Crafts as a way of making new friends

Last week was a bit of an odd week, mostly taken up by traveling back from Belgium and to London and back for meetings so I never got round to updating my blog. Not to worry, I'll make up for it with two, possibly three posts this week, well why not, let's be daring!

Having worked at the Make Lounge in London for 14 months or so, I know first-hand that crafting is a great way to meet new people and make new friends. 

I'm normally a very social person and the most daunting thing about moving to Bristol, was to loose my circle of friends. Of course I didn't loose my friends, but they're no longer within easy reach and with my family in another country altogether, it can sometimes feel a bit isolating. 

Luckily for me, when I'd just moved here, a friend of a friend, who I know consider to be a friend in her own right, got in touch and invited me to join her craft club. It's been a great way to meet local people, with similar interests (or should that be addiction?). I'm ever so grateful to Jo for the invite and I always look forward to the next craft club meeting with anticipation. 

When we first moved, I was full of good intentions. I pictured myself walking door to door with a tin of cookies, introducing myself to all the neighbours. But of course I chickened out, after years of anonymous living in London, I was scared people would think I was a bit weird and imposing on them. Yet my neighbours look like truly lovely people and I really wanted to meet some of them. Part of the idea when we moved down here was to become part of a community.

So, having made the resolution at the start of the year that I would face up to my fears, big and small, I took the courageous step of getting in touch with my neighbours. And I did it through crafts of course! I posted a letter in every letterbox in the street asking if any of my neighbours were crafty and keen to meet on a regular basis for some crafting together and a natter and share their craft expertise with others. I'm really excited to say that five lovely ladies got in touch and we met for the first time last week. 

It was great! We have a great intergenerational thing going on and lots of projects already of what we want to learn from each other or learn together. What was most striking, is that most of them were experiencing the same kind of isolation I was worried about - we all seem to have our families living far away - and they'd all been yearning for this kind of social gathering. They were all grateful I'd taken the first step. We had such a good night on our first meet, I can't wait to see that lovely bunch again.

All good things come in three, isn't that what they say? The day after my craft club's first meeting, I was at my beautician's and her mum was telling me that she'd like to start a craft club too and would I be interested. So it looks like I may be joining another lot of friendly crafters really soon...