Friday, September 5, 2014

Finishing Techniques for CAL Sweater: Sept 13 Meeting Preview

Our sweater CAL (crochet-a-long) project is nearing the finish line.  Can you believe it?  It seems the time just flew by. When you get to the end of a crochet project, there are lots of tips and tricks for finishing your item to make it look professional. At this month's meeting, you'll get a chance to learn various finishing techniques for completing your sweater or other crochet projects you are currently working on.

At this hands-on class, you'll be able to learn about and practice one or more for the following techniques:
  • Blocking: We'll have tools and materials available for you to try several blocking techniques with your own swatches. Never tried a hand steamer for blocking or seen blocking wires? This is your chance to try these tools and see if they will help with your crochet projects.
  • Trimming: We'll show ideas for finishing edges of your sweater - including the crab stitch and other options.
  • Ties: There's more than one way to make a pretty drawstring tie for this sweater - we'll show you several ideas.
The meeting will be Saturday September 13 at the Textile Center of Minnesota (3000 University Ave SE, Minneapolis). Beginning this month, our schedule changes slightly so that we have more time for the hands-on education part of the meeting:

  • 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM - Open Crochet
  • 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM - Show n Tell and Business
  • 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM - Education
To get the most out of this meeting, you need to bring:
  • Swatches from the CAL project (or other swatches that you want to use for practice)
  • Your CAL sweater or other project
  • Worsted weight yarn and appropriate hooks to try out trimming and ties
  • Your questions 
And remember, we're still working on the CTC banner made of 2" white squares for the letters and 2" purple squares for the background; the squares are a wide variety of stitch patterns to show the versatility of our craft. The banner squares will be available to play with so you can try out your ideas for arranging the squares. We're still not sure if we have enough white squares to spell out Crochet Twin Cities or if we'll just use CTC - but the end result will look fabulous either way.

We hope you can join us!