About Gaynor
Gaynor is a crochet-obsessed teacher and pattern designer from Wokingham in Berkshire.
She learned to knit and crochet as a child, trained and worked as a French teacher for over 10 years, and then picked up her hook again 10 years ago. Gaynor jokes that she is “lucky enough to call myself a full-time hooker…”
In 2012, Gaynor set up The Barkham Hookers crochet group with a few friends in her living room. They now run 4 group sessions a week as well as many regular private lessons with over 600 members on Facebook alone. You can find them on Facbook via The Barkham Hookers’ Charity Group, where many of their charity projects can be seen.
She is very proud of the fact that The Barkham Hookers raised over £60,000 for various national and international charities, £52,000 of that for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal. Click here to watch Gaynor share a quick and easy method for crocheting a poppy.
Gaynor loves designing and making blankets, many of which can be found as free CALs (crochet-a-longs) on her blog: Confessions of a Barkham Hooker. During the pandemic, she designed the Coronavirus CAL, posting a new section daily then weekly with colourful pictures and detailed notes.
Signature Technique
Crochet Blankets incorporating a variety of patterns and colours
Top Tips
- Crochet is very forgiving. Don’t be afraid to adjust or change the pattern to suit your needs or likes. And remember, if in doubt pull it out!
- Use a larger hook to work a long foundation chain to avoid it curling up.
- If you work quite loosely choose a slightly smaller hook than advised and a larger hook if you work tightly.
- When working in rows do not forget to work into the last stitch – – which is probably the chain 2/3 made at the start of the previous row.
- Use military buttons as the centre in poppies to add something special.
- If you are working with several balls of yarn, chuck them on the floor and let gravity help you keep them untangled.
Videos
Patterns
Posts
Magic 4 Patch quilts by Valerie Nesbitt
Here are a couple of quilts that I just couldn't resist making! The first used lovely Lewis & Irene fabrics that were also used to make a cushion (see Anne Baxter's workshop) and the other was made with fabric scraps given by a quilting friend as leftovers from her own quilt.
Update 16th October 2015
Workshops Today we are joined by Anne Baxter and she [...]
Quilt by Karen Nicol in the Habby Dept of Liberty’s London
Karen Nicol (one of our contributors) has a quilt now hanging up in Liberty's which you can all go and see; it's in the haberdashery dept. Here are some pics and more info: To celebrate their 140th anniversary, Liberty's chose Karen ,Lou Gardiner, Amanda Fatherazi, the Shoreditch Sisters and the Darlings to each produce a quilt. The shop was built from the wood of two ships so the theme for the quilts had to be sailors tattoos...brilliant!