What's on this month: five things to do in London in November

From the perfect fair to purchase your first Christmas gifts to Scandinavian glass sculptures, here are the top five design events you shouldn't miss in the capital this month... 
Barbara Chandler8 November 2018

The Creative Craft Show

November 15-17 at Hall N5, ExCeL, One Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock E16 (ichfevents.co.uk).

Release your creativity at this craft event, left, with embroidery, knitting, leather embossing, paper crafts and stained-glass ornament making.

Browse tools and materials and make jewellery, decs and Christmas cards.Artist Rosalind Freeborn will help you do a paper collage to go on a lamp shade.

Julie Peasgood and Wendy Turner Webster from TV’s Crafty Beggars will host workshops.

Hidden

November 16-20, noon to 6pm at the Royal College of Art Courtyard Galleries, Kensington SW7 (rca.ac.uk).

The RCA has been named four years running as the world’s top university of art and design, and its students’ summer degree shows are always hot tickets.

Less known is the large band of technical staff who teach the vital skills for career success, from digital technologies to making by hand.

They are skilled artists, designers and craftspeople in their own right, and this is their show. See and buy original work from more than 50 technical and non-academic staff.

We like Debbie Stack’s embroidered Wiggle cushions,£65.

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Handmade in Britain

Friday to Sunday at Chelsea Old Town Hall, SW3. Tickets £10, under-14s free. Reader offer: quote STANDARD18 online or show this page at the door to get two tickets for the price of one (handmadeinbritain.co.uk).

This popular fair is timed just right for Christmas gifts and decorations. Meet 100 UK-based designer-makers and shop for textiles, jewellery, ceramics, glass, furniture, fashion accessories and more.

Nick James is bringing distinctive furniture from Newcastle, textile designer Sophie Darling will launch custom-printed wallpaper panels and always in demand are mouth-blown glass baubles by Adam Aaronson.

New Scandinavian Glass

November 8-December 22 at Vessel Gallery, 114 Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill W11 (vesselgallery.com).

Scandinavia was an acknowledged leader in the making of modern glass last century but as production costs soared, many well-known brands decamped to countries where labour was cheaper.

Now Scandinavia is re-emerging as a glass pioneer and this show will please connoisseurs and collectors alike.

It features work by 25 new and established artists, dramatically displayed in Britain’s leading gallery for contemporary glass.

Prices for these one-off sculptures start at £2,500. This Peter Hermansson piece is £14,750.

Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill

Until February 24 at 68 Waldegrave Road, Twickenham. Public guided tours are on Saturdays and Sundays, 10am. Christmas fair, November 25. Tickets £16, with free entry for up to four under-16s (strawberryhillhouse.org.uk).

Gothic revival masterpiece Strawberry Hill House, restored at a cost of £10 million, was built by obsessive collector Horace Walpole between 1748 and 1790.

His precious objects were dispersed across the globe in a 28-day “sale of the century” in 1842 but after a three-year treasure hunt, 150 paintings, sculptures and curiosities culled from 55 public and private collections worldwide are now back in their original flamboyant settings.

In the Great Parlour, portraits include Joshua Reynolds’s painting of Walpole’s nieces, The Ladies Waldegrave, right.

Also see works by Lely, Rubens, Van Dyck and Holbein, along with Cardinal Wolsey’s hat, plus a clock given to Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII on their wedding day in 1533.

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