Yarn Classes

Yesterday saw me high-tailing it into town to make the afternoon post, I had my two tea cosies all wrapped in pink tissue paper and carefully placed in a brown cardboard box. They were duly sent off to Karen who is running the National Tea Cosy Competition here in Ireland this weekend. I look forward to seeing ALL the entries. I have seen a few previews and let me put it this way, competition will be steep!

Hyperbolic Tea Cosy In Colour – side view
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

Hyperbolic Tea Cosy In Colour – top view
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

Hyperbolic Tea Cosy In Colour – front view
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

As you can see, my second entry is wildly colourful – perhaps on the scary side of crazy, but crazy is good, isn’t it? I believe all entries will be up on the Irish Craft Festival website or perhaps on Facebook, check them out!

The last couple of weeks have been on the hectic side and I have not had as much time to get patterns written as I would have liked – and I have a few on the boil! Not a good scenario…

However, it’s coming up for the National Tea Cosy Competition here in Ireland and I have decided to enter a couple of tea-cosies, just for the fun of it. One of my entries is going to be released as a pattern and to add a bit of extra pressure on myself, I thought I would bring a wee preview picture here, just to focus my mind.  It is not a complex pattern, just a simple, cheerful tea cosy.

Sunny Cuppa – Tea Cosy © Irene Lundgaard 2012

The competition entries may be sold after the event and all proceeds will go to Aware, who are helping to defeat depression if entrants donate the money their tea cosy fetches at the sale. It is a cause very near and dear to my heart and I think it such an inspired charity choice in the context.

The deadline for entries to the competition is this coming Wednesday, are you going to enter your tea cosy too?
I dare you! ;-)

Last night I sat quietly and in my own world crocheting. The television was on and all of a sudden I saw what people have been telling me about. I saw my own face on TV.

Some weeks ago there was a feature on The Yarn Room on Nationwide on RTÉ, our national TV station here in Ireland, I featured very very briefly in the piece with very busy crocheting hands and a very big smile. These two items are now part of the trailer for Nationwide! Who would have thought that!

AND I’m in the print media too.

A while back I was approached by the Irish Quilting Magazine as they were featuring The Irish Reef in an article. Our wonderful Hyperbolic Crochet woolly wonder which is currently on display in The Greenhouse, 17 St Andrew’s Street, Dublin 2 where ECO-UNESCO are doing trojan work to educate the masses on all things environmental. As a matter of fact, they are having their ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards Showcase and Awards Ceremony next week.

The Greenhouse is a great central place for the Reef to be on display! If you haven’t seen The Irish Reef yet, I strongly encourage you to go and take in the beautiful work of 100 Irish women and a couple of men and learn a bit about geometry, the environment and creative use of crochet at the same time. The Greenhouse is open during normal business hours.

My picture of The Irish Reef featured in
Irish Quilting Magazine
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

They also featured my piece of Yarn Graffiti, which I did earlier in the year. I first thought it odd that a Quilting Magazine would do a piece on crochet, but when I thought about it, I realized that Granny Squares actually can only be described as the quilts of crochet and all of a sudden it all made sense in my little mind…

Urbanization of the Irish Countryside featured in
Irish Quilting Magazine
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

They published my piece of Opinionated Crochet called Urbanization of the Irish Countryside which I had pointed out was the title of my work. However, they seem to have forgotten to include that bit of info in the article…

I also notice that there is now an International Yarnbombing Day on June 9th. It’s interesting how underground movements are eventually adopted by convention.

Being in the media will not pay any bills, so I better get back to my hook as I prepare my classes starting on Tuesday where there are a couple of places left and then I better start working on some patterns that are in the making too.

Hook on, is all I can say!

I’t’s time to get the hook out in Tinahely again and I have organized a 4 week run at the Tinahely Farm Shop starting Tuesday May 1st for 4 weeks from 10.30am to 12.30pm.

Beginners will learn the basics of crochet including good posture to cut down on repetitive strain injuries. No pointy-out fingers here! Continuers, will learn to read patters and who knows, they might even manage to design their own poncho!

I’m working on a couple of new patterns which will be rolled out at the class too…

Pre-booking is essential, so please drop me a mail at irene@yarnclasses.com or ring me on 085 769 1854.

Yesterday I took the time to get a couple of shots of my other sheep in it’s context in the village of Tinahely here in Co Wicklow. As you can see, the street was empty as everybody dove into the shops to avoid the heavy rain. Yesterday was a partial wet one – April showers indeed!

Originally I come from an island in Denmark called Fur, and island that is rich in fossils that literally come out of the ground. I have found fossils since I was a little girl and cannot cross a patch of gravel without throwing my eye over it to see if there is any “gold” to be found. My sheep reflect this heritage as sheep are part of the Artiodactyla family – which, to the best of my knowledge has their origin in the Osteichthyes fish family…

One way or another, my sheep is called ‘Origin Of The Species’. It’s a wee lamb. He is sitting right at the post box in Tinahely, keeping an eye.

Today was the day when Tinahely Arts Group officially launched the 2012 Tinahely Sheep Flock.

Doily The Sheep, her crackpot maker with
friends Hedgewe and Sam
Tinahely Sheep Flock Launch
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

It was a bitterly cold day, but fortunately there is no shortage of woolly garments in my wardrobe, so I wore most of it…

The last few days were hectic as the deadline for the Tinahely Sheep Flock was looming. I had to complete my contributions and as I was not working in crochet but with paint on metal I found it a bit stressful, to be honest – but mostly a fun challenge…

Doily The Sheep and Origin Of The Species and friends
Tinahely Sheep Flock – Tinahely Arts Group
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

I’m not used to expressing myself with anything but yarn but managed to make “Doily The Sheep” and “Origin Of The Species”.

Fortunately, today all the stress subsided completely as most of the sheep flock were put in place and ready for the Tinahely Walking Festival this coming weekend and my own two made the deadline too – and the paint had even managed to dry.

Note: We open the exhibition Saturday April 14th at 4.00PM. You are welcome to join us!

Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing some of the new sheep that will be on display in the Tinahely Sheep Flock by Tinahely Arts Group. The creativity is pure magic!

Meanwhile, I’m having fun preparing my two sheep for the Tinahely Sheep Flock which go on display next Saturday. I have been contemplating for some time what to do with my sheep, the lamb was already planned but the sheep is such a big canvas and I wanted to make something relevant to what I do. I contemplated crocheting a fleece for the poor naked sheep but decided against it as I would have to work in either ‘plarn’ or acrylics.

I did end up finding inspiration in my work as I’m preparing a talk on lace crochet at the moment and ended up taking my cue from that as “Doily The Sheep” is slowly taking shape!

Doily The Sheep – Tinahely Sheep Flock
Tinahely Arts Group © Irene Lundgaard 2012

Last night I spent time working on the doilies that are going to adorn this darling sheep and now I just hope the rain holds off while I work!

Note: The Tinahely Sheep Flock will be on display in the village of Tinahely for the summer. Official exhibition opening will be in connection with the annual Tinahely Walking Festival on Saturday April 14th @ 4.00pm on Dwyer Square, Tinahely. I hope you can join us for the event!

I’m back from my trip to Denmark after two wonderful workshops at the fantastic facilities at the County Library in Skive and much crochet creativity was unleashed! 15 crocheters  learnt Tunisian crochet, 6 beginner crocheters were hatched and 6 ponchos designed! Wonderful, fulfilling days! YAY!

I hit the ground running when I came back as very many creative adventures are being hatched in my world at the moment.

First and foremost, the very many contributions for the celebrations of March as International Crochet Month at The Yarn Room needed to be installed. On Friday the Dynamic Duo of Hannah and Marlen came along and we set to work with all the very many pieces of pretty crochet!

Celebrating International Crochet Month, March 2012
with Yarn Graffiti at The Yarn Room
© Irene Lundgaard 2012

We made a start at it and I think the photos speak for themselves.

There is much more to come and who knows, perhaps Hannah and Marlen are done with it all when I return on Thursday. No pressure!

While my sheep is left to dry and while I think up what’s next for it I have had fun with crocheting a sunflower which will be revealed at a later stage (once I get the maths right). However, I have also been celebrating International Crochet Month. I have immersed myself further in this piece of free-hand crochet. The right term might be free-form, but I always associate that term with “scrumbles” and loads of bullion stitches and this piece I’m working on has none of that, it is sculptural and has taken on a life of it’s own.

It does have what to me appears to be something that could be called burly hair. I know other people would probably not use that term in connection with hair but seeing that it is my hands this piece of work is running through, I can tell you, it is just that!

I wonder if Venus ever had burly hair – or if she was a redhead for that matter…

I’m longing to just crochet and crochet until this creature has fully developed, but first I must print the last few sheets of hand-outs for the workshops in Denmark at the weekend and there is also the small matter of some packing to be done, but tomorrow, while I travel…