The Freeform Ingredients!

Coffee and goodies.  Seven women.  One instructor.  LOTS of colored yarns, needles, hooks.  3 hours of fun playing with yarn and new techniques.  Pot luck lunch to talk about it all.

The PERFECT ingredients for a highly successful workshop with Lisa Doherty of Freeform Yarny Things!  And we all came away newly charged up and anxious to keep it going.

The backstory is an example of making lemonade from lemons.  Jane Thornley, one of my knitting icons, and I have been trying for years to actually meet in person.  An idea emerged to sandwich a visit and two-day workshop at my home between her cadres in Charleston, SC and Easton, MD.  All was arranged with 12 of my knitting buddies.  Unfortunately, Jane had to cancel for health reasons.  We WILL meet one of these days!


So….left with a two-day gap in the schedules of the 12 original participants, a FB posting reminded me of the talents of Lisa Carney Doherty.  I contacted her to see if she'd be interested in coming to Wilmington to teach.  Et voilà!  Some either had no crochet knowledge or weren't interested, so they opted out.  But what evolved was fabulous!  Above is a Lisa Doherty garment, fro a class she took with Prudence Mapstone, a well-known figure in the word of Freeform!

And to top it all off, we so loved it that we've decided to form a monthly group to gather, share, and continue to learn and experiment.

And my Scrumble is evolving.  Mine is in the photo above on the lower right.  And below are several more pieces yet to be incorporated.

As of this morning:

As you can see, when some pieces are not yet connected, I can play with the configuration.  Not sure what I'll do with this yet.  It could cover a bag, become a scarf or other garment.  I can tell you that it is one of the most time-consuming projects I've undertaken, and therefore has give me a far greater appreciate of the effort, time, and materials involved.  Each piece is made individually and then attached to the starting piece.

I have done my own version of freeform crochet for years that is quite different, but also very interesting.  I randomly crochet using, single, double, half-double, chains, etc., adding different yarns as I go along.  You can see a piece constructed like that in the photo above on the top left just under the top center piece.  My style of freeform adds 3-dimensional qualities to the pieces and final construction. I think I like the combination of flat and other surface designs.  

WHAT SHOULD THIS BECOME?

I welcome your thoughts!