Bethan Morgan on London Textile Month, the free Spitalfields installation that runs to 18 October and the September programme I wish I had attended
Saturday 10 October, 3.30pm, a bench in the garden at Kingsland Road, a flask of tea and a notebook which, I notice, has a thread caught in the spine.
Dear Diary. I did something sensible today. I went to a museum on a Saturday before the weekend crowds arrived, and I stood in a room from 1695 that smells faintly of beeswax and entirely of history. The Museum of the Home, at 136 Kingsland Road in Hoxton, is free and open to all, 10am to 5pm from Tuesday to Sunday and on Bank Holiday Mondays. And in the 1695 period room, until 18 October, there is an installation called Woven Lives in Spitalfields.
The Festival That Has Just Ended
I should say first that London Textile Month at the museum, held with Selvedge Magazine, ran from 1 to 30 September 2026. The festival page is marked as a past event, so most of what follows is a look back and not a to-do list. The programme on the museum’s site is a rich one. There was a Textiles Through Time Guided Tour, covering textiles from the 1600s to the present. There was a Victorian crazy quilt workshop based on a quilt in the collection. There was a talk with a researcher, Vanessa Houlder, on song in textile work, and a performance combining a loom and voices called loomeweight II.
I missed all of it. That is the bitter part of living in a city with too much on. I did, in my defence, go to a very good party on the Thursday of the second week, and I stand by the decision, although the crazy quilt was a heavy cost.
What Is Still On
Woven Lives in Spitalfields, by Chris Dyson with Christopher Farr, is themed around a Huguenot family, and the listing says it is free. The Spitalfields weaving trade has a long history in this part of London, and a room dated 1695 is a sensible place to think about it. I stood there for far too long, Diary. A guard gave me the sort of look that a guard gives a woman who has been staring at a loom for fifteen minutes. I gave it back with a nod of professional respect.
The museum also ran a series called Textile Object Encounters from 8 to 12 September and on 15 and 16 September. The listing says visitors could see rarely displayed textiles from the Collections Store, including a Bayeux-inspired embroidered panel and a seventeenth-century Flemish verdure tapestry. That listing says it has now ended. I mention it because it is a lovely reminder that museums keep very good things in the cupboard and let them out only for a week.
My Past With This Museum
I have been writing about it for years, and I am pleased to say that the staff have never once asked me to stop. My first proper piece, a guide, is the post on the Museum of the Home and its rooms through the ages, in which I walked from the 1600s to the present and gave every sofa a personality. A few weeks later I wrote a short comic report, the museum confirming that its 1970s lounge triggers involuntary memory. That one drew more letters than anything I have ever written, mostly from people who still own the lamp.
My favourite is the third, the museum confirming that nobody knows where the Victorians charged their phones. It is a small joke, and it is exactly the sort of joke a history girl should tell: take the past seriously enough to ask a silly question about it. I recommend a look, and I recommend a visit more.
Why Textiles Belong In A Diary Like This
People sometimes think of arts and crafts as a cosy hobby. It is not. It is a record of who had the time, the money and the daylight. A weaver in Spitalfields in the 1600s or 1700s worked under conditions we would not tolerate in a coffee shop, and the loom is the closest thing we have to a surviving diary. I find that moving. I also find it useful, because it keeps me honest when I am tempted to write something glib about a Tuesday.
At Bohiney Magazine, where I contribute from time to time, the instruction is to be funny first. At prat.UK it is to be funny and accurate. In a museum, the instruction is to be quiet, and I find that the three compete for the same part of my brain. I tend to come out with a notebook of observations and a flat white I am too embarrassed to finish.
A Little More Context
If you want the bigger view of how London comedy handles a place like this, I keep the starting point on my London satire page. And for a quick laugh after a long day with a loom, the Daily Squib is reliably dry. It does not mention Huguenots. It does not need to.
The tea is cold, the garden is quiet and the thread in my notebook is still there. I think I will leave it as a bookmark. Goodnight, Diary. May all your seams be straight and your sofas be properly named.
SOURCE: bohiney.com