my fern garden tea cosy

Images help me talk :-) This blog has been waiting for me for a bit now. The creative process is an amazing thing, but sometimes it just has to wait. Thankfully there are sticky notes - lots of them!
I have always loved to make things. I have sewed from a young age, making doll's clothes as a little girl (my daughter has them now). My Grandma  was a wonderful knitter, and I learnt from her, but I have little patience to perfect it it seems. I hear my great-grandmother made beautiful Irish crochet. CROCHET! Oh why didn't you come into my life earlier? I guess I just wasn't ready! I love this craft. So absorbing, relaxing, peaceful, and you can create such intricacy. There is always more in my head than I have time to make! So I decided 2 (yes only 2) years ago I would teach myself to crochet. Got books, even considered trying to perfect knitting again... but those daggy granny squares were calling to me. My friend Lisa had just learnt! Her squares were beautiful, she'd used such lovely warm purples, and soft luscious yarns! I wanted to do that, and then wrap myself up in it. So I sat down with the books and tried and tried, and nearly threw them across the room. We all need to learn in different ways. I didn't know of any classes near by, so I asked Lisa to sit with me for an afternoon and do a square with me while our kids played. Thats what I needed, I needed to see and do and ask questions. Then I did a square every day for a week. It sunk in. It seems I'm not one to do things by halves. So I got a book on square motifs and started leaping in the deep end and having a go at some harder stuff. Lots of tales in there ;-) A year later after doing a market stall of my hats and brooches and wrap pins, I started teaching my first beginners crochet class at Little Red's Craft Cupboard in Monbulk, near where I live. I'm lucky to live in the gorgeous Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Australia, with so many creative people around me and inspiring natural surrounds.
So now I teach a beginner's class every term and we have a monthly meet there too called "Get Hooked" - cos that is what I think crochet does to you very literally!! But in such a good way :-)

So the teacosy up there eh? Should I write the pattern down? It is very easy, if I can do it, you can too! And... you can do it in any close stitch pattern is your latest fav! I will get around to doing that I think. This teacosy was made to sell... hee hee... it didn't sell at the market, though it did "go" to market. Makes me think of little pigs! I decided if no-one valued it enough that it would be my teacosy, and it still is. I love my teacosy. But so do others it seemed. One of the organisers of our local market, Grassroots Community Market, took the photo above, thanks Dianne. They used it on their website for a bit too, yay, was so cool, then it turned up to help promote the market in the Postcards Magazine, go figure!! I was stoked. So what to do next! Make up some patterns!!! So I did. The flower bag!! Even sold some of these! I love my flower bag! So I told Inside Crochet about it LOL - too funny! What a surprise, they liked it too, so if you like that mag, watch out for issue 29 and you can make my flower bag too!

 
Now I think I need to put some more photos here, who knew I had so much to say today! Well you have to start somewhere so this is me starting. Hopefully there will be some other little designs added here - what fun.
In amongst all of this crochet fun I learnt to spin my own yarn, so I might prattle on about that from time to time if you like, and my fun with trying to dye it with natural plant stuffs!

Oh I nearly forgot... what else can you do with crochet, well you can keep trees cosy too! So I had a go at that, and that was quiet fun too, and lots of people really love it - all that tactile goodness. (I did this with the folks at Yarn Corner).

You can cover, sorry - decorate, anything with crochet, you just need to imagine it! Like a lampshade! I like to crochet onto old lampshade frames, I think I will do a lot more of them!