From vintage-modern pottery to patchwork pillows, a preview of Circle Craft Christmas Market’s handmade hits.
It’s the mother of all the holiday craft fairs: the Circle Craft Christmas Market is preparing to welcome more than 300 artisans to the Convention Centre West from Thursday to Monday (November 7 to 11). Amid this year’s offerings are an array of vendors whose designs bring a bit of the handmade nation to your home. Here are a few of our favourite décor items and housewares at this year’s exhibition:
PITON POTTERY Carol Patola’s Vancouver-based works mix comfy vintage (think your grandparents’ cottage) with a West Coast vibe and contemporary neutrals. The Crossroads bowl is inspired by intersecting tracks on the sand, while the Freckled Tan Lines latte cup and mugs are exactly the kind of objects you want to hold with your woolly blanket on a Sunshine Coast deck chair.
FISH EYE SISTERS Contemporary quilting makes a quirky offset to sleek interiors in the hands of this Huntsville, Ontario, artisan. Jen Manuell hand-sews pillows and blankets out of Japanese cottons and overdyed wool flannel, blending colours and shapes in new, striking ways. Check out her Brooke Avenue collection, rich in teals, royal blues, and turquoises, and perfect for a living room with greys, taupes, or whites.
RACHAEL KROEKER CERAMICS The young Winnipeg artist specializes in a uniquely marbled effect that resembles swirling smoke. She’s crafted a range of shot-glass and tumbler sizes—as handy for whisky as they are for espressos. And look for her pendant lighting designs, made with the same technique of mixing black and white slips together, ensuring no two pieces look the same.
CORIN FLOOD The Revelstoke artist’s smooth, tactile bowls look like ceramics from a distance, but they’re actually the product of careful woodturning. We love his milk-painted bowls in farmhouse blue, with beeswaxed birch or maple patterns on the inside. The bowls are all made from reclaimed and salvaged wood.
MORIN TARDIF Quebec husbandand-wife team Serge Tardif and Nathalie Morin’s curvy lighting brings a bit of texture, warm colour, and natural wood to rooms that are feeling hard-edged. Pendant lights and side-table lamps feature cherry, maple, or walnut that’s been curled like paper to create spiralling forms that throw picturesque shadows across the room.
LIGHT + PAPER Deck the halls with some of Toronto artist Ali Harrison’s artfully cool decorations, intricately paper-cut or laser-cut into wood. Her Ornament Advent Calendar will amaze whoever you give it to: each little red door reveals a new laser-cut birch design. You can buy bigger ornaments separately; we like the doughnut and coffee pairing, the raccoon and trash can, and, of course, Vancouverfriendly bicycles.