Aoibhe Ni’s Pax for Beginners at The Sheep Shop

A pile of beautiful samples.

I love Tunisan crochet, so as you can imagine the beautiful PAX shawl has been on my list of things to make for a very long time. I was overjoyed to hear the PAX’s designer Aoibhe Ni was coming to The Sheep Shop to teach a class on how to make it.

Aoibhe, being the wonderful talented lady she is, has invented a whole new kind of Tunisian crochet – Tunisian Lace Crochet. When she came for the class she brought samples from her Legendary Shawls collection. All unceremoniously dumped in a big pile in the middle of the table, they needed no hype to make us ooooo and ahhhhh in wonder.

As you can imagine I was entranced by all the beautiful patterns. It took Aoibhe quite a while to get us concentrating on actually crocheting rather than pawing at gloriously lacy shawls.

Wonderful Anansi

Elegant De Danann

Cozy Phoenix Hat

Stunning Guinevere

Aoibhe’s new take on Tunisian crochet was, to begin with, quite bewildering. She said her inspiration was seeing those beautiful knitted shawls and wanting to recreate their style in crochet. I can totally relate to that as I love the look of knitted and have only recently taught myself to knit for just that reason.

After much patient tutoring and many confused looks I’m pleased to say everyone in the class eventually had the eureka moment when it finally clicked what we were supposed to be doing. Once I realised the basic structure and stitches it all suddenly seemed so simple and logical. Of course! Why didn’t I think of it that way before?

My samples are in DK and of course scrappy, but I managed to practice all the skills needed to create my own PAX.

                                              

Wonderful Sheep Shop owner Sarah and Aoibhe

Much fun was certainly had by all and everyone agreed that should Aoibhe ever return to Cambridge we would all very much like her to teach another class at The Sheep Shop. I know she does teach an advanced class but I think I would love her to teach a class on the new collection of garments she is releasing soon. I can’t wait for the Classical Elements collection to come out, as I really want to apply this new version of Tunisan crochet to clothes!

A little birdie told me that Aoibhe would be at Fibre East teaching several classes in July 2014. I would heartily recommend them if you plan to get started on any of her wonderful patterns as the classes are no end of help. I quite like the look of the Beyond the Basics class myself!

A band of merry crocheters!

We are now holding a bit of a CAL over in The Sheep Shop ravelry group. Please feel free to join join us if you would like to make a PAX too. Aoibhe also has her own ravelry group in which there are lots of CALs, discussions and sneak peaks of new patterns. I of course ignored all of my many ongoing WIPS and cast on straight away. So far I’m pretty pleased but have yet to attempt the lace part!

A simple beginning