Down at Denman, up at Ally Pally and Looping the Loop!

The main event since I last blogged has been teaching at Denman College. For those not in the know, this is the college of the Women's Institute, and very highly regarded it is too.
I can't tell you the caché I have appreciated through this association! But much more to the point, it was an EXCEEDINGLY enjoyable thing to do - despite the fact that I developed a cold the day before and felt really rotten as I drove to Marcham from London the previous afternoon. I wish I'd been just a trifle more assertive and asked someone to photograph ME in my teaching position at the 'visualiser' on the day. But come to think of it, perhaps my red nose and watery eyes wouldn't have come out too peachy on camera, so perhaps it was better that way!

In the photo above you can see the Plasma screen switched to the visualiser, which is only showing a pile of yarn and the table top of course, because the hands that, more often than not, appeared in the frame were, at the time, employed behind the camera. Here you will see some of the students hard at work. They were a very friendly and warm bunch and it was a joy to meet them all. I was particularly honoured (and I hope she won't mind me mentioning it here) to welcome TV interior designer Linda Barker into our midst, and she is sitting in the foreground to the right.

I also used the Plasma screen to show my PowerPoint slides, and although their preparation proved time consuming and effort-filled, I was jolly pleased I had done them. Printouts served well as reminder handouts of the day, which I do hope made my students feel they'd got some value for money!

The main college building is a beautiful old mansion that was once owned by Lady Denman, and the teaching rooms are in an extremely pleasant and well-equipped separate block, with all the mod cons - as you may have already gathered. I stayed overnight the night before, which was a life-saver, since I wasn't feeling 100%, and I was very well fed throughout my stay.

Other Matters

I also went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace with my friend Jan and we thoroughly wore ourselves out trawling up and down the many, many aisles, sampling the beauties of yarns and yarn-based products. There I bought a ball of Alpaca yarn from Alpaca Select and have since made myself some fingerless gloves. I shall be producing some more of these as Christmas Presents. The yarn is lovely to work with. The pattern comes from the September 2012 edition of Inside Crochet magazine (the one before the one with my article in it!). They're called 'Pumpkin Mitts'.

This month I finally made it up to Islington to visit Loop Yarns - something I've been meaning to do ever since I bought Sue Cropper's Loop Vintage Crochet book. The shop was NOT a disappointment: two floors of sumptuous yarnosity. AND I met Sue Cropper! I asked her why I couldn't buy a copy of Inside Crochet in her shop (OK I wanted to draw attention to my recent journalistic success!) and she enlightened me about the recent history of the magazine. Its previous publishers, it seems, let a lot of people down (I rather gather this is putting it mildly, but she didn't give me any real details), with the consequence that, though it is now no longer under their auspices, and actually LOOKS quite a lot different, she still refuses to have anything to do with it!! What a shame. All I can say about that is that I do hope they can overcome this soon, and it may prove difficult, because I have noticed that I haven't been able to buy a single copy from any shop I've been in.

But ANYWAY, I have my own relationship with Claire Montgomerie, the lovely editor of the beleagured magazine, and I still intend to attempt a second contribution to it. I am working on it currently, in fact. An article about another female magazine editor, one now long since gone, but  a continuing inspiration. More soon.......

Back in the armchair now

Boiled Wool bag

My mermaid at Ilfracombe Harbour











Our sandcastle on Aberdovey beach.










Emily Joyce wearing one
of her own creations
and working away at the
next. I interviewed her
for my article. This was
taken in Canvas & Cream
in Forest Hill.

Well, where did the summer go, eh?

What have I been doing? 



Broomstick stole

Urban Granny

A student of mine at the Sydenham
Gardens Mental Health Resource Centre

Apart from quite a bit of teaching and some writing, I've been trying to FINISH some projects for most of it actually. The WIPs were taking over my home (Works in Progress). 

 

So to that end I completed some felted bags I'd been harbouring for long months - but actually they all need lining now. 

Kids crocheting in my summer holiday
sessions at a youth club in Downham.

I also started (sorry I couldn't help myself) a broomstick lace Stole in duck egg blue aran weight cotton (dribble dribble), oh and I also started (no, I really am sorry but I just HAD to) a ruck sack style bag for myself, made out of granny squares but with a kind of 'urban' colour scheme. It's looking good but it, too, will need lining. I'm still creating a flap that will attach to some buckle straps. No what did I do with those buckles I bought?

A happy student of
mine at the Flower
in Two hours
session at Alhambra
Homes and Gardens

In the mean time I've made a lot of sandcastles and sculptures and eaten rather too much cake. So, much of September's attention has been taken by my focus on Weight Watchers online. ( I've lost a stone so that can't be bad).

But for me, the biggest and BEST piece of news is that I have had an article published in a crochet magazine. Inside Crochet - October 2012. I am really, REALLY chuffed, and am starting to think about what else I could scribble about in the same vein, now I've reached that milestone.

Getting a little crochet action!

Well, since my last blog things have hotted up considerably!

Small bag made from string and plastic
carrier bags cut into strips. Handle still
to come.

I have been contacted by the Environmental Division of the Lewisham Borough Council and invited to carry out a series of workshops for children during the summer holidays. They want me to show them how to make bags out of recycled plastic carrier bags. So I’ve been working it out and making my own, planning the workshops and generally thinking about how best to approach the challenge. Interesting. The bags are looking good too, after a couple of false starts. Haven’t quite finished anything but am beginning to feel reasonably confident that we can make something satisfactory out of the idea. I’ve also been down to the House of Curtains in Sydenham and bought out their entire supply of 6mm hooks and some other sizes besides!

These hooks came in very handy, as it turned out, for my free Flower in an Hour session at the Sydenham Arts Festival this July. We weren’t expecting many, maybe 4 or 5 if we were lucky and I got myself positioned on the night, in the back room at Alhambra Homes and Gardens, where I normally teach my beginners sessions, and before Alhambra’s owner, Rebecca Leathlean and I knew where we were,  numbers had grown completely out of hand!

I, completely daunted and gobsmacked, began the lesson with people LINING the room, sitting on the tables, barely able to see me, while Rebecca turned more away at the door of the shop! . Well, we managed, somehow, to make half a flower in the hour and some didn’t really get that done. I  came away feeling not so good, as though I had let them down somehow. I’d only got one pair of scissors and I couldn’t help everyone as much as they needed. It was  a shame.

Flower in an hour workshop TAKE 2! July 2012

Anyway, Rebecca organised an overflow session and the following week, four of those turned away the first time turned up again. This time I had slightly re-thought, AND we’d given them potentially a bit more than an hour, AND I plunged in like an express train, racing through each learning point with barely a breath in between. But you know what? In about an hour and a quarter, they each learned how to slip knot, slip stitch, chain, double crochet, half treble crochet and treble, as well as how to change colour and fasten off, and - miracle of miracles - EVERYONE had made a passable flower And what’s more, they had all also learned how to read a pattern!!!!! I can’t tell you the satisfaction I derived from that unexpected and unscheduled session. And I’m pretty sure my students were pleased with their achievements too!

These new formats for classes haven’t been the only crochet-based activity using my energies of late. Weeks ago I submitted an article to a crochet magazine with only the weeniest hope that they’d be interested and for a very long time I heard nothing back whatsoever, but then, pretty much out of the blue it seemed, they came back showing interest! They want more though. More substance, more quotations, more genuine content. I’m delighted, if daunted. I’ve got my work cut out to do it, but do it I intend. I’ve so far officially interviewed one  of my fascinating ex-students, who is, as it turns out the mother of a child at my son Gabriel’s school, (also called Gabriel!) . She had come to me as an experienced embroiderer wantingto add to her craftskill base and found herself quite out of her comfort zone. In fact she's a multi-talented individual, an actress of some repute, with a great interest in the calming and focussing effects of crocheting and creating that have directly helped her in her work and life. We walked round Dulwich Park one morning after school drop off and talked nineteen to the dozen. My notes from the encounter are still burning a hole in my notebook. I desperately want to get on and start further research and writing but I do find that in the evenings I’m pretty shattered and my head’s buzzing. I need to switch off from it all. Well, I’m hoping for some quality time with my laptop tomorrow before the events of the last week of term and then the school holidays begin in earnest, because after that it’s pretty much a roller coaster calendar until September.

But I never stop crocheting in all the gaps of course - I'm making two bags simultaneously at present, one super chunky, the other super fine. Both looking good - I'll keep you posted! 

Recent successes

 The Cafetiere cover for Mummy, in situ. It's a lovely, textured stitch called Embossed Stitch by Darla Sims in her book 69 Crochet Stitches. I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK on a 4mm hook and the shape of the piece was based on an existing quilted cotton cover made for a smaller cafetiere, and sized up. The button is a little blue bought one in the shape of a flower.
The felted bag went well, I am delighted. I washed it at 60 degrees and that was quite enough to achieve the felting effect. I changed my design at the last minute when I was looking on a Finnish site and found a picture of an interesting looking little basket (not felted) with these supersized button hole handles. Next time I'll crochet a couple more rows above the chain space I think. This basket was so easy to make and it could be lined, and/or decorated with 3D flowers. I could make another one with my own stripes instead of using a multicolour yarn. The great thing is you don't have to weave in the ends when you change colour, you just cut them off once it's felted! MAGIC!

Adriafil Caracas Multicolour
75% wool, 25% acrylic,
DK, 9mm hook
Dc in the round with button hole handles
Last row treble crochet on handles only
60 degrees, short  slow spin

Heart Felt

Wow! Sirdar's website has featured a garment made in CROCHET on their FRONT PAGE!!!! http://www.sirdar.co.uk/ . This really does seem to reaffirm the sense that our beloved craft is on the rise, which is good news, right?.  OK, it's GRANNY SQUARES again, which of course, is in fashion at the moment, however, the bad press of this icon of oldy worldiness could be helping to reanimate the myth that it is where crochet begins and ends.

The image is beautiful, of course, Sirdar is one of the biggest players in the yarn industry in this country and internationally, one would expect nothing less.  Let's just watch this space for some further high profile PR containing some more surprising crochet work, that will have all the knitters and weavers running for their beginners hooks to get on the bandwagon!

 I want to be a crochet designer. I trained as a fashion designer and worked as a graphic designer. I taught textiles and I now teach crochet, but I want to be a crochet designer. And not just make a load of stuff and sell it a craft fair, I want to have my ideas published. I want my designs disseminated so other people can try them. I want my name in print, let's face it. Can I do it? Well, let's find out shall we? I've emailed Inside Crochet with the offer of an article I've prepared, and I've today contacted the General Enquiries email address at Sirdar to ask who to contact with pattern ideas. A thousand mile journey begins with a single step. And since I have a full time job at the university, my steps will be a little sporadic I think. If anyone out there has any advice, bring it on!

Fruits of Life Drawing Class

 Just lately............I've been designing, and I've been felting. I've also made a cafetiere cover for my mum, for which I am awaiting feedback. I returned to life drawing classes (which I think will be lovely for design drawings, but is actually just plain lovely) and I've been teaching a lot. I love watching what it brings to my students, and how quickly they begin to create objects of amazing competence and beauty.

Design Idea

Adriafil Caracas multicolour DK
DC on 9mm hook BEFORE FELTING.

The very same swatch of
Adriafil Caracas
AFTER felting. Almost like a
painting by Turner, isn't it?

A night in Tunisia

I spent the morning alternately blowing my nose and learning new Tunisian Crochet stitches. The first problem I wasn't entirely sure was hay fever or a cold, and the second issue, much more pleasant of course, served to distract me from the worst of the first.

I've been gaily broadcasting that I will teach Tunisian at some point soon, and I do enjoy it, but in actual fact I haven't had an awful lot of experience with it. I realised I'd need to thrash out some of its pitfalls before I stand up in front of a group and declare myself able. For one thing I've only ever tried a couple of Tunisian stitches so I needed to get a few more under my belt.

If you are wondering, by the way, what the heck Tunisian Crochet is, it's a form of crochet that is much closer to knitting, in that you work loads of loops onto the hook, like, as many as your work is wide, just like knitting, and then you work them all off again. Unlike knitting, you don't work them off onto another needle, they just get looped into the work, safe, like crochet. I've even seen it CALLED 'crochetknit'. Of course, if you do want to make anything any wider than a granny square you'll need a much longer hook than the standard.

At the back is a swatch of Tunisian 

Standard stitch in bamboo. In the middle

is Tunisian popcorn in wool, and the front

is Tunisian Knit stitch, still on the hook.

 I bought mine from John Lewis. It's not ACTUALLY a Tunisian hook because they come with a kind of 'stop' on the other end. A hook on one, and a stop on the other. The ones I've bought from JL are actually 'Double Ended', in that they have a hook at each end. The point is though, that they are LONG, twice as long as an ordinary hook. And I've also discovered that there is ANOTHER form of crocheting, actually a kind of variation of Tunisian, called double ended crocheting, which puts the hook at the other end to good use and produces double-sided fabric, sometimes with a different colour on each side!

Happy Easter, by the way!

In continuation of my treatise on technology last week, I got my instructions from a book for sale on Amazon by simply clicking Look Inside. I won't say which book because I don't want to go anywhere near infringing anyone's copyright, in fact I daresay just by mentioning what I have done I could be inciting the wider public to immoral practices that leave the author popular but poor. Let's just say that it's a current and useful loop hole that's making it possible for me to learn crochet stitches without spending any money, and it probably won't be open for long....

For yet another crochet technology link, do please also visit my Social Bookmarking account at Diigo where I clip all the random, crochet and craft-related links I ever encounter.....

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

So much to do, so little time

I went on a little foray to John Lewis today. I don't go very often: the walk's just a little bit too far from the office so I have to take a slightly extended lunch hour if I go or I won't have enough time in the shop. Another reason for not going very often is I would go bankrupt. AND, the array of colours and textures and yarn weights and fibres is so dazzling to me and so inspirational that after a while I feel like my head is going to explode.


I wanted a large knitting needle so I could start making Broomstick lace. They didn't have one nearly big enough but I bought a 20mm crochet hook and it's turning out to be fine for the purpose - ie, creating a relatively small swatch. I also bought a 6mm double ended hook so I can make some more Tunisian that isn't incredibly firm.


I sat myself down and leafed through a book called Simple Crochet by Erika Knight today. I've seen it on Amazon of course, but this was the first chance I'd had to look inside properly. I found it very inspiring. I'd had the idea of producing a book of patterns done entirely in double crochet and although it's not QUITE that, the patterns ARE incredibly easy but they are BEAUTIFUL, tasteful objects in really interesting textures with a lovely, natural, understated colour palette. Very chic. The photography, of course, is all, and made me even more determined to team up with my friend Karolina, an aspiring photographer with an interest in my craft.


The textures make it of course, leather, raffia, string, hemp, as well as wools, cotton, linens and silks. I'm itching to get on with designing and making something to submit for publication. Lots of ideas but I'm holding myself up by wanting to maintain a momentum with my diploma, as well as creating birthday presents for family. Oh, and prepare classes for my students!

Fingerless gloves I'm making for my
sister Caroline's birthday. I got the pattern from
Nicki Trench's Cute and Easy Crochet

Perhaps I should just throw?

Craft4Crafters,
Exeter, Feb 2012

The yarn is Sirdar Tweedie. It's billed as 'Chunky' but really, I don't know where they got that idea from! Personally, I'd place it somewhere between a DK and an Aran weight. It was a cut-price bulk buy from the Black Sheep Wool Co stand at the Craft4Crafters Exhibition I went to this month in Exeter. It's an attractive, and robust-sounding fibre mix, being a large part wool, and a small part alpaca with a good healthy dose of acrylic. So it has all the washability of a synthetic without really feeling like one, and it's got a luxuriously soft 'edge' to it that presumably comes from the alpaca. 


I'm trying to recreate Melody Griffiths' 'Cosy Creamy Throw' from her book 'Crochet in No Time' - admittedly without using the recommended yarn (I think it must have gone out of production, I couldn't find it anywhere). I thought Sirdar's Tweedie would do the trick and I treated myself to a rather fantastic bamboo marble painted 7mm hook with an aluminium tip, and got stuck in.


But Tweedie wool is, I think by it's nature, kind of lumpy. It creates its own texture which is subtle and really at its best on the plainest of stitches. Like a knitted stocking stitch, perhaps? Even crochet's plainest stitch (arguable?) the double crochet (US single crochet), is possibly veering towards the overly ornate and interesting to make the best of tweedie yarn, especially when this particular tweedie DOESN'T have the flecks of other shades or colours in it like most of them do. I LOVE the flecks - I used a really gorgeous one out of my stash (I'm sorry I didn't record the details of the yarn) to make my simple mobile phone cover.


I think on reflection I would have done better to find myself a chunky or aran-weight cashmerino to do this job. Preferably chunky because those squares all came up pretty small with this near-aran weight yarn from Sirdar. In fact, I had to make three more for what I would regard as a minimum size for a 'throw'. It's 5 squares by 3 now and nearly complete. I wasn't at all happy with the way the squares are joined (though they are looking better now I've steamed it a bit on the ironing board) particularly where four squares meet at the corners. I'm even considering making some flowers to stitch over them I'm so unconvinced. But you know, 5 squares by 3 squares is turning out to be an irritating number simply because you can't satisfactorily fold the thing. It doesn't sit right in quarters because you are folding squares instead of joins. And if you fold on joins it just looks like a strip or a pile of squares. Not easy to drape about anywhere looking casually beautiful.

I finished the border with a simple
 'Crown Picot' from Betty Barnden's
 'Handbook of Crochet Stitches'.

Anyway, with lots of experimentation around my home, I've decided that the banister on the landing best suits it. It's a short balustrade that's always proved a little restricting for standard quilts (my family are consummate quilters). It's there now but I will have to bring it down again later and finish weaving in the ends. Perhaps those six simple flowers will make me fall in love with it more.......

Multi-tasking

I'm positively FEVERISH with activity at the moment!

A great stash buster....

First of all I've begun making the baby blanket (photo from book below centre) from Nicki Trench's book Cute and Easy Crochet . This is for Lenka, my ex-childminder, who is about to produce a child of her own.

I used a 4ply yarn with a 9mm hook
and took a lace block pattern
from Melody Griffiths' 201 motifs

I'm also experi-menting with the idea of lamp shades, as I've seen some interesting work done on a website called 'Room 39' which has inspired me. 

And I'm teaching chevrons and edgings next Wednesday so I've done a swatch in Rico Essentials mercerised cotton which reminds me of raspberry ripple icecream. I think I'll be able to submit this as part of my swatch set for the Diploma too.

I'm going to Devon next Saturday, to the Craft4Crafters exhibition (combining the trip with a get-together with sister Mandy - also a great crocheter) - so I'll have to decide which project to take with me on the train!

Bits and Pieces

I've finished the skirt, so strictly speaking it's not on my hook anymore. Still, thought it would be nice to show what it looks like.


Now, practicing edging in preparation for teaching on Wednesday, as well as a popcorn stitch square I used a few years ago on a cushion cover I made. 


Am also making swatches for submission to my Diploma assessors. Hoping to get on with that turquoise cardigan again soon though. It's on the brink of being re-ranked from WIP to UFO (Work in progress to Unfinished Object) and we don't want that do we?


Tried some felting recently too. I'll bring you more on that another time.