All set for ‘Laldie Haans’ festival

Orkney’s first craft festival gets under way today, Friday.

Laldie Haans is bringing together a diverse range of professional craftspeople and artisans for a three-day event of workshops, demonstrations and exhibitions.

Hands-on participation is the main theme, with festival organisers encouraging anyone who’d like to try out a variety of crafts to come along and take part.

Everything from textile work, jewellery and ceramics, to drystone dyking, pinhole photography and miniature locomotive modelling is covered in the festival programme, which offers an accessible mix of paid-for and free activities.

Festival director Elaine Henderson said: “Orkney supports an incredibly diverse mix of talented craftspeople.

“As such, we felt it made perfect sense to try and organise an event that celebrated and showcased this diversity and talent, while also creating opportunities for people to get practical experience of a number of different crafts.

“From the outset, we wanted the festival to be a community event and hopefully we’ve achieved that with this exciting and interactive programme, that has something for everyone.”

She added: “The support we’ve received from not just the crafts industry, but the wider Orkney community, has been tremendous and we’re hopeful the festival will become a regular fixture in our busy islands events calendar.”

Full details are at www.orkneydesignercrafts.com.