Country Life
VILLAGE STUFFS.
Wherever I travel among English counties I find that local weaving flourishes surprisingly in many villages where it is taken up. I suppose that the most successful—and artistic—of village weavers were in Wiltshire where Miss Lovibond, now Lady Hedley, worked in effective co-operation between her skill in design and the villager's more mechanical skill and zeal in working the looms. The stuffs fetched the highest prices in the best London shops and the demand was greater than the supply. Whether it is due to this example or to the general encouragement of village arts and crafts, I do not know, but from South Wales to East Suffolk you may now find little groups of weavers (of whom perhaps the so called Inval weavers are the best known) turning out beautiful stuffs for which there is much more than sufficient demand. If village women were less afraid of the cost of the hand looms, the industry would be doubled to-morrow.
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