Kandy's Craft Room

We head to Chesterfield in the UK to go behind the scenes at Knit & Destroy and tour Kandy Diamond's colour-blocked craft room.

I recently had a big tidy and sort out, so right now, my favourite thing is my yarn shelves, I colour-blocked them and colour blocking makes me happy.

Tell us about your space

My craft space is in my house, it’s an upstairs double bedroom. We moved house specifically so we (my partner who does illustration, and I) could have separate studios, we were sharing a room in the old house and as we both were spending more time in there, and I got a second machine, we needed more room! This room is my work space for all the ‘knit and destroy’ and art stuff that I do. I mostly machine knit in here, but I also sew, hand knit, crochet and make zines.

What have you done to make your space cosy, beautiful or inspiring?

Mostly filled it with my stuff! As you can see by the pictures, there’s a lot of stuff in here from craft books and my knitting needle collection to masks and holiday souvenirs.

How do you keep organized?

I’m not a naturally organised person at all, so keeping organised is not easy. I have lots of shelves and boxes and folders for the important stuff!

Any tips & tricks for organising supplies?

Double purpose things are great, storage boxes that are seats etc. I have a large desk which has drawers underneath it so it’s work surface and storage and a chest that I’ve put cushions on that I can use as a comfy seat!

Which are your favourite possessions and are there any of your own creations on display?

I’m really lucky to have friends who make me awesome stuff, my favourite things are the things that people have made for me. I also love tiny things and giant things, so my thimble holder and gay-box are among my favourite things too. I also really like knitting related things from the past, in particular my knitting machine instructional cassettes. There are quite a lot of my own creations on display in here; I’ve got all sorts, from crochet eyeball test pieces to window display props I’ve made as well as products both machine and hand-knitted.

How do you organise your inspiration and ideas?

In my studio, I surround myself with things that I find interesting/inspirational. When I’m working on a project I will collect inspirational images, but because the walls are pretty full, these pictures usually live on my desk or in a sketchbook along with my notes.

Where do you look for inspiration?

As I said before, I surround myself with inspirational things in my studio space, but I think my ideas come from things (I have seen/heard/experienced) that have made an impact, made me think and stuck with me. I usually come up with an idea for either a collection of products or other pieces, I will think around this idea, make notes and do some really basic sketches. The next stage for me is to get some visual reference for the things I want to make and that’s when I start looking, it depends what I’m doing as to where I look but I usually go to books, films, and online for images.

If you had three wishes, what would you do to make it the dream space?

Wish number 1 – gain magical ability

Wish number 2 – get a wand and get really good at that tidying spell so I could always have a tidy studio (my untidiness is the only real problem with my craft space)

Wish number 3 – I can do magic now so I don’t really need any more wishes!