Been a long time: Summer catch up.

(Guest blog post from Elliot: 6 months, below.)
saß rtx

And now onto the more serious matter of catching up ...

Firstly, as usual, may I apologise for the sporadic approach to blogging for A Crafty Coffee. No excuses, it's me on my own because, although Emma is back in it ... they have a new addition to the family ... Megan arrived when I was away camping in beautiful Dorset. She's the cutest Tibetan Terrier (don't be fooled by the name, she is not in fact a terrier at all).




Craft wise, the summer is proving to be an opportunity to try out new things. Next to me right now, Stephanie and Alison are teaching Lisa to crochet. She may be a recovering perfectionist, but she's just been told to "love the mistakes" and appeared genuinely relieved to not have to unpick all of her hard work. Result.
At the weekend, my daughter and I tried out a jewellery recycling workshop at The Lounge Café. Go to The Inexpert Crafter to see more on that one.
Then, in the week, Karen and her youngest and myself and my youngest went to Poppies Crafts (no I have not missed an apostrophe) to try out Decopatch. We're beginning to think Chr*stm*s (shhhhhhh), only in terms of an event and some kind of crafty social though, I promise.
I've also observed people sewing in name tapes, which represents a shift in season, lifewise and cyclewise, Steph has one starting pre-school, I have one starting secondary school, Ruth has one in a care home (not a child of course, but a grandparent) ...




More than one of the group are returning to work, which is making them sad in the sense that they don't want to miss out on A Crafty Coffee. Born out of this, Alison and Ruth are looking into the possibility of starting a splinter group, on a Tuesday evening at The Lounge. There is a real need for people to be able to maintain contact with the group, and also for us to patronise local, small businesses to enable them to stay afloat in such trying times. All round, I think this is a wonderful idea. I am happy and confident to facilitate and publicise the second group, and really want it to share the name and identity that we have established with A Crafty Coffee, but I imagine the group will ultimately take its own shape because of the market it will draw. I have high hopes for it, and am thrilled to hear that Jenni at The Lounge is keen to support it too.

Background

Upon waking, it occurred to me that neither Coffee nor myself had posted any background to the group.

Since about September, Coffee has been teaching me how to knit, and encouraging me to pick up other crafts along the way. She is enormously talented, creative, skilled, intelligent, has a thirst for knowledge (meaning she has started more than one degree course (Coffee: Hey! I object. Although, come to think of it, you have a point...)) and has been a great help to me.

So, we have been meeting to craft together in her lovely little home. In October, this great Lounge Bar opened in the High Street and we began to take our crafts down there once a week (sometimes more as Coffee really does like her Coffee). Being on the High Street, Trago Lounge gets a lot of passing traffic and before long people were popping in for a cuppa, noticing us crafting away and telling us we should start a group.

Having sown (or should I say sewn) the seed, these people came and went, as did many others before we took seriously the need for a group in the area we inhabit. We knew that a knitting group would be too exclusive and that there are knitting groups already. We had a sense that we needed to be more encompassing than that. And, being the brilliant procrastinators we both are, we put it off to think some more.

Finally, we had a few snowy days off school, and as cabin fever set in, we found ourselves in a position to abandon our children in the care of others to frequent our favourite Lounge with a little knitting. It was on this day, Friday the 8th of January 2010 that A Crafty Coffee began its journey.

We anticipate this group evolving, relationships deepening, craft skills improving and caffeine addictions worsening over the coming year! A Crafty Coffee (as the title suggests) gives people a license to craft over coffee in an environment where the washing/ironing/vacuuming etc can't get in the way. We extend a warm welcome to all of you who choose to join in, weekly, monthly, or on an ad hoc basis.