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 – the author of antique patchwork squares
By Jonathan Brown – Yorkshire Evening Post
Published on Wednesday 2 May 2012 06:30 A patchwork of people is piecing together craft mementos from a bygone era. Around 15 craft-loving volunteers have tasked themselves with stitching together 30 quilt squares, made in the 1930s, and finding out more about the women who signed them. The group came together after designer Jules Caton, from Ilkley, stumbled across the squares in a second hand shop in the Texan frontier town of Smithville last November.
Filming with Mary Gamester
We had a lovely day in the studio filming and meeting with Mary Gamester.
Mary is well known for her work with transfer paints and she was kind enough to do a short workshop for us using a snowflake template. We also took the opportunity to see lots more of Mary’s work, which she teaches not only at her own studio
https://www.the-gamesters.co.uk/MaryG/index.htm
but also around the country and she is part of the Missenden Abbey Summer School programme – so you can join her there.