Pom Pom Quarterly Studio Tour
A few weeks ago I stumbled upon the wonderful publication that is Pom Pom Quarterly and immediately fell in love. It is so unique, colorful, and highlights everything I love about knitting and crochet. Today the lovely ladies of Pom Pom are going to give us a tour around their beautiful studio in Dalston, England and even share a few peeks around their neighborhood. Take it away ladies!
Hello Meghan and Lydia! Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourselves?
Hello! Thanks so much for having us! We live in London and run Pom Pom, a knitting/crochet/craft/food/
How did Pom Pom begin? What inspired you to create this magazine?
We started Pom Pom well over a year ago now - we had seen so many knitting and craft magazines and didn’t really feel like any of them reflected our tastes or our lifestyle. We were both working in a yarn shop and felt like taking on a creative challenge. We thought it would be fun to give making a little magazine a try so we met up in cafes and pubs and started to brainstorm. We designed all the patterns, wrote all the articles and tutorials, got friends to model, photograph and design, and somehow managed to put together a magazine that we loved and turned out other people seemed to love too! Now we are a slightly bigger operation and are lucky enough to have writers and designers work with us!
Tell us about your studio! What do you like best about your space?
We were so excited when Pom Pom got to the point where we needed a studio! We first had a place in the posh Marylebone neighbourhood of London - we got cheap rent from a theatre company leasing the space and felt very grown up having an office there. The theatre company was moving out and we wanted a space nearer to where we both live so we ended up moving to Dalston, which is what people like to call “up-and-coming”. It’s a really arty and diverse neighbourhood about halfway between where we each live so it was perfect. There a studio houses all kinds of creative businesses and we share our studio with an amazing bespoke balloon designer, Rebecca, and an interior designer, Catherine. It’s hard to say what we love best about our space - we just love the fact that we have a space and a place for Pom Pom to call home!
What music do you like to listen to when you work in your studio?
Good question! Rebecca’s boyfriend also works in our building for a record label, so she’s always got some good new music on. A studio favourite is also Radio 6 - it’s a digital radio station that’s part of the BBC and we stream it live on our computers. It’s got a really great mix of old and new music and often features artists you wouldn’t necessarily hear on mainstream radio. Saying that, if we need some pick-me-up music, we’re not averse to some Beyonce or Call Me Maybe.
Tell us about Dalston! What do you like best about your neighborhood?
Dalston is great. It’s sort of known for being hipster central, but there are some amazingly creative people doing great things here. It’s a very diverse neighbourhood so it’s very inspiring in that way. There are great cafes and pubs, but then there’s also the daily Ridley Road Market, where you can feel like you’re in 5 different countries at once. There are African fabric stores and Turkish kebab shops alongside pizza and beer bars and organic cafes. You can buy re-purposed vintage clothes at the charity shop Traid, or you can buy hair dye in a million different colors at what seems like endless beauty supply shops. There are loads of buildings housing studio spaces, so there’s always a lot going on.
What else should we know about your creative magazine and studio?
We’re a fun little mess! Every issue starts with a little idea one of us has and then we start collecting things in our studio - images on our Pinterest boards, yarns, objects or fabrics we find out and about, clothes for the photo shoots, and the designs of course - and somehow we come out at the other end with a coherent and (we think) beautiful magazine. Just having a place of our own to be creative and share ideas has been wonderful and we’re so grateful every day that we get to work on Pom Pom!
Thank you so much for inviting us into your beautiful space!
I hope you are all having a great week! This studio tour is starting my day with a lot of inspiration. :)
I hope you are all having a great week! This studio tour is starting my day with a lot of inspiration. :)