We opened our doors at the Craft Cafe for the first time this year after a short break for the christmas holidays. It was good to be back and good to see so many familiar faces, everybody was pleased to be back at Inkwell and making stuff again.

Entrance on the door is just £3 for adults and £2 for children. This buys you all your craft materials and any help you may need to complete your project. Our craft stocks are always full of card making supplies, papers, fabrics, wool, jewellery tools, felt, clay and a whole load of bits and pieces that we have collected, bought and been generously donated over the years.

Today we were very kindly donated bundles of fabrics and cotton left over from the world record bunting challenge. In the last few months our sewing machines and art space have been helping to create the worlds longest bunting. We have just heard that the record has indeed been broken and the Arts and Minds and Love Arts team have done it! Although the results are being finalised, checked and verified at this moment.

We are very grateful to everyone who has given us their unwanted craft materials and equipment as without these generous donations the service would probably not survive and entrance costs would have to rise dramatically to cover costs. The service is also run entirely by volunteers and was set up by a small group of volunteers in 2010. We are all very proud that it’s nearly reached its third anniversary, offering such a valuable service to our community and also providing so many volunteering opportunities at Inkwell. In 2011 the Craft cafe was recognised for its achievements and won its first award at the Love Arts Festival.

The Craft Cafe attracts people from all over Leeds, people who have one thing in common - they love Arts and Crafts! It’s just wonderful to see so many people get so much out of being creative and working together. It’s wonderful that people may start off a little nervous but soon flourish to feel confident enough to share what they have learnt with others and master a new craft or skill.

We have lots of crafts on offer each week but one of the weekly favourites for people to try is jewellery making. Here, anyone can learn the basics such as making loops, earrings, attaching clasps, crimping and more adventurous activities such as crochet wire jewellery. This year we plan to discover a little bit more about fabric and textile jewellery and aim to make more of our own beads.

Another popular craft is Batik, which is an ancient craft that originated in South East Asia. The use of hot wax and dyes painted onto cotton, once layered and cracked can create the most spectacular and intricate designs.

There is also fabric and textile based crafts at the Craft cafe. Our knitting group is growing from strength to strength, gaining popularity and incresing it’s regular attendees every week. The ladies enjoy chatting, drinking coffee while knitting or crocheting while others work on sewing projects and hand embroidery.

There’s so much that happens at the Craft cafe it would be difficult to name every activity in this one post. However, it wouldn’t be right not to mention our very popular ceramics session. The ceramics room at Inkwell is its own space away from the main art space where the bulk of activities happen, therefore the ceramics session at the Craft cafe is more secluded and intimate which suits some people better. Learners make anything from slab pots, coil pots, sculptures, tiles, plaques with the help from our talented volunteer facilitators and the a variety of tools and equipment we have available. There are also two potters wheels in the space if anyone wanted to have a go at throwing.

So, with an award under our belt and a service that is growing in popularity we wonder what will 2013 bring to the Craft Cafe? With new volunteers starting regularly the skill set is becoming quite impressive and with that we hope to bring you fresh ideas and new projects. The success of Thursdays Craft Cafe has already led to the start of the Saturday Cafe where all of these crafts are also available with the added attraction of a fully functioning cafe/ restaurant serving homemade vegetarian food, freshly ground coffee and home baked cakes.

We hope you can make it over to see us either on a Thursday or Saturday and try out some crafting yourself.

More information about Thursdays can be found here

Saturday Cafe is an exciting new venture for Inkwell and we look forward to seeing you at the weekends too!