We finished a very sucessful summer on the canals at the floating market in the centre of Birmingham, where we not only met up with other traders, but also with the top brass of the Canal and River Trust (CRT). This was particularly usuful for us, as on return to Hawne Basin we were to complete on the purchase of our second boat! The intention is to refit this boat as a Gallery and Workshop.

This is a very exciting project for us, the aim is to have a Gallery on the boat, so that our customers can come aboard to view our jewellery, in all weathers, rather than standing on the towpath, and to provide us with a bigger workshop. Additional workshop space will give us the opportunity to run courses aboard the boat at various locations around the canal system, so watch this space if you are interested in learning how we make our jewellery.

This ‘New’ boat is 25 years old and in need of a complete refit in order to make it into ‘THE GLASS BARGE’. We completed the purchase on 1st October and she was craned out of the water onto the hardstanding on 1st November.  

Andrew has started the process of stripping out the interior and Tony (boat builder) is remodelling the  stern and bow for us. It is going to be a lot of work and take up much of our time, but we hope the result will be worthwhile.

We will try to post progress pictures as we go so that you can see the transformation as it happens.