Rowan were kind enough to invite Debbie Abrahams and myself to tutor a Kaleidoscope inspired workshop at Green Lane Mill in Holmfirth West Yorkshire last weekend.
We took all the projects form the book and made a lovely display in the Mill show room which was the perfect setting for our bright home projects.
Debbie and I have designed a little bag project to accompany Kaleidoscope workshops - Debbie has designed the knitted version and I have designed the crochet one. Both projects use many of the techniques used in the book and workshop participants can choose which craft to work on.
25 ladies came along to what turned out to be a really lovely fun workshop and we were even lucky enough to have a guest appearance from the lovely Sarah Hatton who gave up a few hours of her Saturday afternoon to come and see us.
The projects from Kaleidoscope went down really well with the workshop group and many of them found the time to do a little bit of sampling too. Giddy - my crochet 'optical illusion' blanket - appears to be a favourite, as does Debbie's bed runner 'Zap' which uses a lovely star stitch.
The Zig Zag cushions 'Dazzle' and 'Wiggle' also seem to be really popular and - with no shaping or complicated instructions - they really are the kind of thing you can make over the course of just a few weeks if knitting or crocheting in front of the TV in the evening!
Debbie and I had such a lot of fun naming the projects. We originally thought we would choose french sounding names which echoed the design inspiration which was a church in Poitiers - but in the end we opted for fun quirky names - below is Debbie's table runner called 'Quiver'. I love Debbie's 'Groovy' knitted round cushion cover which is made using the short row shaping technique, beading and intarsia.
The image below is of my crochet chair pad 'waffle' (so called because it really reminded me of one) and below that is an image of 'Crackle' - my round crochet cushion cover. This is made using 2 shades of yarn at a time and has some added embellishment in the shape of little bobbles. Hopefully 'snap' and 'pop' will make it into another book!
Debbie and I both have stock of signed copies of the book and you should now be able to get them through independent yarn stockists. We have more exciting events and workshops coming up over the next few months, so make sure you keep and eye on our web sites. You can see my web site JANIE CROW here and Debbie's web site here.