Can you put on a crafting night - even if it’s just opening the space? Demand seems to be there and VHS needs your help to make a crafting night a regular successful event. You don’t have to be able to craft - just welcoming new people to the space is enough. Please post if you can manage a Monday night. It would be great to make this a regular thing.
Continuing the discussion from Suggestions for homework assignments:
I want to bottom line some here & there, especially with halloween coming up! How frequently do you want them running?
The time I’ve tried in the past, only 2 people showed up… so I’m not the best to promote craft nights apparently. 
Hey thanks! That would be great. I’ll know more after Monday’s crafting event but we did have interest to keep them going. At the moment it’s been every 2 weeks. Jarrett also volunteered to host a night which is awesome.
Last night’s crafting drop-in was a good time. Thanks to @Garthomite for hosting (and for cleaning the toilet…brave soul). It was a smaller crowd this time but it was a very nice group of people knitting, sewing, doing leather work, and also coding the Science World dome lights (a craft in itself Ty). Pics coming soon.
I’m wondering if we’d get more folks coming out with more structured events…i.e. make this project in a night. Then again, we haven’t had crafting nights in a long time, so it may take time to build up a core group of people. Either way it’s great to have some crafting going on.
Any thoughts/suggestions for future craftesque events/ideas about encouraging more crafters…?
While cleaning up old email, I stumbled across the chainmaille discussion. A chainmaille workshop might fit with the Monday night crafting.
I’m very eager to learn how to do chainmaille - and how to spell it properly! - especially after seeing some recent chainmaille work.
Inez
Based on the crafting stuff that’s been on in the past, a few things come to mind:
Just my 2 cents.
I want to do the chainmaille night. Last week I worked 6 shifts at 14+ hours each. Sorry folks, until work does down it can't be me.
Molding/casting would be a good one. That’s what I was doing during the last craft night I ran waaay back, but I wasn’t running it as a class or anything as it was my first (and still only) attempt. Worked well, and maybe could be a group learning exercise if nobody has sufficient experience to feel confident running a class/workshop on their own?
maybe a life casting as well? I’d not mind a cast of my face to work with and with halloween coming up, surely others could use the idea for masks
Casting would be great. Even if a bunch of us just got together and tried to teach ourselves with a simple project.
I think simple woodworking projects would also appeal to a lot of people. Inez’s yarn swift build is an example of a great and very successful event.
Other projects could include:
Relevant wiki page:http://vanhack.ca/doku.php?id=list_of_requested_workshops_and_classes
There’s also a link down at the bottom on general tips for running workshops
Having two people show up is a great turnout! I’ve had events where zero people showed.
Two people is an intimate affair with lots of personal attention to specific needs.
Make sure they tell their friends how great it was and soon exponential growth will make it huge.
I’d like to learn how to work with leather. The molding/casting stuff seems pretty cool too.
This might interest you
Argh. Just realized I haven’t posted photos from the last craft night. Will try to get to that today.
Is this a regular thing for sure now?
Is it/should it be on the calendar?
I don’t have time to run it as a regular thing…I’m also not a keyholder. If anyone else has time to put some craft night dates in the calendar an bottom-line them that would be awesome.
I’m not a keyholder either, but I AM free on Mondays, so I’d definetely show up for craft night, and help out with whatever people could use a hand for.
Also, I like Sean’s idea about working with leather… I’m especially interested in learning how to fix clothes …and to learn how to make boots, belts and durable gear!
It as been brought up several times and now that I have some free time I’ll put together a chainmaille night. It will likely be short notice [maybe next Monday?] but i’ll get a few kits together and set a date tonight when I get home.