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19 November 2016

The Dream Craft Room Catch Up


I've recently gained a craft room! I can't tell you how excited I am about this!  This room in the house has seen so many makeovers I've almost lost count, eldest daughter's bedroom, office, Reiki Treatment room, eldest daughter's bedroom again, office again, boarder's room.. now it's a craft room.  I'm seriously hoping it gets to stay as a craft room for a very long time, if only because I have NO idea where I stored all this stuff before or where I'd store it again after.

I was sitting here this morning meandering through Facebook and Instagram.  The Scheepjes Bloggers are about to have a get together. To be sat around a table with that bunch of women!  Bec from Three Bags Full Crochet and I often joke about how we'd love to gatecrash a Scheepjes Bloggers weekend. We've yet to figure how we could actually do that, but we love to dream.

Then there were a multitude of Facebook posts with a picture of an empty bench asking who you'd like to sit and chat with for an hour.  Well a normal person would and does mention a lost loved one. Not me, my mind started imagining who I'd love to have sit around my craft room table with. Who are my Dream Team. That list got pretty extensive pretty quickly.  The craft room isn't that big!

There are of course my friends Mel and Priss who are at my house regularly,  Bec, Tash from Buttonnose Crochet, Steph from Faery's Fancies, Fiona from Kellys Krochet and Kristi from Crafterglow Gifts. These girls are my friends, we're geographically challenged in so many ways and to get any two of us together in one space would take a lot of travel!

So in a dream world where the craft room was basically hotel sized who would I add to my list?  I've limited myself to five. I had to because I have a very extensive imagination and a stadium sized craft room is just ridiculous!

It wouldn't be a Dream Team with Tammy from  Canadutch. I love this crazy woman's sense of humour, she cracks me up. Tammy would bring so much fun to the craft room, she's insanely talented, she has an unbelievable ability to stalk something or someone until she finds it and acts on the reason she was stalking in the first place (don't be scared, she's not THAT kind of stalker, but she's had me scouring the internet for glass knitting sculpture prices and goodness knows what else).  I've watched her moderate a massive Facebook group with fun, jokes, laughter, encouragement and occasionally a surprising fire and brimstone directness when it was needed. She talked me into picking up my knitting needles again, bombarded me with help and encouragement in learning to knit socks and will generally push me into trying something I am uncertain of. She once asked me if she'd ever led me astray yet? No she hasn't.  She's sitting at the craft table because I just love her to bits.  There are some people in life whom you may not have met, may never meet in person but you feel an instant connection with.  Tammy brings that feeling to me. And if anyone can help Bec and I figure how to crash a bloggers weekend Tammy is our girl!

Another love her to bits inclusion is Sarah Knight from Crafts from the Cwtch.  Wife, mother, blogger, knitter, crocheter.  Her talent, energy, willingness to help, encourage and advise is boundless! I often look at Sarah's blog, Facebook and Instagram pages and feel exhausted for her.  She needs a moment to breathe. She's at the craft table because I just want her to sit, I get exhausted just watching her from afar! We've joked about doing a house swap, I'm thinking the perfect time for that would be about the time of Yarndale, Yarn in the City, The Great London Yarn Crawl, all those wonderful yarny events that the UK offer. In return, she gets my beach. When I first revamped this blog, Sarah jumped in with some great advice for me, she constantly encourages me via my  Facebook and Instagram pages, I see people in awe of the name Sarah Knight, and rightly so, I've had people on FB message me saying "OMG Sarah Knight commented on your post!!!"..  Yep, Sarah is someone to admire for her talent in blogging and craft, but to me the admiration comes in her ability to chase her dreams and integrate them into her life as a wife and Mum. I'd willingly offer up my kids as babysitters to Sarah's children for the opportunity to go for coffee, shop and just hang out with Sarah, the person, not Sarah Knight the internet sensation.

Petah from Dingo Dyeworks is here. If you haven't seen Petah's beautiful hand dyed merino yarns, stop reading and go to the Dingo Dyeworks website NOW then come back and tell me how much you spent because you will spend, or you will have a wish list as big as mine! I have a very small collection of Petah's yarns, and the colours are sublime.  I've included Petah on the craft table catch up because again, like Sarah and Tammy, she is very generous in her encouragement, has a wealth of talent and knowledge to share, she knits, she dyes, she podcasts, I bought some of her yarns on Thursday night and joked that my debit card was threatening to cut itself up if I spent anymore.  It wasn't a joke. To justify the spend to myself this close to Christmas the dog, cats, turtle and frog have awesome Christmas presents for me!

The amount of time I've spent these past few months knitting and learning from Meg Gadsbey's patterns I'd be insanely stupid not to include her  at the craft table.  Again, another insanely talented, generous and encouraging lady that I would love to catch up with. I've been participating in Meg's KAL, my first ever KAL, and I may have become a wee bit obsessed with, I think, 3 contributions so far and another about to be finished. I'm pretty sure I have more than half of Meg's patterns just waiting to be tackled, although I'm a wee bit daunted by the more lacy ones (did anyone hear Tammy then saying "You will do lace!" with that 'dare you' tone?  It was Tammy who told me that I could do the Winterlight pattern, that it was JUST knit, purl and yarn overs. I'd never done a yarn over at that point and had to google how to!).  Doing Meg's patterns and learning to read a pattern has inspired me to attempt to design my own.

These are the women who inspire me and whom I could quite easily envisage going for coffee with.


Last but not least is Stephen West from Westknits! What craft room doesn't need the burst of colour that is Stephen West and that's just the colour on his person? I dream of tackling a Stephen West design (There's Tammy's voice again, "Dotted Rays, you CAN do it). and I will. I just love his colour, his daring in how he works with colour.  I love that he encourages everyone to try.  His alter ego Stephen Eastknits is a must watch on youtube! I can't remember when I laughed so hard as I did when I watched his 'how to wear a shawl' video!  I wonder how one goes about getting a life size cut out of Stephen?  Tammy???

There are so many other people I'd love to meet and chat with but you dont have all day to be here dreaming with me.

14 comments:

  1. I love this post Amanda!! I would gladly be your craft room get together... whether I'm invited or not lol

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    1. OMG.. you me and Tammy in one room? I dont know if the thought scares me or whether we should start planning a kidnapping attempt?

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  2. We'll be channeling you both when we meet up :-)

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  3. I'd gate crash too ;) In fact I'll put you up in my spare room which also doubles as my craft room. Perfect right :)

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    1. Between the three of us I'm sure we could take it in turns to piggy back each other to spy through a window.. or something. We're pretty well known my site in the LDOTB Cal Group I dont think we'd have too much trouble with Scheepjes security.. would we?

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  4. Hello! I found this post through Sarah's blog. I was lucky enough to bump into her at Unravel last year and we compared our luscious purchases. Actually some of them were the same! Your craft room dream team sounds great, I might have to crash it!

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    1. Elizabeth, feel free to crash! We're nice and we don't bite.. well I don't!

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  5. I think we have the same dream team!! I can't believe I'm friends with some of these girls either. Shall we leave an empty space at the table next week for you? Meanwhile, stop spending money on yarn and BOOK A FLIGHT! I have a bed, just waiting. But you have to bring pizza shapes.

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    1. You my dear girl, have a date with me next time your home so we might actually be the only two who do have that coffee and chat over the craft table! I'll supply pizza shapes until you beg for bbq shapes!

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  6. What a delightful list of people! You've given me lots of people to stalk in Tammy-fashion :) Sarah and Tammy are both wonderful girls and I love the way you have so accurately captured their personalities and strengths.

    Thank you for a pleasant diversion :)

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    1. Dedri, I'm glad you enjoyed this little bit of madness. :)

      You are pretty high up on the list too, like Sarah, anyone who can combine all that you do in a day AND crochet whilst walking barefoot through the streets of London deserves a place at my craft table, if only to be able to put your feet up for a bit. xxx

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