So my lovely new friend Jorrun (of Nnuroj – beautifully fresh woolen items to keep you warm!) very kindly gave me a ticket for myself and a friend to go to the private view of ‘Made Brighton‘ the design and craft fair at the corn exchange. I excitedly accepted as I had never been before and heard lots of good things about it. Despite having a migraine the night before I really wanted to go, and as I had slept for most of the day I was feeling almost human again so I arrived for an early start at 6pm before it got too crowded.
I was astounded by the quality and beauty of many of the exhibitors items but a few things particularly caught my eye.
The first beautiful objects to please me were these ceramic ‘watches’ by Alice Walton Ceramics which you wear as a decorative bracelet rather than a time telling device. Alice herself explained to us that she used printing block punctuation to make the design and that the last detail she added to the watches was the time on the clock on her wall, enabling a sort of romantic ‘time stamp‘ of completion, I love this wonderful idea. 
Alice also displayed beautiful ceramic cases (like print drawers which are popular for displaying trinkets in your home) with tiny ceramic cotton reels inside, and another with tiny ceramic feathers, such delicately pleasing items.
The next stallholders work to wow me was the gorgeous woodchild from Scotland. Scrummy fair isle design woolen baby blankets with icons such as cars or trains embedded into the patterns. The colours in these blankets drew me straight over to the stall and the stallholder pointed out that once baby is too big for the blanket you can send them back to her and she will transform them into a child’s coat or poncho, such a fabulous upcycling idea!
Some jewellery that really struck me were the designs of John Moore His metallic coil-like necklaces and bracelets were very appealing to my sensory side and he was very happy to let me see how they felt and moved, I imagine if I wore something like this I just would not be able to stop stroking it, pleasingly tactile. His earrings were pretty amazing too, you could choose which way up to wear them, each way up created a different visual effect to the organic armour type parts, enabling two distinct styles from the one pair of earrings (hard to describe but you can see the difference in the picture below).
I bought a wonderfully witty birthday card from Teresa Green but I daren’t tell you which one for fear of the recipient finding it here first. Her little screen printed purses are just gorgeous.
My Lovely friend Jorrun’s stall was looking rather spectacular and was proving very popular (I could hardly get a moment with her between customers!). Her strikingly modern knitwear items proving that you can be warm and stylish are a must have for winter.
Speaking of woolen things Hattie Startin Handnits’ pleasing display of fair isle type winter accessories also deserve a mention, beautifully displayed like artwork on her wall, I would happily hang my gloves on the wall in a frame at the end of the day if they looked like this! She also had the cutest little tiny christmas stocking decorations for trees you could ever imagine (though I wish they were baby socks, I would definitely buy them for my non religious god-daughter!).
These gorgeous illustrated vegetable cards by witshop pleased me greatly, each card has a tear off recipe involving the illustrated vegetable, they even had christmas cards with christmas leftover recipes on them!
One more mention, I greatly admired the graphic illustrations on ceramics and other items by Snowden Flood and may have purchased something for a family members christmas present so I can’t say much (except that it isn’t pictured in this photo so stop looking!) but definitely recommended for christmas gifts!
Huge apologies for the awful phone photography, I didn’t think to take a proper camera but hopefully you can get an idea of the fabulous talents that are exhibiting at Made Brighton this weekend. You can visit this weekend, opening times are below:
- Saturday 23rd November 10am – 6.00pm
- Sunday 24th November 10am – 5.00pm
Thank you to Liz for coming with me!
Oh and I mustn’t forget, I met a lovely little craft stall fella called ‘Mr B’ who was the best behaved ever, sleeping soundly underneath some beautiful garments, if you do go to Made this weekend and you see him- please say hello from me.
Yellow bear wares 