Crochet Days in Dorset 2016

Come along to the lovely Dorset Countryside….

…..And learn to crochet in a weekend or Improve your crochet skills in 2016

Ali will be running 2 great crochet workshops from her Crochet Classroom in North Dorset in 2016, so either come along and

Learn more…..

This will be a great weekend getaway, where you and like minded crochetbeginners or improvers can learn in a totally crochet inspired classroom – probably the only dedicated crochet classroom in the UK!

Beginners will learn all the basics, “warts ‘n’ all” including the “knitty gritty”stuff, plus tricks of the trade and cheats.

Learn how to….

• make foundation chain
• crochet with straight edges
• crochet in the round
• make pot holders
• make traditional granny squares
• change colour expertly and
• lots more!

By the end of the course you’ll be crocheting fluently & with confidence, reading patterns and hooking like a pro!!

Be Inspired

or Improvers can simply get better!

On the improvers course, you can bring along that project you’ve been struggling with and get help with pattern reading.  Get that WIP out and come along and

Have fun with…..

• Learning new stitches
• Mastering a new technique
• Improve your Increasing and Decreasing
• Learn how to read symbols charts
• Have a go at C2C
• Amigurumi – learn how to invisibly decrease and
• lots more

Both courses will…

run from 10am on the Saturday & Sunday until 4pm, giving you time to go for a lovely countryside stroll alongthe trailway, before going back to your B&B to freshen up for supper.

On Saturday evening, we shall all meet up at the local pub, where we can enjoy a glass of wine or a G&T and have something to eat whilst discussing all things woolly!  A great excuse to crochet all weekend!

All courses are taught by the highly talented Ali Campbell, who has taught hundreds if not thousands of people to crochet in both Surrey & Dorset.  She has also designed and written patterns for both UK & US books and magazines and is highly sought after for her colourful works of crochet art.

If you need to stay over, local B&B’s are:

The Willows –  Which is a short walk down the trailway or the main road to the Crochet Classroom.

(more to follow)

Hook the weekend away

Price..

The price of the course is £120 for both days.  This will include unlimited tea or coffee, cake, biscuits and lunch on both days.  You will also be taking home tuition sheets & patterns  used.  If you do need to stay in our lovely county your B&B will be bookable & payable by the pupil, however, if you do need help then please do ask!  The Saturday Night meal & drink at the local pub will also be charged for sperately.

Find my classroom…

Shillingstone is located in North Dorset and is easy to get to from most directions.  By car or train, it’s not that far away!   Simply pop this postcode DT11 0SL into your directions finder or sat nav to see.

When will it be?

• Beginners 9th & 10th April

• Improvers 12th & 13th March

How do I book?

Contact Ali Campbell on 01258 860 124 or campbellmac44@gmail.com, as you will need to complete a booking form.

or leave a comment below!

Day 218 - Crochet Days in Dorset 2013 & an Interesting Exerise!

First of all here is the Square for Day 217 (yesterday)

And Day 218

Now for the interesting bit

Did you know that the time it takes you to crochet something could take you longer than you actually think!  Like me, you could be doing it to relax, sitting in front of the TV or you simply pick up your hook, crochet away, unwinding at the same time & not realising where the time has gone.

Well I challenge you to TIME the next piece of Crochet that you make, including the colour changes, fastening off, sewing in ends, sewing on buttons, whatever you have to do to finish the piece. 

I used the stopwatch on my iphone clock.

Realising the time involved in Crochet

Making the Granny Bag again turned out to be a very interesting exercise as I timed each piece I made.

 

Each Rectangle (x2) took 2.5 hours           = 5

Each Square (x4) took 1.25 hours               = 5

The Base took 80mins                                = 1 /  20

The Top took 2 hours                                = 2

& the handles 30 mins each                        =  1

 

So total time to make = 14 hours 20 mins.  This does not include the time it took to cut out the lining, machine sew & hand sewing involved!

Also, I am a fast crocheter, I wrote this pattern & I didn't have to refer to it that much, so if you are a beginner, find it hard to read patterns, have 3 million screaming kids or an attention seeking puppy to look after or the phone rings, these "obstacles" will add to your timings as it takes time to put your hook down, stop the timer, deal with XYZ, go back to your work, start the timer & work out where you last left off!!

And finally

CROCHET DAYS IN DORSET 2013 

I am now taking bookings to maximum of 8 places

These are the proposed days :

Choice 1 = Friday 27th & Saturday 28th September

Choice 2 = Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th September

Here’s what’s planned!

Day 1 – Arrive on the chosen day, any time after 12 noon.There is ample street parking.  Refreshments / Light lunch & a good old catch up will be provided. Crochet will start at 1 p.m.

We will finish Crochet at 5 p.m. & you can go and check into your B&B’s & freshen up in time for a meet up & an evening meal plus a few drinks at the local Pub – The Old Ox Inn, Shillingstone.

Then to bed!

Day 2 – On the following day, the crochet will start at 10 am. We will crochet until 1p.m. when lunch will be provided (kindly let me know if you have any dietary requirements at all) & after that we will all go on a local walk together, using the local trailway and visiting Shillingstone Station Project (you will be taken back in time when you see this place!) All this is just on the doorstep (literally) and a breath of fresh air will prepare us for the afternoon of Crochet which will end at 5 p.m.

So this is your chance to bring along that Crochet Pattern you are stuck on, work on that stitch that you can’t master or just learn something new from one of the many patterns available in one of my ever growing pile of books & magazines!

If there is any specific technique that you want to learn, then just let me know in advance e.g. “I want to learn to crochet a poncho” or “I want to learn how to follow a pattern or understand the symbols that I keep on seeing in pattern books”. I will cover each topic in turn and can be prepared & have everything needed to hand!

Refreshments of Tea & Coffee or Cold Drinks, including cake and biscuits, plus lunch on the 2nd day, will be included in the price of £85.00. (no change from 2012!!) Places limited to 8 people

The cost of any B&B / Evening Meals / Drinks will be payable by you, directly to the proprietor of the establishment.  I can give you details of local b&b’s in the area.

Crochet Days in Dorset was a great success in 2012 & I hope that it will be the same for 2013!

Kindly let me know if you are a YES a NO or a MAYBE by SATURDAY 16TH AUGUST 2013 & I can arrange from your replies.  You will then be sent a booking form & this will need to be completed & returned with a 50% deposit to reserve your place.

I look forward to hearing from you so if you are interested please email campbellmac44@gmail.com 

PLEASE PUT 

Crochet Days in Dorset 2013 in the Subject Line

(just in case I have to search my junk folder!)

Day 114 - Socks & Mentions + Crochet Days in Dorset 2013

First of all I would like to thank Zoe over at Inspired Decoration for mentioning my workshops on Workshop Wednesday today

Do pop over and take a look at what she's said!

http://www.inspireddecoration.co.uk/

 Now for the socks.

I had a day off today - a rare day off, so I concentrated on my socks

 There was a little disaster earlier today as Scrumpy decided to eat my pattern!

I did manage to rescue it though by piecing it all together again & then typing it up straight away on my computer to avoid this happening again!!

However I did manage to finish Sock 1

And I do think it looks rather splendid

 

Day 114 is this brown ensemble.  I love the colour mix of this wool!

 

Crochet Days in Dorset 2013

I am organising another 2 day Crochet extravaganza in June

At the moment it's planned for Friday 21st & Saturday 22nd June, however this depends on my foot operation date, which I hopefully will know soon.

The plan is for arrivals on Friday after 12noon, with Crochet starting at 1pm until 5pm.  Then you'll go to your B&B's for a freshen up & then meet at the local pub for a meal and drinks together.

On Saturday the Crochet Fun will start at 10am and after a break for lunch, which will be included in the price plus a little local walk for a breath of fresh air & take in the stunning views of Hambledon Hill & the North Dorset Countryside.  Crochet will resume until 5pm, when we will have to sadly say our farewells.

The price is £85 for the Crochet Days 

B&B & evening meals / drinks will be payable separately.

This is a great chance to bring along a pattern that you've been stuck on, the chance to learn a new technique or just join in the Crochet & Chat for over 10 hours!!

If you are interested in joining in then do email me

campbellmac44@gmail.com as places are limited to 8

Hope to see you there!

366 Granny Squares for 2012

Well today is day 366 of 2012

&

I have achieved the challenge that I set myself this time last year, which was to Crochet a Granny Square a day

I now have the most amazing blanket

Here are some of my favourite squares

Some which hold a special meaning and some which are simply lovely crochet squares

Some are Traditional Granny Squares and some are a variation on that theme....

Here are some "Traditional" Granny Squares

&

below is a slight variation on the "Traditional"

My Blood Drop Square - I gave blood that day and my blood group is B +

A Flower square

And a Valentines Square (the heart is on it's side due to my poor photo editing - sorry)

Again poor photo editing for my Leap Year Square

A Sunny Flower, which I probably made in class & transformed into my square for that day

A couple of more unusual flower squares

&

This is my Christmas Day Square

 The Dorset Flag Square commemorates the day I moved to Dorset

And this is my Wimbledon Tennis Square

I remember making this flower in a class that I was teaching that day.  I loved it so much that I had to "GAD" it

 Another class effort - Bavarian Crochet Square

And now for some squares with a difference....

And finally but unfortunately upside down.....

The Olympic Flame which passed through Blandford Forum

&

The Olympic Flag

And these squares are the ones that my Crochet Days Students made in class in September

I love these squares

And here it is!

A Granny Square a Day for 2012

A Square A Day for 2013 starts tomorrow!

Granny A Day 279 & Crochet Lesson

This is GAD 279, which I made whilst 

(a) Puppy was asleep &

(b) in between making millions of cups of tea for lots of builders that were in and out of my house today, so I am pleased that I managed to complete it in one sitting!

This afternoon I had CF here for a 2 hour crochet class.

She is one of the ladies that came to Crochet Days in Dorset last week and she said that she had a totally enjoyable time

Aren't her squares fantastic?

She also told me that her cross stitch has fallen to the wayside as Crochet has taken over her spare time

YAY

Crochet Days in Dorset - GAD 272 & 273 & 274

Friday 28th and Saturday 29th September 2012 sees the first of

Crochet Days in Dorset

The "Crochet Days" started on Friday at noon with tea and a light lunch, then the three ladies that attended

took a "Crochet Personality Quiz" to complete for a bit of fun.

I was lucky to have LW & JB from my old Surrey classes and CF who's one of my new ladies on the course who lives locally

JB brought along all these lovely squares

Here she is altering one or two of them to the correct size

And LW decided to concentrate on baby items

Whilst CF was busy mastering the art of a "Ripples Blanket"

As the afternoon drew in, we turned on the lights and got all snug with tea & an open fire

The day finished at 5pm.  We had time to freshen up and then meet at the local pub for a very nice meal and a couple of drinks together with lots of crochet chats, amongst other topics, before we all met up again on the Saturday.

Here is JB's first attempt at the Ripples Blanket - didn't she do well?

And LW moved on from a baby hat to baby booties

Whilst CF got busy joining all her Granny Squares together

JB chose a nice border to compliment her squares

once they were joined together.  The border she was practicing used DC with a Back Bump pick up

Here is the base of LW's baby bootie - she learnt to work both the top of the Foundation Chain and the bottom of it too using this pattern, something she had never done before

And this is CF joining her Granny Squares with the Join as you Go method which she liked as she rightly noticed that her blanket will grow more quickly as she was adding more rows each time she joined another square!!

After spending ALL morning crocheting away, which was absolute BLISS, we broke for lunch which was followed by a lovely local walk

And once we were back I got all 3 ladies following a simple symbols pattern.

Following a symbols chart was not something that all of them had done before, so after going through the symbols / stitches, they took it in turns to take us all through a row

 And this is what we ended up with!

I asked the ladies to let me keep there work, so that I could make it into one of my Granny A Day squares to commemorate the event.

We used wool holders throughout the days, which came in very handy to keep our balls of wool  on the table, and in turn, self un ravel too!!

So this is JB's Ripples Blanket practice piece

And this is her DC joining squares together

And her edging

LW started on this baby hat which will have ear flaps added 

And she also conquered a complicated bootie pattern which she will finish at home

CF made great progress on joining her Granny Squares together

She even managed to get her head around joining squares which didn't have the Granny Shell edge finish to them, so another fantastic achievement!

Plus she followed the Bright Flower pattern, pretty much all by herself, and is going to complete the square once back home

So here is GAD 272 made by JB for GAD Friday 28th September 2012

And here is GAD 273 made by CF for GAD Saturday 29th September 2012

And finally LW made GAD 274 for Sunday 30th September 2012

All the ladies want to know when the next Crochet Days in Dorset will be!!

I have suggested March 2013 for another Intermediate Crochet Course, with a maximum of 4 pupils, so if you are  interested then get in touch

I will also be holding a Beginners Crochet Days - Date to be decided

FEEDBACK RECIEVED SO FAR:

Thank you Ali, for a very enjoyable two days.  It was great - definately worth repeating, if possible - JB