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Gaynor White

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

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Patterns

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Posts

Mystery Quilt still a hit

A quick note to say how much I enjoyed the Midsummer Mystery Quilt ... and although it's taken me a little while to finish it, here is a picture of the end result.  I am thrilled with it.  I'm going to do another one to fit my double bed because I like it so much. This is still available for you to work on - you just need to get a large bundle of 2 1/2" strips, and/or a jelly roll handy and you are ready to start.

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Do you struggle with accurate piecing?

Here are a couple of tips which I hope you will find useful: You do need to make sure that when you have two pieces of fabric being sewn together that they start and top together - don't assume that the machine will do that for you because the way the machine works is the top fabric is being pushed towards you and the bottom fabric being pulled away from you;  this 'drag' varies on the machine and on the fabrics you are using and a little with the foot you are using.   So always hold onto the fabric with a pin or with your hands until you have sewn right to the bottom and if you are using a thread catcher, this will encourage you to do this.

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2023-03-09T07:39:58+00:00
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