One of the coolest parts of 2020…and something super lucky…was that I got to travel to London back in March with By Hand Serial for their 12th issue. (Click here to see the VT/NH By Hand Blog) Lucky because this was literally days before the shut downs were starting to happen and travel bans were being put into place due to Covid. I can’t believe this all worked out! We went in mid-March and a few days after we got back the UK had banned travel and life as we all knew it was changing. Covid was definitely a concern when we traveled but it’s really hard to believe that we galavanted around the city without masks on! We sanitized our hands and anything we touched but wow, it’s so strange to look back on!
Through out the trip we went to different shops, interviewed makers, and ate our weight in pastries!! Seriously, the sugar addiction was strong and for some reason we found the best brownies all over the place haha. Our favorite bakery was Bread Ahead Bakery where we also got to take a bread baking class. It was so much fun! I loved all the little shops and tiny grocery store we found with incredible fresh food. I may have ran back one day for the best espresso eclair!
Dealing with city traffic and rain were definitely some of the biggest challenges we faced but we powered through it. We walked a ton and met some wonderful people! It’s funny because we didn’t really see any of the iconic British features …besides the red telephone booths. I saw London Bridge and Big Ben from the plane ride in haha but I am going to need to go back to see some Harry Potter filming places sometime. I also recently dove into some genealogy and found my mom’s side goes right back to England and possibly some royalty – need to look more into that especially if I visit again!
My absolute favorite place we went to was Rye. It’s a quaint little seaside town and it has the lovely old cobble stone roads, and mossy rooftops. I was able to wander around there for a few hours taking photos. I feel like they weren’t able to capture it well enough though, you just have to be there. You can feel how old it is and it was a foggy misty day which really played into the look of it all.
I will leave the rest of the story up to the photos, but also if you want to know more I encourage you to go to By Hand Serial and take a look at their beautiful books and maybe order one or subscribe if you love travel, crafts, knitting, sewing, and more!
THE TWELFTH ISSUE OF BY HAND TRAVELS TO LONDON AND FEATURES:
Shop Talk: Liberty London
Workshop: Natural Dyeing with Botanical Inks
ShopTalk: Cloth House
Workshop: Sewing with Merchant & Mills
Outing: Kew Gardens
Workshop: Baking with Bread Ahead
Day Trip: Brighton Beach
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