The owners of The Makery- Nigel and Kate Smith- very kindly allowed me to join them one Friday morning at their Makery Cafe to ask some questions about their success and hand production.
The Makery Cafe is a place where the local community can get involved in craft and learn some new skills through a wide variety of workshops and with the help and guidance of Kate who has hand-made all sorts of products from a very young age.
I asked Kate why she thinks the Makery has had so much success so quickly and she beleives craft has had a big come back nationally due to the reccession and that The Makery was produced at exactly the right time. It's also like a backlash to technology and mass production, the thought of creating something unique that isn't sitting in thousands other of living rooms or hanging on thousands of walls. Also one can't ignore the green aspect of The Makery- people come and re-use fabrics that may have once been old curtains or clothing, and recycling is very close to people's hearts. However people also come for the social aspect, to meet like-minded people and create new friendships.
I asked Kate why she hand-makes things (at the time she was creating her Xmas deco's) and she said there's something romantic about making something from scratch, it's the time it takes and the thought behind it. No-one has ever expressed hand-made quite like this to me before, and I think she's right, hand-made is romantic, like a return to anologue and old black and white movies.
