Making Club

In my last post on how to naturally dye yarn with cochineal, I wrote about my friend Carolyne, how me met on Facebook and what brought us together. 

When you try your hand at something new, like soap making and jewellery making was for me, you do it primarily out of need to give outlet to your creativity (or because you have too much time on your hands...) and not because you strive for aknowledgement, but it is important that you have someone to support you allong the way. Someone to appreciate the effort, the act of making or remodelling something. Someone to give you an advice when you need one. Someone to share your crafts with.

I have other friends who are talented, crafty ladies, people I knew longer than Carolyne, but it was she who first suggested it would be great if we could send eachother some of the things we made with our own hands. I agreed.

So... pretty soon a package came for me from London with beautiful green scarf knitted by Carolyne and two jars of homemade chutney. In return, I sent her some of my handmade soaps.

After a while, this idea took root and one more crafter joined us. Quin is a computer programmer and a musician from Australia who likes to crochet in her spare time. I met her trough Carolyne and that's how our litle club came to exist. That was last summer.

Since then, we've been exchanging handmade gifts every month or so. We take turns every month or every other month (all three of us are known to procrestinate, so we don't keep grudge when packages are late) and send our goodies to other two making club members. Hopefully soon, our little club will grow to have more members, I already have couple of wonderfull, creative persons in mind.

Quin sent us this lovely crocheted bag, mine was in purple and pink and my 7 year old daughter has claimed it for herself immediately. 

Carolyne uses hers to store knitting needles.

Belated October parcel from me, I sent it in December after a long procrestination. Bookmark was made from alpaca yarn Carolyne has sent me in August

These are the goodies Carolyne sent us last month

My best friends live far from me and in the first years of my life here in Greece we've been sending eachother letters, postcards and small gifts very often. 

Not anymore. Skype has entered our life and when we feel like hanging out in spite of the distance, we just chat on skype or use camera. 

Paperless comunication might be eco friendly and immediate, but I must say I've been missing those moments of anticipation just before opening letters and then sitting with a cup of coffee to read those couple of pages someone took time and care to write. 

Sharing your crafts with others this way is just such a wholesome, gratifying experience. You get to give and receive joy and what's more important than that?