Thursday, June 11, 2009

my top tip

Lion Brand yarn asked for top tips for new crochet/knitters. Here was mine:

Pictures, pictures pictures! Develop the habit of documenting your WIPs and FOs by taking pictures -- make it a step of your project finishing process. I sure wish I had pictures of some of the first stuff I made! At the end of the year, it's powerful to look through your albums and see how many awesome things you've done! Plus, yarn crafters give away so much of what we make, that without documentation, it's easy to forget half of our FOs.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Crochet Classes

Saturday was the first of a two session Amigurumi class. It went so well! The project we're working on is the Owl in Ana Paula Rimoli's book Amigurumi World: Seriously Cute Crochet. In the first session we started crocheting the body of the owl. Before the next class I asked them to crochet the eye roundies, wings, and to complete the body until the decrease rows. Next week we'll attach the pieces, stuff 'em, and close 'er up.

There are 6 women in the class. The skills they brought in varied, but they all knew how to single crochet. The things I taught included: the magic ring, crocheting in the round, increasing, color changing, and decreasing. Everyone picked up new skills easy peasy.

My favorite method for starting to crochet in the round is the magic ring. Some people have a hard time with it, so I wasn't sure how teaching it to a group would go. I was so excited they were able to catch on! I think it set a nice tone for the session, since starting out frustrated is never fun.

Prior to the class, I started 3 bodies, each using a different method of starting (6sc in magic ring; ch2, 6sc in the first ch; and ch4, sl, 6sc in the ring). It was interesting to see how much tighter my tension was compared to the owl I made months ago, and how much tighter my tension got with each owl body I started. I need to crochet 2 more sets of wings, 3 sets of eye roundies, as well as finish the bodies to the decrease rounds for the class on Saturday.

The class was capped at 6. There's already one woman on the waiting list. I hope the class runs again, because I think it will continue to be popular. Amigurumis are just so darn cute. When the class was over, even though they only had half the body done, they all thought what they had so far was cute. It was exciting to see how much they were enjoying it!