Finally... 'My First Granny Square'

There is one thing I love about crochet, it takes a bloomin' lot less time than knitting does! Those holes serve a purpose you know, whoever came up with the crochet idea was clearly a genius and not blessed with the virtue of patience, much like myself. We all descended on Dilley Dalley's house one Sunday lunchtime last year. Dilley Dalley is actually 'Lorna' but her surname is Dilley and she faffs around a lot, stroking fabric, feeling her wool, getting her colour choices right. In fact, I decided to look up the definition of 'dilly dally' (note we spell her nickname wrong!):

To waste time, especially in indecision, dawdle or vacillate.

I think that is grossly unfair, she doesn't waste time, she just faffs (a lot and admits it), just like me. Actually, I shared something on Facebook recently about Lorna:

Paul Hollywood tweeted recently that he is sometimes 'spotted' in places he never actually went to. I tweeted him to thank him for coming to the first 'Emma's Fabric Studio Open Day' last October and learning to crochet with Lorna. We call her 'Dilley Dalley', she said she was thrilled to teach a man with such manual dexterity to crochet. I didn't hear back. He must have forgotten he came along.

Such is Lorna's attention to detail, she crocheted the collar of her t shirt, along with the flower in her hair. everything is usually in miniature as she's so teeny tiny herself. So, this was my first granny square session. Previously I'd only been able to master the 'chain' and on one failed attempt thought I was knitting and ended up with 20 chain actually ON my hook.

Also part of the group is Judi (Joooooodi) who is some kind of modern day crochet superhero, she can do anything. In fact, I think she's working on some yarn bombing - watch this space! She and Lorna taught myself and Jenny to do our first granny squares. Jenny and I are not known for our speed of picking things up, this was my 3rd attempt at crochet. However, I finally 'GOT' it!

I feel the role the cake played is important, hence the photos. However, almost as important as cake is understanding what you're trying to achieve in crochet. Being able to 'see' your pattern forming and understand the logic is incredibly important in learning the skill and being able to read where you are in the pattern. Judi is a whizz at re-writing patterns for us so they are more simple and we understand the terminology whilst we carry on learning. So, thanks Dilley Dalley and Joooooodi, myself and Jenny are now crocheting up a storm and are in a race to finish our first blanket!

Oh, a little aside re Lorna, she won't read down this far I'm sure. You know I said she does everything in miniature? Well, don't even get me started on the day she decided to make mini bunting (when I say mini, I mean 50 pence piece size) using her mum's Bernina. The wonderfully efficient Bernina sucked the fabric down into the bobbin space like a tornado, her poor mum is probably still finding miniature pieces of chintzy fabric deep in the mechanics of the machine. I'm seeing her on Sunday, I will not utter a word about 'bunting gate'.