Macrame Pot Hanger Workshop

Alice Hume is running a macramé pot hanger workshop at Aspex Portsmouth on Sunday 23 August, from 11:00 to 13:00. It's a two-hour session, so you'll be in and out before lunch, and you'll leave with a finished hanger for your plants.

Over the course of the morning, Hume walks you through the three knots that hold the whole thing together: the wrap knot, the half knot, and the flat knot. If you've never touched macramé before, that's plenty to get you started; if you've dabbled, it's a good way to get those basics down properly. The focus is on the pot hanger itself, so you're working towards a specific, useful object rather than just practicing knots for the sake of it.

It's worth knowing who's leading the class. Alice Hume is a textile artist and weaver based at Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery, where she makes contemporary textile decor and runs workshops. She graduated in 2013 from Winchester School of Art with a degree in Woven Textile Design and spent time studying weaving at the Swedish School of Textiles in Boras, Sweden, and in Osaka, Japan. Her practice often takes her into unusual territory—she works with materials like copper yarn and raffia on her eight-shaft Harris Loom, and together with her father she makes handmade frame looms, which she calls 'Hume Looms', from recycled wood. She uses those looms to teach weaving, and the family connection runs deep: her surname, Vanderhume, comes from an ancestry of Flemish weavers.

Her workshops have picked up 181 five-star reviews and a Platinum Student's Choice Award with Craft Courses, and past students describe her as a calm, patient and inspiring teacher. The session runs from 11:00 to 13:00 at Aspex Portsmouth, The Vulcan Building, Gunwharf Quays, PO1 3BF, and costs £40.