I started learning crochet last Thursday night and I don’t think I’m doing too badly. I can actually read a pattern as well as doing the stitches. I’ve done some granny squares and a few geometrical shapes and I’m going to do more motifs and shapes to put on garments as well as handbags and I’d like to crochet handbags and carry bags too. Later on I’d like to make ponchos, cardigans and the like.

My current assignment for college is to embellish a recycled garment either something we already had at home or buy something from an op shop. The embellishment has to be something we’ve learnt in the course so far – hand embroidery, freestyle machine embroidery, couching, sandwich fabric, or machine embroidery on solvie disolvable plastic and attaching this to a garment. I’ve bought two garments a rather hideous maroon top and a nice black long sleeved plain shirt. The maroon top has potential but it is the riskier of the two options as I would need to pull it apart and remove the parts I don’t like, embellish it and remake it. I don’t know that I can do all that yet. The black shirt would be much more straight forward to embroider or overlay couching or something like that on the cuffs, down the front or around the bottom. I think we’re required to spend a minimum of 25 hours on it, I’ll have to check that. If I’ve got the time and the maroon top goes okay I might do both of these. This is for my Cert II in Visual Arts and Contemporary Craft-Textiles.