Planning Ahead

Planning ahead more than one week at a time is not one of my strong points. It used to irritate my mother very much, but I find it hard, with so much else going on in my head, to think about things months or even years in the future and to fix them as dates in my calendar. Running this business has forced me to change my ways, however, as it seems that lots of people like planning ahead. Luckily for me, I have Mandy to help me with this one, and so, because people have been asking us, we have spent the last couple of weeks putting together the dates for our workshops, events and courses for 2026 all of which will be taught in our reorganised space in the shop.

This year we are putting on monthly classes to help people get started with knitting and crochet. In the case of knitting, these are our Introduction to Knitting classes and involve teaching people the absolute basics – how to cast on, how to knit and purl, cast off, and to read a pattern. Sometimes we have people who already have those basics under their belts attend these courses. We are really happy to be flexible and help them with moving on, say to knitting in the round or similar. It does help if we get a heads up in advance, however!

After some trial and error over the years, we have renamed the crochet course and now call it Learn to Crochet Granny Squares. This is because the granny square is where everyone wants to start. Again, we are happy to take on absolute beginners who have never held a hook in their life, or people who have given it a go but not got beyond making a chain. By the end of the three hour course, you will be able to crochet a granny square, possibly even in different colours, and be able to read a crochet pattern. Almost all our courses now will be on a Saturday morning from 10am to 11pm.

We also continue to offer a course teaching you how to knit socks on double pointed needles. This course is 4 hours over 5 weeks – you will begin by casting on the leg (the sock is knitted from the top down), the second session is knitting the heel flap and the third is the magical turning the heel bit which everyone finds so intimidating although it is really much easier than you would think. Then we show you how to pick up the stitches so that you can move on to the foot of the sock. We usually leave a 2 week break for the foot to be knitted and the final session is decreasing for the toe and grafting it. We are considering some more intensive sock courses – longer sessions over fewer weeks, but we are not sure how best to make it work. Do let us know if that is what you would prefer.

We have put on four Fair Isle courses over the year – again a three hour session on a Saturday morning. We will provide the needles, yarns and a pattern and get you started with how to handle two colours at once and the other principles of stranded colour work. Then for those who want to learn a bit more about crochet, we have a course entitled ‘Moving on From Granny Squares‘. In this course you will bring along a project for us to get you started on – it could be a garment, or amigurumi or a blanket, whatever you want. Over the three hour session an experienced crocheter will get you started and guide you so that you can leave feeling confident with your chosen project. You can also find a different kind of sock course – learning to knit socks from the toe up using the Magic Loop method. This is done in two one and half hour sessions over two weeks to give you time to knit the foot before we tackle the heel turn. Last, but not least, we have set up four sessions of a Lace Knitting course, during which you will start a scarf and learn how to tackle lace. These sessions will be on Friday, rather than Saturday mornings.

In the pipeline, but not yet finalised, we are also hoping to offer an Introduction to Embroidery course, cable knitting and brioche knitting, and perhaps, and introduction to spinning on a drop spindle. I will keep you updated.

As for events, the main one we currently have planned is the Summer Retreat 2026 at the Cliftonville Hotel in Cromer. But we are also planning another one day event at the Hotel, probably in September. And we are looking to bring in some local makers to do pop up shops over the year as well. As you can see, we have a lot going on!

So if you are the kind of person who likes planning ahead and you want to get a new skill, book a coursee,or contact us to tell us if there is anything we have missed. We look forward to hearing from you.