Wonderful Workshops

Two days of meeting amazing ladies, who love playing with some yarn and a hook as much as I do.

I had so much fun, I just had to tell you all about it, and share some photos with you all.

Over the years of my working life I have taught many different things, but I can honestly say this is what I enjoy, no, LOVE doing.

I know I have the ability to design, and to push the boundaries with those designs. But it is the teaching aspect, the helping people to learn new techniques, and to perfect their skills that I get the biggest kick out of.

On Thursday I spent the day at Black Sheep Wools, in Warrington, at their Craft Barn. This is one of the largest, local, yarn shops in the UK.

It is a huge shop with row upon row of gorgeous yarns all arranged in brands, and yarn types and weights, it is the most amazing delight to the eyes of a hookaholic to see rainbow, after rainbow of yarn.

Black Sheep Wools is a family owned and run business and was one of the first online yarn stores in the UK. They ship worldwide at very reasonable prices, and a fantastic customer service ethos.

I started the day helping everyone to discover how to choose the colours for their Arabesque Cushion, and we all decided that you could spend a whole day just learning about colour… maybe something for another time?

First everyone picked the cushion cover, and then the yarn colours.

Then off they went, following the pattern, with hints and tips from me.

This pattern is exclusive to the ladies who attended the workshops for 6 months, it will then be available for anyone to purchase.

There was lots of tea/coffee and cake, as you can see, and I got so busy helping and laughing with everyone, I forgot to take many photos!

One of the things that made me really laugh out loud was when one of the ladies referred to me as “the Mary Berry of crochet” lol.

For those of you outside of the UK, if you have never heard of Mary Berry, she is the UK Queen of baking, and she actually lives just down the road from me, so Mr J and I often see her walking her dog in the woods.

Friday, after a good night’s sleep, and a dozen diversions, as the roads were closed, I arrived at Spa Mills, the home of Stylecraft Yarns.

Some of you who follow Stylecraft on Facebook may have already seen the video, at high speed, you can see me whizzing around helping everyone. Again, there were some gorgeous colour choices, and I did remember to take photos this time.

Another wonderful group of ladies, all helping each other, when I was busy.

You know, that is one of the things I love most about our craft, everyone is always willing to help and support each other, there is never any judgement of ability or skill level. The only negatives are those we place on ourselves.

I had loads of messages passed on from people in the Cosmic Cal group, thank you for all the virtual hugs 😊

finally a progress photo from Fridays workshop and the whole group with yours truely..and evidence that I forgot to pack my shoes… but just as well with all the running around I did!

Gorgeous yarn to work with Stylecraft cotton Classique double knit, wonderful people to work with, and so much fun.

A huge thank you to the organisers, and to all who attended.

I know many of you have said you would like to attend workshops, and though geography often makes it impossible to travel, I am looking into ways of doing online workshops, so it will not matter where in the world you are. ♥