Hobbycraft is opening a new store in King’s Lynn after seeing a rise in demand in lockdown.

The new store, opening on Tuesday in the Hardwick Retail Park, has also enlisted experts to inspire customers to get creative. Members of the crafting team include crochet experts Sarah and Debbie, knitting expert Michele, and needle felting expert Janine.

Customers can get a sneak preview of the new store on the Hobbycraft Facebook page.

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The store will offer customers a wide range of crafting products, and will also have a dedicated ‘Custom Crafting area’ which allows people to personalise items.

Store manager Jenna McDonald said: “We are really looking forward to opening the doors to our Kings Lynn store and share our passion for arts and crafts with the community. We’ve been working really hard to ensure that the store will be packed full of the most exciting crafting products, which will help our customers create handmade masterpieces.”

It comes as Hobbycraft revealed searches for cross-stitch kits skyrocketed in lockdown, up by more than 345% as well as searches increase for ‘cross-stitch for beginners’ up 729%, ‘cross-stitch thread’ up 499%, ‘cross-stitch patterns’ up 150% and ‘cross-stitch frames’ up 85%.”

“Customers were looking for ways to keep themselves entertained and were using this time to either take on new projects, learn new skills are reignite old passions,” said Katherine Paterson, customer director at Hobbycraft.