Have you all heard of Stitchtopia craft holidays? I began working with them in 2019 as one of thier textile experts, I think they have around 25 experts in total, covering crochet, knitting, patchwork, quilting and embroidery. The holidays and retreats vary from short weekend breaks in the UK, to week-long trips in Europe, and now also include longer holidays and tours worldwide. Sometimes there is a full touring itinerary (eg travelling by train or cruise ship), and sometimes there is a specific focus to the holiday (eg a large textile event) but mostly the holidays I've been on revolve around spending time in a relaxed workshop setting (always in a beautiful hotel), with various day excursions planned into the week. The groups are kept small (maximum of fifteen) and as well as the teaching expert there is also a tour manager present the whole time, and local guides who oversee the excursions. It's a great way for guests to meet like minded textile enthusiasts, and is ideal for anyone wishing to travel alone. In fact lots of ladies come on these holidays as a first time solo travelling experience (which is a very brave thing to do), and as soon as we all meet at the airport/hotel there is instant friendship and cameraderie - it's wonderful!
I've been lucky enough to teach five retreats this year (three in the UK and two overseas) and today I'm going to share the project I designed for my trips to Portugal and Morocco. I haven't talked much about my Portugal retreat back in June/July as I was taking a break from blogging over the summer, but it was absolutely amazing...maybe I'll share some Portugal travel diaries with you soon, if you'd be interested in seeing some photos?
Today though, it's mostly all about crochet and colour.....
....lots and lots of colour!
When I'm planning my Stitchtopia projects I get complete freedom to design any type of crochet item I like and then create bespoke kits for the guests using a yarn of my choice (within an agreed budget). My projects always focus on colour teaching, and for this year's retreats I chose to use these very cutesome little 20g balls of cotton yarn. This is Sirdar Happy, a DK weight yarn which has a lovely matt finish and is wonderful to crochet with, and the range currently has fifty shades which include colourful saturated brights, muted vintage shades and pretty soft pastels.
As I would be teaching the same project in both Portugal and Morocco, I had the idea to focus on the bright shades found in ceramic tiles as my inspiration. Both countries have very colourful and decorative architechture with lots of mosaic and tile work and there is a wealth of inspiration to draw from - it was a tough job picking out colours, but I am dedicated to my craft and gave it my all ;)
As I knew I wanted to teach certain aspects of colour theory with my project, I built my colour palette with those lessons in mind.
Firstly I like to focus on using the colour wheel to create harmony in our projects, and I teach how to balance out a palette of colours by splitting the wheel in half - equal hot and cold shades.
Secondly, my design would need to have some decent contrast, so I picked out a good balance of light and dark shades to make this happen, while still keeping a harmonious balance.
These are the three key things I like to teach with my colour projects - harmony, contrast and balance. It's deceptively difficult to achieve these things in practice, but I try and deisgn my projects to help my guests gain colour confidence, and for them to learn about the properties of colour. For example, learning about advancing/receding colours, and tehniques to create a "pop" where it's needed most, also colour proportions and how to balance them over a whole project (again, this can take some doing but it's such a good learning curve).
This is the "Sunny Days" square I designed - it measures 15cm / 6 inches and is crocheted in ten rounds.
The first thing we did on the retreat was to crochet the square using just two colours. This meant that the guests could get to grips with the pattern without having to worry about colour choices straight away, and it also helped me to advise about any tension/gauge queries and hook size etc.
This blue and white sqaure also acted as a useful "blueprint" for making the full coloured squares - it helps to know which rounds need heavy contrast, and to learn about which rounds have the most impact in the design. All the guests agreed that this part of the workshop was really useful, and they enjoyed easing into the project without too much worry! Also, keep in mind that in Marrakech it was a very hot 37° C (99° F) degrees, so a slightly slower, easier start to the workshop was appreciated by us all.
After the blueprint square, we worked on two different colour lessons using just the first five rounds of the pattern. This was quick and fun and gave the guests the chance to start playing with the colour palette while learning more about how the design needed to work in terms of colour contrasts and using the hot/cold dynamic of the colour wheel.
This particular project was mostly focused on the colour teaching (and the joy of relaxed crochet) rather than completing a finished item, so I kept things simple and created a 12 inch square panel. It meant the guests could experiement with colour combinations across their four squares (keeping the balance, harmony and contrast lessons in mind), and working on a small square in cotton yarn wasn't too tricky in the heat.
I love how my square looks on this lovely tiled Moroccan table ^^
....in fact, I just love my Sunny Days square any which way! The colours are very happy and joyful and bring back so many good memories.
I thought you might like to see our retreat setting in Morocco - this certainly isn't a boring classroom situation!
In Marrakech we were staying in a very beautiful old riad within the city walls (you can see more photos of it ((here)). We took over part of the huge rooftop terrace and the owners very kindly went to a lot of trouble to construct a fabric awning for us as it was so deadly hot in the afternoons.
When we moved location in the second half of the week, we travelled west to the Atlantic coast which was a lot cooler (around 25 degrees there, which was perfection). The hotel was more modern but still inceredibly beautiful with lots of Moroccan decorative touches. We were given a beautiful space to work in - it was airy and cool with very comfortable chairs and a large sunny terrace just through the glass doors to the left there.
It was lovely to be able to spend a little more time on our crochet while we were here, as our days in Marrakech had been very hectic with a full itinerary and our crochet time was more limited.
I love the above photo, taken towards the end of the week when one of the guests had transferred her yarn to a gorgeous woven bowl she'd bought on a visit to a local Berber market.....
....and here you can see the choosing process taking place! Aren't they all so beautiful??
I took a lot of photos in the market (it was an incredible epxerience) but I'll save those for another day.
Now I'd like to show you some photos of finished Sunny Days projects shared with me since our return to the UK....it makes me so happy to see, and I'm sure you'll agree, the most excellent colour choices, they did me proud!.......
↑↑ This is Sandy's finished cushion - she finished the front 4-square panel while we were in Morocco, and made the reverse once she got home. She took my ten round Sunny Days square design and continued the pattern repeat to enlarge it, then added a lovely wide, stripy border.
↑↑ This is Janet's finished cushion looking very lovely with her Fireside blanket, they go really well together, don't they?
↑↑ This is Ann's beautiful cushion - for the reverse side, she took the ten round Sunny Days square and added some bright treble rounds to make it bigger - great use of alternating hot and cold colours to create the contrasts in those bigger rounds (proud teacher moment :)
↑↑ Judith took her four squares and doubled them up once she got home, making this fantastic centre piece for her table....it's delicious!
↑↑ Here are Veronica's squares, beautifully blocked and carefully stitched onto the front of a canvas tote bag, it looks so cheery and happy!
↑↑ Another stunning tote bag made my Jill, she made a second panel when she got home so there is crochet on both sides, it's super lovely.
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Ahhhh, it was such a lovely week, the ladies were all good hooksters and worked really hard to say that we only had three days to spend on our project. I love teaching and sharing my passion, and with such a happy and good natured group it was an absolute pleasure.
Now before I go, I thought you might enjoy just a few photos of the colour inspiration I gathered during my time in Morocco. It was honestly ridiculous the amount of colour and pattern that was everywhere you cast your eyes. I've got lots (lots and lots) more to share of the souks and the markets and the amazing excursions we took, but for now, here is a little snippet of some things that caught my eye.......
What do you think, isn't Morocco a colour-lovers dream??? Such an amazing trip, I shall never forget it.
I hope you've enjoyed a little look behind the scenes of my project planning and an insight into how my Stitchtopia retreat workshops are run. There is more Morocco content to come (I'll plan another post for next week sometime), but I think tomorrow will be back to normal everyday Yorkshire-style stuff, the essence of Blogtober.
Thanks for your company, I hope you've enjoyed todays post xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx