Well this is my first ever blog. Maybe I am moving with the times! My name is Emma (I am the one on the left) and I set up Create with a friend Miranda (on the right) in 2005. Both of us had lived and worked in London in marketing related jobs for numerous years (although we didn’t know each other then), got married, had children and then decided that London wasn’t quite the place for us to be and moved to Yorkshire. We met in the playground in Ilkley as we both have girls of similar ages and over a relatively short period of time the concept for Create evolved. We had both been to pottery painting places in London with our children (as babies then) and knew that it could work in Ilkley and there wasn’t anything similar around. We also wanted to have a place where you could come on your own or bring the kids, NOT sit on plastic chairs and have a decent coffee! It was also a lifestyle choice as although we both wanted and needed to work we also wanted to balance it with home, children and dogs!! Neither of us are potters or had any great artistic talent but we did have a very similar vision and I think are adaptable so we had a lot of crash courses, employed some very artistic people, found a great site and here we are!
The shop before we took it over was selling antiques but bizarrely also sold a bit of wool. Previously the shop had sold wool (for over 20 years) and the bit of wool that was here with the antiques was a hang over from that. After having Create open for 8 months, and having numerous people in asking for wool we decided to introduce wool back into the shop. Miranda and I do knit and just love being surrounded by the beautiful colours of the wools and yarns. On paper the fit doesn’t sound great – pottery painting, wool and café. But it really works – I hope our website shows that. It has a great creative feel and warmth about it and obviously a lot of chatter!! We are also incredibly proud of our coffees!!
We hope with this blog we can bring you into the shop if you can’t actually get here (or if you do come but still want to know all the news – I have a friend who lives really close who says she can’t wait for the blog to get going so she can keep up to date on all the happenings!). It is a way to introduce you to some of the people who work here and the lovely people that come to visit us. Also the blog will hopefully be a place to show some of the fantastic stuff that gets made here. Being in Ilkley we are in the heart of the wool trade (sadly though most of the mills are now luxury flats) but there are still some working (Rowan’s new K Fassett yarn that is launching in August is being produced not far from here) and we get so many people in who use to work (or still do) in the industry – spinners, machinists, pattern designers. Hopefully we can pass on some of those stories to you.
Really hope you join us regularly – any comments, ideas please e-mail us using our www.createcafe.co.uk website.
Emma
The shop before we took it over was selling antiques but bizarrely also sold a bit of wool. Previously the shop had sold wool (for over 20 years) and the bit of wool that was here with the antiques was a hang over from that. After having Create open for 8 months, and having numerous people in asking for wool we decided to introduce wool back into the shop. Miranda and I do knit and just love being surrounded by the beautiful colours of the wools and yarns. On paper the fit doesn’t sound great – pottery painting, wool and café. But it really works – I hope our website shows that. It has a great creative feel and warmth about it and obviously a lot of chatter!! We are also incredibly proud of our coffees!!
We hope with this blog we can bring you into the shop if you can’t actually get here (or if you do come but still want to know all the news – I have a friend who lives really close who says she can’t wait for the blog to get going so she can keep up to date on all the happenings!). It is a way to introduce you to some of the people who work here and the lovely people that come to visit us. Also the blog will hopefully be a place to show some of the fantastic stuff that gets made here. Being in Ilkley we are in the heart of the wool trade (sadly though most of the mills are now luxury flats) but there are still some working (Rowan’s new K Fassett yarn that is launching in August is being produced not far from here) and we get so many people in who use to work (or still do) in the industry – spinners, machinists, pattern designers. Hopefully we can pass on some of those stories to you.
Really hope you join us regularly – any comments, ideas please e-mail us using our www.createcafe.co.uk website.
Emma
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