Well the Drugs DO work, and Workshops have been confirmed!

Well the drugs *definitely* work!  I could have cried with joy today when I carried the shopping in without a second thought.  Ah, the simple things that we take for granted. I missed you.

The drugs I am on are a bit of cocktail, and one of the ones I have to take is a massive dose of Vit D (I’m clinically deficient, who knew?!) once every 4 days.  Combined with the steroids, this seems to have the effect of making me a bit, well, wooshy..

My thought are on a bit of ‘go fast’, which has resulted in my braining spinning on project ideas, teaching ideas, design ideas all day.  Unfortunately most of them fly across my head that fast that I haven’t been able to note them down, but some of them I have, and they are real zingers! More to come on those at a later date – but one of them involved some serious maths

The physiotherapist on Monday was, erm, interesting.  I now have to submerge my arms up-to the elbow in water as hot as I can stand and do a series of stretches three times a day.  For six weeks.  I’ve been going a week and I’m already bored of it.  However I also get to play with Play-Doh three times a day so it’s not all bad.  I also now ‘have to’ swim once a week, and I’ve been given permission to go back to using light weights in my gym workouts, so hopefully that will help combat the slight ‘balloon animal caricature’ that’s happening to me.  More interestingly she also gave me permission to ‘return to normal usage as much as possible’ including my crafting – so I am now trying to fit in at least a little every night upto an hour when I have time.  You can’t see it from where you are, but I have a very happy face!

This comes just in time as we have confirmation of at two teaching dates with Purlescence:

13th April – Beyond Scarves and Granny Squares – Crochet 102 (Shaping)

Beyond Scarves and Granny Squares will take you from ‘beginner’ to ‘confident’.  Teaching loads of techniques to expand your repertoire, increase your confidence and improve your skills, we’ll be talking about those little secret ‘tricks of the trade’ along with the more conventional wisdom gained from my 30 years of practical experience.  We’ll be covering

  • Starting  –  how to get a pretty cast on edge and how to do away with foundation chain
  • Couture Touches – such as how to get rid of “that” gap at the edge of your work, useful stitches to know and how to change yarn
  • Shaping – how to do shapes other than squares, rectangles and circles, lots of increases and decreases
  • Short rows – what they are
  • Gauge – *why* it’s important and when we can ignore it
  • Blocking – how to do it and why it matters

You will need:

  1. to be comfortable in the basics of crochet – holding the hook & yarn, chain, Single Crochet, Double Crochet (American terminology)
  2. a crochet hook of type and size of your choosing (we recommend a 4 – 5mm)
  3. about 50g of light coloured yarn with a nice twist (so it doesn’t come apart too easily or split) of a weight to match your hook (we recommend a 4ply or DK weight).
  4. A pencil/pen and notepad

We won’t be making anything specific in this class, just having a play with techniques in an informal, fun, environment.  If you have any questions or want any advice, please feel free to contact us.

15th June – Tunisian Crochet 101 – Complete Beginners

Also called Tricot, Shepherds or Afghan, even Queen Victoria was smitten with this fascinating form of crochet.  Tunisian combines crochet and knitting ideas to create a unique fabric which can be dense and warm (perfect for mittens!) or light and lacy.  You can easily combine crochet or knitting with Tunisian to get stunning effects, but you don’t need to know either to be able to do Tunisian!
This one day workshop will give you a solid grounding in the basics of Tunisian in a fun and informal environment with a teacher who first picked up a Tunisian hook in 1985.
We’ll be covering..

    • Getting started – what is this strange tool and what do I do with it?
    • The  Basic Stitches – including tunisian simple, tunisian knit and tunisian purl stitches
    • Combination stitches
    • 3 Colour Tunisian
    • Casting off

We will be producing a beautiful stitch sampler during the day, which you will be able to take away to show off your new skills.

Depending on time we may also look at two projects you can start in class and finish at home.

You will need:

  1. no previous experience at all
  2. a pen/pencil and notepad for notes
  3. a mid sized crochet hook if you have one (I’ll have lots of spares if you don’t)
  4. You will be provided with all tools and yarn needed for this course.

If you have any questions or want any advice, please feel free to contact us.

Places on these courses are strictly limited, to make sure I give you all the time you deserve, so book early to avoid disappointment.

With the addition of at least three more workshops in 2013 – Crochet 102 (textures) , a half-day hairpin lace and a half day broomstick lace later in the year, it’s going to be a busy year.  I am super excited, and churning out swatches as fast as I can.  I can’t tell you how happy I am to not only be teaching the more advanced crochet techniques that so many courses neglect, but also to have to opportunity to bring the lesser known crafts of Tunisian, Hairpin and Broomstick to everyone.  Tunisian is tipped to be the big ‘in thing’ for 2013, so now is a great time to learn with lots of exciting designs coming out from the big designers!

It’s going to be lots of work over the next couple of months getting ready, but I’m *really* looking forward to it.

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