Happy Craft-mas Ottawa! Jane Porter on Ottawa's Spins and Needles

Jane Porter is a local sustainability practitioner. After a three year stint in Finland studying and working with sustainable startups, she’s jumped into the Ottawa scene face first to see what’s shaking, vibrant and green. You can find her at www.janeporter.ca.

I have to be honest, I didn’t quite know what to expect when I entered the Legion on Kent at Somerset last night. I heard the tunes coming from a rocking old folks party upstairs and the mixing beats in the basement. I ventured down.

We were greeted by a nice S&N gal who showed us some craft instructions and were told to grab a seat at one of the round tables. Supposedly, had we come 20 minutes earlier, we wouldn’t have had a spot. Our first thought though was – this is it? It looked like there was a total of 20 people at four tables. Not so cool… what was I thinking bringing a dude to some small craft making event?

But then we turned the corner and it was crazy – the back room was FULL of people and all were busy sewing, snipping and gluing away while tapping their feet or bopping their heads to the beat. Nice. We grabbed some beer and picked out some coloured felt, thread and sequins, and grabbed a seat.

It reminded me of being back in elementary school where my friends and I were “queens of the bulletin boards” and had the joy of free access to the supply cupboards.  Unfortunately, I quickly realized that my crafting skills of  years passed have sort of vanished.  My friend and I were laughing at how slow we were.

Two and a half hours later with two beers under my belt I had made two somewhat sad Christmas ornaments and he had made one beautiful felt tree ornament.

We made friends with a couple at the table who sported black felt staches in the spirit of either Movember or just pure classiness.The four of us worked away, chatted and enjoyed the fantastic DJ (sorry, wish I could describe the music in some better way – but every song played got me moving and smiling).

All in all, I couldn’t have come up with a better way to spend a Friday night.

Spins and Needles was so good that time slipped, the music stopped and we realized that we were, in fact, the last to leave.

Thanks Jane! Did you have some fun this weekend in Ottawa that you want to tell LTOttawa about? Send us a note!