Craft Focus - Jun/Jul (Issue 73)

10 FOOTFALL RISES OVER EASTER WEEKEND Good weather brought shoppers onto the streets over Easter 2019, with footfall across retail destinations rising by 6.5 per cent on Good Friday, 1.2 per cent on Saturday and 8.4 per cent by 12pm on Easter Monday, according to latest research by Springboard. This marked a clear contrast to Easter 2018, when rain and wind battered the UK, resulting in poor figures. This year’s rise was due to an increase in high street activity, where footfall rose by 19.1 per cent on Good Friday and 8.8 per cent on Easter Saturday. However, the trend did not extend to retail parks and shopping centres, where footfall declined on both days. “Consumers clearly wanted to be outside enjoying the sun rather than visiting covered malls,” says Diane Wehrle, director at Springboard Insights. “Even in retail parks, where shoppers gravitate to buy garden furniture and plants, footfall declined by -2.4 per cent on Good Friday and -1.3 per cent on Saturday from the same days last year.” Go to spring-board.info Alice Car oline launches Quilt SOS for fourth year running Fabric supplier Alice Caroline has launched its Quilt SOS project for the fourth time. Once again, the initiative will support an SOS Children’s Village, giving every child in the selected location a handmade bedspread to keep and treasure. The company has previously taken quilts to youngsters in Romania, Lithuania and Poland, sending out almost 200 handcrafted bedspreads. This year the initiative will support a Children’s Village in Latvia. “I am thrilled to be able to support this worthwhile project once again,” says owner Alice Garrett. “It was such a valuable trip to Krasnik in Poland last November. Seeing the look on the children’s faces was such a joy to be part of. We have chosen the village of Islice in Latvia for 2019 and will be delivering 60 quilts personally later on this year. We would love to hear from anyone who would like to take part in the project.” Alice Caroline is supporting the initiative by offering fabric vouchers to each maker when their quilt is returned. The company has previously displayed the finished quilts at Liberty and The Festival of Quilts and is now looking for a venue in which to showcase this autumn’s bedspreads before they are transported to their forever homes. SOS Children’s Villages provide housing for orphaned or displaced children, with each youngster looked after by a ‘mother’ within the local area. There are villages in 125 countries around the world and the charity works hard to ensure that every child grows up in a loving family home where they can flourish and reach their full potential. For details, go to alicecaroline.com/quilt-sos- faqs/ UK Hand Knitting launches pattern library UK Hand Knitting, the industry association for wholesale yarn manufacturers, has announced the launch of a new pattern library on its website. The page will feature the association’s designs that are available for purchase. “We know how much knitters love the patterns we produce as printed leaflets through yarn shops, but we know many of them look for patterns on the internet,” says Annabelle Hill from UK Hand Knitting. “With a catalogue of nearly 200 leaflets we felt the time was right to make them all available online for the first time ever, so we have updated our website accordingly.” Patterns are grouped into categories that can be filtered to help users find exactly what they are looking for. Each design is available to purchase via a link to the site’s store, with revenue from sales supporting the work of the not-for-profit organisation. Go to ukhandknitting.com for details.