Fibre feast or famine

Nothing happens for months and months then it all comes together. A fantastic day on Saturday was had by all that attended the Margaret Werthiem workshop in the Science Gallery. Lots of excitement and lots of plans to be put together. We have roughly 5 months to put an Irish Crocheted Coral Reef together. A tough deadline, but we'll have to do our best. All I can say is GET CROCHETING!! The Science Gallery will be in charge of all boring logistics, we should just concentrate on doing the crochet. If you are interested in taking part, there will be workshops organised around the country, but if you can't wait. The gals from the Sydney Crocheted Coral Reef have put together a fantastic PDF of basic patterns on their blog. I'm sure they won't mind me saying... and there is also instruction's on the Institute of Figuring website.

I'm hoping the Science Gallery will start a Blog/Flickr account for the project. Be great to have it documented, with lots of links and photos. Between the fellow Ravelrs that attended the meeting, we have started a Ravelry group Irish Hyperbolic Crocheted Coral Reef.

Before I finish on the topic, I would just like to pass on a few suggestions that were made at the workshop: be colourful, be imaginative, and think vertical. The Coral doesn't have to be realistic, in size, shape or colour. Use the patterns until you feel comfortable making the coral, then go off on a tangent. Make up your own wondrous shapes. Take a look at books on coral reefs and you will see nature is far more strange than anything most of us can come up with. Think vertical: the crocheted coral reef looks good if it is different heights, reflecting the diversity you see in real life. Think about using structures. Crochet over plastic bottles, wire, stuff them to make bulbous shapes...Most of all enjoy it.

Rambling over, back to my 2nd fibre trip to Dublin. This weekend is the Knit and Stitch, and anyone interested in any kind of textiles usually attends. Yes it can be a bit samey every year, but it's the only textile event of its kind in the Republic, and if it weren't there we'd miss it...
Check out the Cork Textiles Network stand upstairs... and fellow Ravelrs, there's an unofficial meeting at 12.30pm in the cafe. Wear a badge or something with your Rav name.

Another 8 hour train journey there and back, but guess what I'll be doing!!On Saturday, I started a hyperbolic crocheted scarf on the train up, and had it finished by the time I got back to Kerry. I'm sure I can get a few bits of coral done along the way this time...