Up to now I haven't shared the lace events I organise for the railway where I'm a volunteer in North Wales on Arachne, as up to this year they have been held on site, so not easily accessible for most of the list. However, with the lockdowns and travel restrictions we've had this year, I decided in April to change to a virtual event using an event page from my Facebook account. This meant we could share photos of what we were making, with videos of train rides I had taken at the railway slotted in over the weekend to add a sense of being there, and our chef added some photos of his rather tempting cakes (calorie free because we could only imagine eating them). Afterwards I wrote an article about the weekend for the Canadian Lacemaker Gazette. This first event proved successful as lacemakers who couldn't normally get to the railway were able to join in. So, when it came to July and 'Lace on the Train', with the UK still in lockdown, I repeated the format, and again for the October Lacemaking Weekend. In all so far we have raised £850 for the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway's Resilience Fund (the railway is a registered charity and has had to miss almost all of this year's operations and events, with a consequent loss of income - we rely on fares and donations).
With that in mind, and the prospect of still being restricted as to travel and visiting family over the Christmas holiday period, I thought it would be worthwhile to have a post-Christmas virtual lace-in, where we could again make lace when time allowed, and join in the fun by sharing photos of our work, and hopefully raise the year's total to at least £1,000. I have set the page so that posts have to be approved by me before they are added. The dates are Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 December, and there is a donation button on the page (Facebook don't charge for charity donations). I know a number of Arachnes don't use Facebook, but if you do and would like to join in, the link below will take you to the page. If you would like to see more about the railway, the url is http://www.whr.co.uk (note ours is not the longer Welsh Highland Railway, which is run by the Ffestiniog Railway from Porthmadog to Caernarfon but the smaller railway with a museum at the other end of Porthmadog). I'm currently working on a new version of my Giles the Dog bookmark - very slowly so don't expect a pattern any time soon! and a Branscombe picture of one of our locos, Gelert, hopefully between managing the event and sharing videos I will be able to make some progress on both. The link is:- https://www.facebook.com/100001416002134/posts/3667708569952974/ Jane Partridge - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
