Urban Makers Weekend Market — Sunday 27 September
By Urban MakersUp to 30 independent makers in the covered hall at Old Spitalfields. Free entry, 10am–5pm.
About this event
Where
Old Spitalfields Market
16 Horner Square, Spitalfields, London E1 6EW
Good to know
Free entry
No ticket needed — just turn up. Bring a bag for life.
Step-free access
The whole market is step-free with accessible toilets on site.
Getting here
Please travel by public transport or bike — there is no visitor parking.
Meet the makers
Hedgerow Millinery
Textiles & accessories
I block hats on wooden forms with steam, which is hot, damp work and completely absorbing. My materials are wool felt for winter and straw braid for summer, sewn in a spiral by hand for the straw hats, which takes a full day per hat. Trims come from my own dyed ribbon and the odd found feather. I make a wide-brim, a small cap and a bucket shape, and I can adjust a fitting on the stall since almost nobody has the head size they think they do.
Marmalade Riso
Print & illustration
Everything I sell comes off a risograph, which is somewhere between a photocopier and a screen printer and has a mind of its own. I draw each layer separately, in pencil and ink, then print them one colour at a time in fluorescent orange, teal and a deep blue. The misregistration is part of it. My subjects are London greenhouses, allotments and market stalls. I also make small zines about the printing itself, because people always ask how the machine works.
Matchstick Mornings
Candles & home fragrance
I make candles for the start of the day rather than the end of it, which nobody else seems to be doing.
Moth & Moon Jewellery
Jewellery
My work is all lunar phases and moth wings, cut from silver sheet and given a satin brush finish. I hand-pierce each shape, file the edges until they are soft enough to wear against skin, and hang them from hoops or fine chain. There is a little enamelling too, in a dusty lilac I mixed myself. I sell mainly earrings, because that is what people reach for, but the moth brooches are the pieces I am proudest of. Everything comes boxed in recycled card.
Oat & Olive
Bath & body
My whole range started because my son has eczema and nothing on the shelves suited him.
Paper Cartographer
Print & illustration
I draw maps by hand of things that are not usually mapped: every lido within the M25, the lost rivers of east London, the route of a walk somebody sends me.
Second Life Timber
Woodwork
I work exclusively with reclaimed timber, mostly floor joists and scaffold boards from demolition sites, which means a lot of time with a metal detector and a nail punch before I can even plane a board.
Soot & Saffron
Candles & home fragrance
I hand-roll incense the way my aunt taught me, mixing powdered woods, resins and gums with water into a stiff paste, then rolling it onto bamboo sticks and drying them flat for a week. Nothing is dipped in fragrance oil, which is how most incense is made and why so much of it smells thin. My blends are frankincense and orange peel, sandalwood and saffron, and a heavy oud for winter. I sell them in bundles of thirty with a small ceramic holder.
The Annealing Room
Glass
I cast glass into plaster moulds taken from objects I have modelled in wax, which means each mould is destroyed to get the piece out. The results are solid and heavy: paperweights, small sculptural forms, a set of glass pebbles that hold light like water. Casting cycles run for five days from full heat down to room temperature, and if I rush the cooling the piece cracks straight through. Then there is a week of cold work, grinding and polishing by hand on a flat bed.
Organised by
Moderate refunds. Full refund available until 7 days before the event.
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