Climate Week Crochet

Last week was Climate Week, a Scottish government campaign to raise awareness, and inspire action on, climate change.  A series of events was organised by Aberdeenshire Council at nearby Haddo Country Park which is owned and managed by the council and the National Trust for Scotland.

I signed up for a tee-shirt yarn crochet workshop to learn how to reduce textile waste.  Events for Climate Change Week highlight the importance of reducing emissions and adapting to a changing climate. Instead of being thrown away into landfill I was going to learn how to reuse the old tee-shirt I had to take along. My husband's discarded offshore wardrobe yielded a suitable sacrificial offering.

The evening class was run by Claire from Cookston Crafts and was held in the Haddo House tearoom.  Claire created a welcoming environment for the eight participants and Suzanna, from Haddo, was on hand with hot drinks, scones and traybakes.  Under Claire's friendly tutelage, we were soon busy creating our own yarn from the cleverly cut up tee shirts.

Following Claire's pattern we began to crochet the cotton strips into a wee bowl.  I found it quite hard work physically and Claire explained that the cotton I was using had very little stretch.  My arms and my fingers certainly got a bit of a work out!  Some of the others who were using tee-shirts containing Lycra were finding their yarn a bit easier to crochet.  Soon, though, my bowl was beginning to take shape.

One of the aspects I like best about attending any craft class is that we all start out to make the same thing but the final 'show-and-tell' displays everyone's individual creativity and no two pieces are the same.  After two hours of cutting and crochet, here's what we'd made.

I was able to finish crocheting my bowl at home the next day and found an empty glass jar to insert into it for added structure.  The fabric created is tough and durable and I'd definitely try this again.

I've certainly learned that old clothes unsuitable for donation to charity can still have a purpose with a little ingenuity and creative input - oh, and muscle power!