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
Finding Ruby – A Patchwork of People
We are now looking for new people to join us and we would love to connect with other people, groups and communities and share our experience and some time learning and crafting.
The idea is to complete this work and the rose quilt plus another community quilt project by the end of 2013 and to design and produce a beautiful book and exhibition all about it.
A big thankyou from ‘Roses from the Heart’
For the past 7 years Christina Henri, artist in residence at the Female Factory in Hobart, has been orchestrating one of the world's largest art works. Now it is nearing completion and it is time to take it to the next level. This is going to support Hobart and help transform Tasmania into a powerhouse of creativity. I am writing to you because she has been in contact with you over the past few years.
Information on an App for Ipad users in Canada
Here is some information from a viewer in Canada who wanted to watch on her Ipad: I purchased the Photon app for $4.99 Canadian and it does the job. Thanks for your help and your very quick response. It's near midnight in my neck of the woods, so I only watched a short video. I'll jump in to more tomorrow. Leah Hope this helps others of you.