*** Brid Doherty *** Co-Founder and Writer ***
I learned to knit in primary school at the tender age of six however after many dropped stitches and ensuing tantrums, I cast it aside for many years. I picked it up again when I was 16. A friend started going to a local knitting club and I was very intrigued by the idea so decided to accompany her.
In one evening I was converted and became obsessed. From that evening on, I nearly always have a project that I'm working on and much of my time is spent dreaming up the next things I want to make!
Aside from knitting, I'm currently finishing up a Masters in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice and doing an internship with Amnesty International. I'm very interested in women's rights and feminism! I'm also a yoga fiend, swimmer and an enthusiastic cook!
I am a bit of a generalist when it comes to crafting. My projects vary wildly but always result in a bedroom or kitchen table that looks like a bomb has hit! Projects I've featured on CraftyStudents include dressmaking, hat-making, crocket, paper crafts and cooking. I've also had a sideline business for a while now sourcing and selling vintage smalls - travelling cases, typewriters, record players ect and sometimes I feature that here too.
My mum is the reason I caught the crafting bug. She had this old drawer where she kept bits and pieces. As a kid I remember repeatedly cajoling her into opening it and showing me its contents. There was something ritualistic about unfolding each thing, wrapped in its own parcel of crisp clean tissue paper and finding a mohair baby blanket, a 1950s dinner-dance dress, a Victorian bustle, some old Irish lace, a glass jar of jade and brass buttons or skein after skein of brightly coloured embroidery threads. The feel and rustle of fabrics, the shock of colours, the craftsmanship and most of all the way she'd use these little treasures to tell me about different times and different worlds, had me utterly hooked before I had a chance to know what was going on. She soon had me, spurred on by the contents of that drawer, whizzing up things on our sewing machine, a great old yoke with an over zealous motor and a dodgy foot peddle.
I think I have always enjoyed sticking things together, cutting my clothes up, colouring things in (rarely staying inside the lines) and making biscuits. Like Brid, I was a terrible knitter when I first learned in school, but she inspired me to get back into it about a year ago, and taught me how to follow a pattern. The first thing I made was, naturally, a brachiosaurus. I find it supremely relaxing, and excellent finger exercise.
In real life I am a theatre maker and drama facilitator, and my main crafty interests are projects that emerge in some of the gaps between people, art, craft, urban public spaces, plants, food and performance. Hence my latest obsessions---yarn bombing, chalk graffiti, and pop-up parks and installations.
*** Natalie Voorheis *** Co-Founder and Writer **
My mum is the reason I caught the crafting bug. She had this old drawer where she kept bits and pieces. As a kid I remember repeatedly cajoling her into opening it and showing me its contents. There was something ritualistic about unfolding each thing, wrapped in its own parcel of crisp clean tissue paper and finding a mohair baby blanket, a 1950s dinner-dance dress, a Victorian bustle, some old Irish lace, a glass jar of jade and brass buttons or skein after skein of brightly coloured embroidery threads. The feel and rustle of fabrics, the shock of colours, the craftsmanship and most of all the way she'd use these little treasures to tell me about different times and different worlds, had me utterly hooked before I had a chance to know what was going on. She soon had me, spurred on by the contents of that drawer, whizzing up things on our sewing machine, a great old yoke with an over zealous motor and a dodgy foot peddle.
In the real world I'm an MA student of Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors.
*** Joan Somers Donnelly *** Writer ***
In real life I am a theatre maker and drama facilitator, and my main crafty interests are projects that emerge in some of the gaps between people, art, craft, urban public spaces, plants, food and performance. Hence my latest obsessions---yarn bombing, chalk graffiti, and pop-up parks and installations.
