In the Great English Garden

For the first time at The Great English Outdoors we opened up the private gardens behind our shop for this year’s Hay Festival.  Friends and customers were invited to come and see the gardens, relax on the lawns, enjoy the various demonstrations, workshops and talks on offer and have a cup of moroccan mint tea, chai or coffee with welsh cakes or bara brith.  It was a great success and we are planning to do something similar next year.  The gardens looked enchanting with a mini circus tent in the middle, decked with our own beautiful Welsh blanket bunting.

All our talks, workshops and demonstrations were free events – Gareth Irwin, a local craftsman  demonstrated his skills as a  green wood worker; Athene English gave a talk on the History of Welsh Blankets; well known textiles expert, John Gillow came and spoke on the history of World Textiles and creative textile artist, Ingrid Wagner set up workshops showing us how to do Big Knitting with recycled materials.