Heart Space Knit & Stitch Club
The idea for starting up a stitching and knitting club is that like – minded people can meet and make together one evening a week, Thursday, from 7.30 – 9.30 pm. We welcome people at all levels of experience who are willing to share time, ideas, materials and skills with others, so that complete beginners can be taught the basics of knitting and sewing by experienced makers who in turn can develop their own skills by adding new ideas, techniques and materials to their repertoire.
We have got together a small and committed group of people who can help at every level; they are experienced teachers and designer/makers who will act as leaders for each session.
We plan to open the studios on a 3 weekly rolling programme, with a different emphasis on separate weeks; so Knit one week, Stitch the next, followed by a week where the 2 main groups can all meet to swap ideas. The knitters could get some input on embellishing knitwear by beading or embroidery, the stitchers could find out how to crochet edgings or find new surfaces to work with. Or we could use the combined week to introduce a new idea – up-cycling, i.e. converting an old worn jumper into something useful, turn those scraps of fabrics into a corsage or appliqué.
Every so often we can have a relaxed Bring Your Own work and a bottle, to just sit and make together with a glass of wine or a nice cup of tea. This would also be the week to buy and sell stuff; we have wonderful yarns available for sale and bags of fabrics made up from our own stashes, perfect for all types of projects and a local, well known craft shop is seeking out new and unusual materials for us to experiment with, like knitting yarn made for felting…..
We even have enough room for people to come to every weekly session regardless of what the main activity is – so that a group of knitters could just come and knit together with no leader involved, whilst the stitchers are having a lead session in another studio. And we have plenty of room to spread out larger pieces of work, like quilts and patchworks, so that getting things finished is easier than clearing the dining room table…. and there are experts on hand to give advice and tips on alternative ways of making stuff.
As it is will be run as a club, the members can decide what sort of things they want to experience. There will be opportunities to develop work to the standard required for selling or exhibiting, sessions on how to stretch, mount and photograph work – a priority if you want to get into any exhibitions or use images for your own web site. Heart Space Studios has a small retail and exhibition area for the more ambitious to branch out.
There is a joining fee for the first 3 monthly trial period of £30.00, payable in advance. This means that if you come to every session it will cost you the princely sum of £2.50 a week, plus a small weekly voluntary contribution towards tea, coffee and biscuits to which you can help yourself. On the sessions where a leader provides special materials for a project, there may be materials costs as well. If you want to bring a friend along then we will charge £5 per session, if that friend joins this will go towards the cost of the joining fee.
BUT – to make this whole idea work we need lots of people to sign up for the first 3 months (that takes us to mid March) then we will see how well the idea works and how the members want to develop it further.If you have already been to the Heart Space workshops, you know what we can offer you personally, and you can sign up immediately or come to see us and our newly stocked ‘everything textile’ shop.
