A month between posts, it’s not good enough and I promise that won’t happen again. I’ve settled into my new job nicely and am able to commit myself back to crafting again, now that I am able to stay awake when I get home from work.

The most exciting news is that after a lovely chat with Sister Diane from Portland Church of Craft, I have been approved as a Flock Leader for Church of Craft ! It’s all official and it feels almost as exciting as when I graduated from university (which was probably the most important day of my life so far). Crafting means so much to me and has sustained me through some tough times, to have somebody else recognise this in me and feel that I am the right person to spread crafty love is amazing. Sister Diane is one of my many crafty heroes (Susanstars is one of my others and it was Susan who first planted the seed of Church of Craft in my brain).

So Church of Craft will be meeting for crafty fun and frollicks very soon, less than two weeks in fact.
We’ll be meeting on Sunday 24th June at FUEL Cafe in Withington from 1pm to 4pm.

This month’s project will be felting wool into beads and jewellry as well as the chance to use pre formed felt to create appliques and small accessories.

Everybody is welcome and the session is free although donations are welcome. There will also be the chance to swap craft supplies, so if you have a bag of beads you will never use, some yarn that is languishing in the corner or card making supplies you just don’t have anywhere to store, bring them along and trade them for something else.

For more information just leave a comment. Soon I’ll have a churchofcraft email address where you can contact me, but for now you can email me at notmarcie AT livejournal DOT com

Oh my, it’s a while since I wrote anything here.

With changing jobs and ISPs I’ve been off-line for a while, but that didn’t stop me being crafty. In fact, Sunday 29th of April saw Manchester’s first ever Church of Craft meeting.
With 6 people it was a lovely size for getting to know people and being able to spend time talking as well as crafting. We did a project I love and have wanted to do for some time, making creatures from socks. This project is so much fun because each creature develops its own personality as you sew him or her together. I don’t think you could make two the same if you tried, each time you make one they have their own little quirks, a big wide mouth or a squishy little belly.Plus they’re so soft and huggable. One crafter said, “You just want to keep picking them up and touching them.”

I was able to get a few quick snaps of all but one of the finished sock creatures andKaty has promised to bring her amazing black and yellow striped fella along to the next meeting so everybody can see him too.

Pins N Needles is on again tomorrow, but this time at a brand new venue.

We have moved to FUEL in Withington. So that those people who just can’t make it onto the 42 bus can still come and knit. Plus there are good eats to be had.

Once again I’ll be bringing the big bag of yarn and needles as well as crochet hooks so if anybody wants to learn they can do.

Now is the time to start crocheting or knitting a big beach bag, the weather is nice, summer is almost here and you’ll need something to chuck your beach stuff in. Or the more daring might want to knit a bikini (it can be done, although not by me !)

I’d love to see you there, especially those people who haven’t been able to come before.

Oh and we now have a My Space profile. It’s a little bare right now and also a little bit friendless www.myspace.com/pinsnneedles_mcr

I love love love it when crafting gets into the mainstream media. If it makes just one person pick up some fabric, needle and thread and make something, then I get a little warm glow. It’s this feeling that has inspired me to set up my own chapter of Church of Craft in Manchester.

I was really happy to read this little article in the Guardian , it really cheered up  my bus ride to work.  It also inspired me to make time to finish the three sewing projects I have going on at the moment.  There is the smocked dress from the great UK craft book Making Stuff (weirdly, I have the exact same fabric, although I used a purple rather than blue. I had planned to make cushions from it, but the dress was too good to resist). I’ve also got the a-line skirt I am making from upholstery fabric, which I need to make a waist band for and then I need to sew together the bag I made. Pictures to follow of each when they’re done.

Actually it was sewing that brought me to the online craft community and the old version of www.getcrafty.com not long after Jean Railla had founded it, I followed a link for making a skirt from a pillow case (we’re back to making skirts out of non-dress making fabric) and it all grew from there. Okay, so it took me about another 3 years before I sewed anything, but it was a start. From tiny seeds grow big trees and from one stitch grows a huge love of crafting.

I am really very happy to announce that Manchester will now have it’s very own chapter of Church of Craft.

 The first meeting will take place on 29th April 2007 at Fuel Cafe in Withington. We will meet at 1 om until around 4pm and our first project will be sock monsters. All you need to bring is your good self and a clean (but not necessarily new) pair of socks, in fact not even a pair, just tow socks of the same kinda of material that look good together. Stripey knee socks are especially good. I’ll bring everything else you might need.

Please pass this on to anybody you might thin be interested, I’d love to be able to grow Manchester into an even more creative city than it already is.

The crochet club for knitters (or the knitting club for crocheters) is back and will be on this Sunday at the Cornerhouse cafe. Whether you  knit, crochet, knot, embroider, so long as you can fit it in your bag, you’re welcome to join Pins n Needles in their pin and needle based adventures.

 We’re meeting at 1pm on the 1st floor of the Cornerhouse on the 1st of April. Don’t be an April fool, come and play with yarns and make something amazing.

Ikea, the staple of every student home. I’m sitting here in my living room with dining table and chairs, a coffee table, shelving and a cd rack all from Ikea (the coffee table is the landlord’s, the rest is mine and my partner’s). It’s functional, cheap and not horrific looking, but those very same factors mean that 50% of my friends have at least two items of furniture the same as mine. Which is all very well, but I hate it even when they have the same shoes as me, never mind the same home decorating.

That’s why I LOVE Ikea Hacker. The dress from Ikea’s Belinda fabric is adorable and I would definitely wear it (my talented and charming friend Karina Jean was the first person who made me start looking at furnishing fabrics for making clothes, I am just finishing a skirt made from pear printed curtain fabric). I am actually in love with fabric I think and the Belinda fabris is very loveable. I might have to go to Ashton to declare my love. And buy enough for cushions (or a dress).

My bed is also Ikea, but I broke one of the headboard panels about 5 years ago, when I kicked it (bedroom karate, more hazardous that you think !) if I can’t fix it with the wonderglue I bought last week, I might just do my own Ikea hacking and make a big soft headboard instead. I’ll have to talk to my partner in love and crime and see what he thinks. If I do it, I’ll be sure to post pictures.

I was thinking this morning on my way to work how exciting all the craft fairs that go on. Felt Club,  Bazaar Bizzare, the Bust Craftacular and Crafty Wonderland. I’ve never attended any, I just visit vicariously through pictures and write ups. 

I’ve always felt quite sad that the same things didn’t seem to happen here.   There are still plenty of traditional craft fairs going on, and these can sometimes be a source of unexpected excellent finds as well as a hiding the odd piece unintentional kitsch or retro crafting, but you can only take so many pine-cones fashioned into hedgehogs before you start wondering just how easy it would be to start making crocheted toilet roll ladies and if there is good money in it.

I even wondered if I should take the initiative and see if I could start one. Then I realised that with the project I am trying to start, Pins N Needles (the knitting club for crocheters or the crochet club for knitters), my own craft desires and well, that whole having a job, needing to sleep thing, it was unlikely.

 When I got to work, I procrastinated by clearing out old emails and what did I find but an 17 month old email from my friend V, with a link to Craftermath a great website with  a much f/punnier name than my own. As well as planning a whole host of craft fairs across the UK, there’s also a blog, a forum and heaps of links to loads of UK crafters.

It’s lovely to find that out there, there are plenty of crafters busily working away in the craft underground to create amazing items that you migh actually, you know, wear or have in your home. I hope that once the secret crafty project gets of the ground, I’ll be able to tempt some of these crafters over to the streets of Manchester

One of my favourite shops in Manchester, in fact probably anywhere, is Fred Aldous. It’s this amazing craft shop in a basement just at the edge of Piccadilly Gardens.

It stocks just about everything you can imagine for crafting, from beads to felt to paints, canvases, mosaic tiles, feathers and plaster. I love it. The stock is really well considered and clearly arranged, but there is always this feeling that you’re going to stumble on an amazing little treasure.

And that’s just what happened recently. I went in to buy some more Fimo (I’ve rediscovered how much I love it in the last few weeks) and I found a fantastic selection of glues ! It’s something that I never really think about until I am trying to stick one thing to another.

Glue, although essential is just nowhere near as exciting or visually appealing as beads or fabric or yarn or embroidery threads. With the other items you can immediately start appreciate the future projects, play around with colour contrasts and textures and just enjoy the sheer visual feast.

In comparison glue just can’t compete . As a consequence, I admit I tend to forget about it completely with the end result that some of my crafty projects have been stuck with bog-standard UHU glue (and even Pritt Stick). I can tell you that neither of these make for a happy crafter or long term project. Ever tried sticking plastic to metal with UHU ? I have, and whilst it’s fun to pull all the glue off as the project comes apart yet again, that’s not really the project I was aiming for.

I’m afraid of epoxies, the smell, the mess, the mixing. So I was super happy to find Crafter’s Pick Ultimate (or maybe that should be ULTIMATE). It works as straight up glue as well as a rubber cement and so far the two trials I’ve done with it have been great.I’ve used it on polymer clay and for gluing plastic buttons to earring backs. It’s reasonably priced too, which is even better when I’m crafting in the week after bills have been paid but before payday.

Glue, boring yet amazing.

Manchester is a large city in the North West of England. Or as Mrs Bonsall, my high school French teacher, would have it Manchester est une grande ville dans le nord l’ouest de l’Angleterre.

You probably know at least one thing that came out of Manchester. A council bye-law requires that I must mention The Smiths and  Joy Division as well as the football teams. We didn’t just contribute to the worlds of sports and music. We also played a large part in developing the ideas of Fredrich Engels and Karl Marx. Engels wrote The Conditions of The Working Class in England based on the lives of  Mancunian cotton workers during the industrial revolution

Manchester only really grew into a city during the industrial revolution. Manchester has the ideal climate (i.e damp and rainy) to spin cotton. From just one cotton mill in 1783, there were 108 in 1853. This part of Lancashire had always had many weavers both of cotton and wool, but industrialisation saw the population grow from 70, 000 in 1801 to 303,000 in just 50 years.

“Very interesting” you say “But what has this to do with crafts ?”

Well, Cottonopolis, as Manchester was known, was one of the first industrial cities in the world. The cotton mills saw work that was previously done by hand being moved to mass production levels. It was one of the first examples of skilled work being increasingly mechanised, making goods cheaper and more accessible. It was perhaps the first steps to the consumerist world we live in now, where good are increasingly produced by machine rather than hand and when traditional skills and craftsmanship began to lose their value.

I really love the idea of helping to grow a thriving craft scene in Manchester against this historical backdrop. Of creating a community where craftsmanship is valued, where taking time to produce a one off item is part of the process and the process is as enjoyable as the end product.