So, apart from indulging in some travel planning (see previous post), my day has been spent mulling over what it means to be a crafter and if being a crafter means you can only craft projects which have come from your own mind and not in any way been influenced by the work of others.

The springboard for these thoughts was a rather lively debate about this week’s Crafter of The Week. I am not going to take sides or allow shescrafty.co.uk to become a battleground for crafters to fight over their ideas. Yes, Flapi makes things from measuring tapes and so do a number of crafters. I leave it there.

It did however get me thinking about something Lee Black mentioned in his interview for hescrafty.co.uk (will be launched soon we hope). When asked about what sites he likes to visit he said as few as possible because “There is a tendency within us all to copy or creatively sample other peoples work without even knowing it. Originality is hard to achieve when we have so much styles and ideas all around us. My ambition is to have my own style, which takes years.”

This got me to thinking about how we find our inspiration and if we are inspired by the works of others, where do we draw the line between influence and copying? Even in my recent post about gloves I freely admitted that having found that pair on Etsy I wasn’t about to buy them but set about making my own pair from HI’s shrunken jumper. Does that make me a non-crafter and just a plain old copycat?

I go to exhibitions like the Ideal Homes Show and take all I can in from colour combinations to unusual fabric choices. At the moment I am making a cushion cover from a pattern I found in an old book from a thrift store as I like the retro design but have chosen bright wools and chenille to give it both texture and modern twist but would never have been able to come up with the complicated pattern on my own. Am I wrong to say it’s my own work?

It got me thinking about this article on getcrafty.com about how imitating can lead to originality. I borrow ideas from numerous sources and have piles of sketchbooks filled with ripped out images from magazines of things I would like to make my own versions of (sometimes to save money, sometimes to get the right colours, sometimes because it just looks like fun to try).

I really admire Lee’s determination to keep his creative mind as uncluttered as possible in his pursuit of an identifiable individual style and in the meantime I will continue to explore the work of others in order to feed my passion for the subect of crafting and celebrate those who spend so much of their time doing this.

So, retract the claws ladies, life’s too short.