Please join us on March 3, 2010, for a lecture and workshop with Louise McCrady. She will be sharing with us a technique her mother created called Shirret! Lots to show and share! The technique combines crochet with shirring (pleating/ gathering of fabric strips) to create fun and easy rugs, tea cozies, hats and more! Featured in Piecework (Dec. 2008), Yankee magazine and many others! Visit her website for more pix.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Wild Crochet a RagRug Shirret Beret
2-hour workshop with Louise McCrady – $20
Advance registration required (E-mail us to sign up)
Note: you must be able to crochet chain and double crochet stitches fluently to shirret. Visit crochet.org to learn and practice ahead of time.
If you love colorful texturey fabric scraps, why not crochet them into rugs and carpets, hats. bags, tea cozies and more? Shirret is a way to enjoy crochet – without expensive yarn – while you make something completely luxurious, new and unique using RECYCLED FABRIC.
Wool, cotton or silk scraps are cut and basted onto a special needle, but there is no sewing. The special hook is how: it’s a new CROCHET hook to add to your workbasket. It is stainless steel and it does two things at once. It’s a comfort 00 size hook with a bend that fits in your hand for no cramping: and the added fabric means that you fill up space, fast! Crochet a stitch with cotton cord and add a fabric gather from the hook to each stitch, like adding beads. The colorful scraps combine into rich, sturdy carpets.
In this workshop, you will get the muscle memory of the Shirret stitch from the repetition of making jewel-like squares and rounds.
Supplies: Bring colorful medium-weight wool or cotton fabric scraps, sharp scissors, cotton string if you have it. Bring old wool skirts, curtains, collected fabrics especially if the prints are ugly but the colors are nice, to cut with a special method. Don’t buy fabric because it will be the wrong thing. Louise will be loaning shirret hooks for use in class.
