a new skill

Last week I visited the Borders Textile Towerhouse in Hawick to view a small exhibition by Rosemary Eribe - a successful local knitwear designer who designs and produces a range of beautiful hand knitted garments and accessories. I especially love her use of colour in these fairisle scarfs.

Whilst I was there I was invited to attend a beginners crochet class being held at the Towerhouse that afternoon. Now I have tried crochet before but have never got past the frustration stage and so decided a proper class might remedy this.

The class was run by Helen, a lovely local lady, who says her granny taught her to crochet and knit before she even went to school! We began by learning a brief history of the craft - apparently Queen Victoria learned to crochet around the time of the Irish potato famine where the women were selling their crochet to make ends meet. Crochet was often looked down upon as being a crude imitation of lace however Queen Victoria played a key role in its popularization amongst the wealthy English aristocracy and in doing so helped the Irish cause. Most interesting!

So after getting to grips with some of the basic stitches (and a few cups of tea later) we all became a bit adventurous to the extent that we each managed to produce an actual completed flower corsage which you can see below.

A special mention to the lovely Eileen for giving me the amazing button from one of her old cardigans! Thank you - its the perfect colour! I've decided to give the corsage to Px's granny for her 80th birthday this weekend - as she is of Irish decent, and will no doubt be an expert crochet-er, I hope she doesn't spot too many mistakes in it!

I really enjoyed the crochet class, there was a really nice atmosphere and I'm glad to have fully completed my first little crochet project!