I’ve been lucky enough to get together with a bunch of fantastic crafty people here in Berlin, something that’s actually kinda tough. Arty, fashiony… all these things are ultra-mega-cool, but crafty is still considered the height of spießig-ness. Especially stitching. Only great-aunt Rudolphina embroiders.

So finding folks such as Linkle, La Bastellerie and Cold Snap Bindery has been great and we’ve started forming a very loose collective of German crafty businesses (akin to the Craft Mafia or Church of Craft) called the Bastel Brigade. It’s probably unsurprising that of the five people involved, only one is German, but we’re hoping it’ll start to swing in the other direction sometime!

La Bastellerie puts on craft party events every few weeks and they’re always lots of fun. The next one is on the 25th of July in the pool at Tent Station Berlin. That’s a camping ground near the Hauptbahnhof and the event will take place IN the pool – which doesn’t have any water in it. La Bastellerie supply lots of materials and help and keep going from the donations on the evenings. So come along, make stuff and donate to keep the crafting alive!

To get you in the mood, here’s a few shots of me at one in early June, at the bar Ä in Neukölln as taken by the wonderful photographer Steffi Loos. I made a little notebook that I printed myself (you can tell it was my first time huh?). And no, that isn’t Leon Dog Wonder but an imposter who was almost as cute. More photos of the evening are here.