon, not a mobile phone camera) but even though the photos were good, that I do not dispute, they were not extra-ordinary and they were expensive.
    I did gain the impression, on some of the stalls at least, that if the stall holders' things had fetched up there, in a Craft Fair, it was acknowledged by many that they must therefore be good and worth the money. This wasn't necessarily always the case, but it was very nice seeing all the various types of craft work that people do, nonetheless. Overall, a fun morning out.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Margaret's Ramblings13 June 2009 at 19:41

    What a wonderful display of craftwork. I always come away from these fairs feeling that I should do better and make the items myself. Good of good intentions but then the thought disappears and I forget until next time.

    Thank you for the lovely photos.

    Margaret

    ReplyDelete
  10. Guenievre (France)13 June 2009 at 19:43

    I can't choose, I love all what I see :-)
    It's a beautiful craft fair
    Have a nice Sunday !

    ReplyDelete
  11. Cowboys and Custard Mercantile14 June 2009 at 06:30

    I would say two M.P's are two too many!!!
    Lovely day out Sal.... and not a Llama in sight!

    MX

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rosie14 June 2009 at 11:29

    Looks like you had a wonderful day with lots of lovely things to look at:)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Louise14 June 2009 at 13:26

    I am constantly looking out for driftwood along the beach, but rarely find any. I think everyone is at it! x

    ReplyDelete
  14. MelMel14 June 2009 at 16:34

    I really enjoyed your lovely post today....such a brill fair, how pretty and different the bunting is!xxx

    ReplyDelete
  15. Helen15 June 2009 at 19:53

    Oh oh oh ... thank you so much for your lovely comments about my stuff - husband says I have become quite un(Devon)Bearable since reading them!! Met some lovely people at Exeter and sold loads of stuff - a great day all round!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Louise19 June 2009 at 12:05

    Thank you so much for the virtual visit. I just adore the Devon Bear stall - some irrisistable goodies there (in fact I've been in touch to place my first order!).

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to comment! ;-)

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)