This is a guest post from the wonderful professional textile artists, Jane and Nic, that meet in our cafe for a knitting club every Thursday 11am-2pm. Come and join for some knitting and knattering! Everyone welcome, whatever your level.
This blog first appeared on Jane’s blog. Copyright to all words and images remain with her and are published with permission. You can follow Jane on Twitter at @probablyjane.
Most Thursday lunchtimes my friend Nic and I plus as many crafty people as we can gather, steal away from our busy lives and gather in the cafe at Stepney City Farm to knit, crochet, drink coffee, eat cake and have lunch. It has become a real oasis of calm for us and we have been made really welcome by the team, who know us as ‘Their Knitters’.
A few weeks ago the Farm announced a crowd funding appeal to help them raise the funds that they needed to keep the farm providing the important service to the community that it does so Nic and I decided that it was our opportunity to pay something back for the wonderful times that we have spent there. We offered places on a “Learn to Knit’ workshop in return for donations and yesterday we delivered on our promise.
We provided yarn, needles, project bags and other goodies to three enthusiastic beginners who were a pleasure to teach. There were also drinks and chocolates provided by the Farm but I was too late to photograph the chocolate…
Everyone mastered casting on, knit, purl and casting off.
Some ambitious souls decided to branch out into crochet and someone even had to make an emergency call to the local yarn shop for supplies on the way home!
I love watching the different ways people hold yarn and needles and hooks – it’s as individual as a signature.
I think it’s true to say that we enjoyed ourselves just as much as the participants. We are in discussions with the Farm about more yarn and fibre based activities later in the year but in the meantime please come and join us on a Thursday lunchtime and I’m sure that you will fall in love with the place as much as we have.