Crochet - but not as we know it, Jim

I DO spend rather a lot of time devoted to crochet without ACTUALLY crocheting. Looking at crochet books, for one thing - drooling over the sumptuously photographed, deeply desirable objects I could make.... well ok, add to the list of things I’m going to make. 


Yes, so that’s one of the crochet-related activities one can spend a LOT of time on.  But my crochet life has expanded way, WAY beyond the coffee table or the craft section in Waterstones. I like to photograph my crocheted items, for instance, and there’s quite a bit of fiddling about getting that right in terms of the composition of the photo and the lighting. Then there’s time spent uploading to the computer and onto my Flickr site, where I lovingly categorising and caption each image. 


I teach crochet too. That’s a couple of hours a session, imparting, encouraging, enthusing and crafting. I don’t very often get much actual crochet of my own done in those highly enjoyable times either. And, as a professionally trained teacher, I don’t just turn up and teach of course, I PLAN. I sit up in bed scribbling notes, I jot things down on my mobile To Do list at the traffic lights, I BUILD my plans on Google Docs so I can pick up the same list at home or at work. I also prepare by re-visiting some of the stitch patterns and do some translation from US notation into British.

I started a website of course. That took some time and effort! And I wrote some book reviews (with great intentions, as yet unfulfilled, to write a good deal more). I started this blog, to help me reflect on what’s going on in my private little crochet-fuelled world. I find it helps me make sense of it somehow, rather like untangling a wayward ball of yarn. I feel all neat and tidy and virtuous when I’m done!


You might have thought that was enough, but oh no, it was just the beginning! One web presence is never enough after a while, as many people already know. You start with just one website and before you know it you’ve got a Facebook page, your Flickr group, and your blog, moving on to the big league where you have your own Meetup group, through which all Crochet Teaching business is conducted, a membership to Ravelry, and items for sale on Folksy.com. Meetup takes up time, corresponding with my group members, advertising my courses, and uploading photos of my students' work. And now, as I mentioned in my last blog, I have a Crochet Card app for keeping track of the vital statistics of each project.


THIS WEEKEND, as I have formally been invited to teach at Denman College (the training institute of the WI in the UK) in the autumn, I will have to work my way steadily through their extensive paperwork pack, signing contracts and filling in tutor information forms, a CV form, a Denman template for the lesson plan and a full statement of resources. It’s all nice work if you can get it though - I’m not complaining! If you're in the WI, look out for my one day beginners course on 18th October 2012, and sign up, why don't you?


So that's how a girl can feed her obsession without so much as a ball of yarn in sight!

Cute and Easy

Everyone*  loves Nicky Trent's book 'Cute and Easy Crochet'.  I think it's the colours more than anything - a baby pastel palette that seems to 'log in', somehow, to the collective brain of contemporary woman. This is the woman, by the way, who's got past 'ladette' and thinking more in terms of house and home. It's girly and it's got baby stuff in it, and there's a dash of vintage about the whole thing.

For sister in NZ

After discovering some very pretty pink superwash wool in a posh charity shop in East Dulwich at a pound a ball, I set to and made Ms Trench's fingerless gloves. She was right - it was easy, and quick, oh, and they are cute. I packed them off to my sister in New Zealand for her birthday in late March, coming as it does at those latitudes, at the end of the summer, she'll be needing them soon as she counts out the small change in their ice cream shop on Napier harbour. 

But not before my mother spotted them, tried them on, begged for some of her own. Not a problem! Care of another pound-a-ball bargain basket, this time in Hobbycraft in Croydon, she received them on Mother's Day, where, here in England, it is still chilly enough to get some use out of them before this winter is finally through.

For mum 

So now I'm back on the baby blanket, from the same book as it happens. Each square is very small and doesn't take long but there's an awful lot of weaving in of ends and it's slow going. The baby's due in April so I really had better get a wiggle on. I've already joined some of the little squares together and the finishing seam in cream seems to transform them. It IS really pretty. I've got lots and lots more squares to go and I didn't help myself by making a few with the wrong size hook when I returned to the project after the fingerless glove break. It was only when I looked at my notes (meticulously made in an Android App) that I realised my error.

Android App? I hear you mutter. Whatever next? Well, yes. It was a free download from the Android marketplace to my HTC Legend mobile. It's called 'CrochetCards', but anyway, I'll be talking about Crochet and Technology in my next blog….

*(all my crochet students that is, oh and my mum) .

For baby