Yarn Cafe
The Yarn Cafe is a community group in North Berwick, East Lothian, which grew out of an initial idea to create community-knitted bunting for the town’s Fringe by the Sea festival.
The group has since grown to include members of all abilities and ages, from 6 to 96, and has been at the forefront of various creative community projects, using textile art to raise funds and awareness for local groups such as the East Lothian Foodbank, the North Berwick Harbour Trust, North Berwick in Bloom, and the RNLI.
Yarn Cafe's Pieces for Forgotten Fleece Tales
This beautiful curtain of waste-wool flowers was collaboratively made by members of North Berwick’s Yarn Cafe, as well as members of the wider community, as part of the town’s Fringe by the Sea festival.
The project utilises textile waste from the Yarn Cafe’s previous projects, as well as production waste from businesses such as Harley of Scotland in Peterhead, Eribe in Melrose and Galashiels, and Lochcarron in Selkirk. This material includes yarn, selvedge strips, tweed and tartan scraps, and knitted sample swatches.
This waste wool has been transformed into a many-hued curtain of flowers, using different techniques including knitting, crochet, embroidery, appliqué, felting and weaving. The curtain is inspired by the Fringe by the Sea festival's 2026 theme of flowers, which honours the North Berwick in Bloom community group.
Created over several open community sessions, the project allowed contributors complete creative freedom to work at their own time and pace, then brought the community together to assemble the individual flowers into a curtain along a driftwood pole.