The Rug Aid Rug Rave - 21st November 2009, gallery 3 of 6 Rug makers from the City of Durham's Clayport Matters Group held their Rug Rave in a community centre in the city. It was well publicised and atttracted a large number of people, including members of other ruh hooking groups (Woodhorne, Lune Valley, Tyne Dale, Lucker and Earsdon) and some people who were new to rug making.

Rug Rave, City of Durham 1 The community of rug makers in the north east of England has been tremendously supportive of Rug Aid since the beginning. Here are the people who attended the Rug Rave - Heather is front left and Elsie Shaw, the chair of Durham Clayport Matters, is second from the right in the front line.		Rug Rave, City of Durham 2 As they hold up their versions of the special Rug Rave design, you get an idea just how talented this group of rug makers are.		Rug Rave, City of Durham 3 The blindfold helps simulate blindness, Margaret, and does the wig help too? It looks great and tells me that you really enjoyed your day. That's Heather's husband Les just behind Margaret in the Newton Hall Community Centre, Durham.
Rug Rave, City of Durham 4 The Rug Rave coincided with Heather's 65th birthday, and that marked her retirement from formal teaching. To mark the occasion, the Durham Clayport Matters made three fantastic bags for her which fit together like Russian dolls.		Rug Rave, City of Durham 5 Each member of the Durham Clayport Matters made a square and they were joined together. Between the inner and outer layers is a quantity of lavender which makes the bags smell heavenly.		Rug Rave, City of Durham 6 And the Durham Clayport Matters group arranged for Heather to get a cake: it had a rug frame on top and was purple for the heather. Between Heather and Elsie you can see the fantastic banner the Clayport Matter bought for Rug Aid: thank you very much!
Rug Rave, City of Durham 7 The group organised a 'bring and buy' sale which showed yet more of their talents: hand made greetings cards, painted glass, hand bound note books, jewellery, poetry - what clever people!		Rug Rave, City of Durham 8 Always keen to find ways to raise extra funds, the group held a raffle. First prize was Joan Coombe's beautiful version of the Rug Rave rug, which was won by Elsie Shaw.		Rug Rave, City of Durham 9 Amongst the people at the Durham Rug Rave are some of the congregation of St Nicholas' church in the city centre who used the opportunity to meet in a large space to work on their community rug.
Rug Rave, City of Durham 10 All members of the group worked blindfolded for 30 minutes to get an idea of the difficulties facing Rug Aid's blind trainees in The Gambia. Heather made the blindfolds from new African cottons which she bought in Serrekunde.		Rug Rave, City of Durham 11 I have seldom seen such an appropriate birthday cake - whoever designed this got it exactly right! The 'frame' holds a length of 'fabric' with the words Happy Birthday Heather, and it's all edible: yum!		Rug Rave, City of Durham 12 Heather is holding her wonderful birthday presents as she stands in front of the Rug Aid banner (right) and the Durham Clayport banner (left) between (from left to right) Margaret Thompson, Chris Steele and Val Henderson.