International Crochet Day
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of teaching a mini-class at a celebration of International Crochet Day, held at the Leesburg Public Library. The entire event had been themed around international travel.
There were 7 teaching stations; I taught filet crochet, and other instructors taught corner-to-corner, mosiac, tunisian, and beaded crochet techniques. We had an instructor who taught about blocking crochet, and another who taught about dyeing yarn.
Participants received mock passport booklets, with each page featuring a country and one of our lessons. The pages were stamped as the participants visited each table to learn what they liked about that style of crochet. It was a really cute setup!
The teaching sessions were 20 minutes long, and I believe I had 28 people visit "France" to learn about filet crochet! Why do I say this with such confidence? I printed 26 handouts for the class, and I ran out exactly when the final session took place. Only 2 people chose not to take a handout.
I had a blast sharing my research about filet crochet. I have dabbled with it in the past, but never all that successfully, and then it seemed like other projects took precedence before I was able to circle back to it. There was a creator who was active when I first started crocheting, named babukatorium on Ravelry and Instagram. She isn't posting anymore, but I still find myself inspired by her work.
Since the middle of August, I've been creating samples to demonstrate different stitches, and it has reignited the interest I had when I found babukatorium (circa 2017). I had a dream of making my own curtains when I moved into my apartment in 2019. Will I make them now? Not for a while, as I still have to finish my Halloween costume for this year. But, as I told my students yesterday, I hope the mini-class helped to open the door for them to explore filet crochet with more confidence, the same as teaching it has for me.
One great resource, whom I referenced heavily in my handout because I really liked his approach, is divynecrochet on Youtube. He dives into much more complex concepts in his videos, such as making curved edges on borders and within designs. I added his Youtube to the Resources page of the handout as well, because I want people to see his work and listen to his approach. But for anyone who missed the session and wants to dive into filet crochet, his videos were the ones I dove into the most heavily.
I also had a chance, at the end of the event, to talk a bit about my approach over the past 11 years of my crochet experience. I struggled with a feeling, towards the end of 2021, that I didn't know how to move from being a "beginner" crocheter to being able to call myself "intermediate". And, for that matter, I didn't know how to move on to be able to say that I was "advanced"!
In retrospect, I had been very casually challenging myself to make things I wanted to see myself wearing, or that I wanted to use on a day-to-day basis. That was the single largest motivating factor. And, sometimes, I would attempt to make those things, and in that moment, they were just too hard. Or, I had made a mistake and I wasn't ready to let go of all the work I had done, but I couldn't continue either. There was a lot of growing I had to do in order to learn when I needed to commit to letting go, and when I was comfortable compensating for a mistake I had made further in my project.
Learning HOW to compensate for a mistake was another huge stepping block for me. There were compensations I made that I was okay with:
One of my very favorite wearables that I have made, a mandala duster, had 12 repeats in the pattern. I started and frogged that single project 3 different times, and then the last one that I ended up completing? I miscounted on the very first round and ended up with 13 repeats. Can you tell? Nope! I'm happy I carried on with that one.
There were compensations that I made that did not work out at all:
The Better Rings of Change blanket that I finished last year, made with Dahlia 100% cotton yarn from Hobbii, had a single 7-round section that I frogged 4 different times at one point. There were a total of 700-800 stitches in each round of those sections. I kept trying to compensate for being a few stitches off count, which had terrible rippling effects that caused the blanket to wrinkle and bunch up. I got so frustrated, I put it down for 2 years before I figured out a way to keep track of my count easily and accurately.
Each of these trials and tribulations pushed me forward in my skill, to the point that I now consider myself an advanced crocheter. I have never done mosiac crochet. I don't like tunisian crochet. I have only ever done one corner-to-corner project, and it was not utilizing a graph. I have never completed a doily. I have never made a raglan sweater. I have never successfully made a garment with negative ease. I have never designed a garment pattern that was comfortable to wear. Those are examples of preconcieved notions I had about being "advanced". I thought I needed to have already done everything.
But you don't need to have done everything; what you need is to have the knowledge and skill, by working with the styles of crochet that you love, to spot and fix mistakes accurately. You need to be able to apply your knowledge and skill to different applications confidently. When you make a stitch in the front loop, you do it with intention, not by accident. These are the signs your skill is growing.
Anyway, that was a very long-winded way for me to say that I had a really good time teaching and talking yesterday. Thank you to Paula Lee and her incredible band of volunteers for putting on such a great event, and thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate International Yarn Day with us.
If you want a PDF copy of my filet crochet mini-class handout, find it in my shop as a free download. If you enjoy it, consider buying me a coffee!
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