Crochet Workshop

I had been so looking forward to this workshop, and I was not disappointed. M and C gave me the workshop as a birthday present as they knew it was on my wish list of things I wanted to learn to do this year.

I had been inspired to try crochet by looking at all the marvellous blog posts that I read, especially Lucy at Attic 24 and Jules at Little Woollie.  I keep looking at all the granny squares, and ripple (chevron) blankets and crochet flowers in all the gorgeous colours and really wanted to try.

The last time I picked up a crochet hook I must have been in my teens, my dad taught me some stitches, and I can remember making a very long scarf. So, although I knew a little I was really a beginner. I had recently tried to follow a tutorial for a granny square, but got hopelessly muddled so thought it best to go on a course or workshop to get me going again and give me some confidence.

Looking for courses I came across Crochet Designs, owned by Pauline Turner and based in Lancashire at Morecambe. I had seen Pauline at Woolfest a couple of years ago and had picked up one of her leaflets, and had met her in the past in a more professional capacity.  As well as teaching beginners such as myself, Pauline is the founder of the International Diploma in Crochet which can be taken via distance learning, and she has people from all over the world on the Diploma course.

At the workshop I was the only beginner, but there were others who were at various stages of the diploma course. It was great, Pauline soon got me started and gave me loads of attention, but also left me to try and work things out for myself. Once I relaxed a little, and started to get into a hooky rhythm things started to come back to me from the past. I still dropped stitches or added in stitches but as the day went on I did manage to try out lots of different stitches by following a worksheet, which produced a sampler like a mini blanket. Pauline demonstrated the stitches for me and was there to 'hold my hand' until I got the hang of it - which I really needed, especially at the beginning.

It was so cool, I tried stitches that I had seen others doing (on their blogs) like 'popcorns' and 'spikes' and 'crab' stitch. I learned how to add a new colour and how to change colour, to increase and decrease. It was also really interesting listening to the others who were on the Diploma course as it widened my appreciation of what can be achieved with crochet.

Pauline has written many books and articles on crochet, and I bought her 'Beginners Guide to Crochet' to remind me of all that I had done that day. It has excellent photographs to lead you through the stitches and lots of tips and small projects to try. I'm sure this will be very useful for me, now that I don't have that hand guiding me.

Since I have been home I have made my first granny square, just to reinforce what I had learned at the workshop. I tried the Summer Garden Granny Square by Attic 24 which can be found here.  With my new found knowledge Lucy's pattern is easy to follow and I was so pleased with my square!

I enjoyed the workshop and got a lot from it - I only have the two colours of yarn at the moment, so a trip to the shop may be necessary soon! Watch this space - there may be a few hooky projects here in the future.