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
What do you do when the Rugby is on?
Having taught all day on Saturday up at Bee Crafty I was desperate to get to my own sewing machine and the Rugby 6-Nations is a perfect opportunity in my house for me not to be missed! I took a few moments in the afternoon to make these two quilt tops for the Alzheimers' Charity fundraiser - check out our blog about it ; Hampden Park and you can download the patterns FOR FREE.
Oscar Night for the Royal School of Needlework
Royal School of Needlework hand embroiders the 2013 Red Carpet Green
Dress worn at last night’s Oscar ceremony by British actress Naomie Harris A team of 22 embroiderers at the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) have added a unique sustainable twist to this year’s Red Carpet Green Dress
worn by Skyfall’s Naomie Harris. Using a selection of vintage gold threads,
beads and sequins, the world’s experts in hand embroidery have helped to
create a stunning and sustainable red carpet dress.
Saturday Log Cabin at Bee Crafty
Had a really lovely day sharing how to make Log Cabin blocks the 'quilt in a day' method with ladies in a class up at Bee Crafty in Huntingdon; the number of blocks varied from 9 to 24. Great day and we all dashed home to beat the snow! PS: Madelaine has now finished hers and it's ready for quilting: