Last Thursday I facilitated a workshop for the first time in years.
It was three hours. Laid back. Easy. Only about two hours of actual content, and then time for questions at the end. Nothing like the full-day workshops I used to run. And yet, driving away afterward, something had shifted.
I need to tell you the longer story before I tell you what I am thinking now.
The Yarn Shop on the Mountain
I had a yarn shop once.
It was on the highest terrace of a farm on the slopes of the Magaliesburg Mountains, outside Pretoria. The view from the window was the farm below and the mountain above. Inside there was yarn everywhere, a huge table, a lounge suite, and a fireplace. I ran workshops there. I hosted gatherings. Yarnie people came and stayed for hours and nobody wanted to leave.
I closed it at the beginning of 2018.
The honest truth is that the shock of closing hit harder than I was willing to admit at the time. It hurt. It still hurts. I miss it immensely. I could not get the business profitable, and the yarn scene in South Africa is complicated and unforgiving, and eventually the dream ended. I got back into the job market, found my footing again as a business analyst, and grew into the Power Platform developer I am today. I enjoy my work. I would leave it in a heartbeat to go back to yarn full time.
That is just the truth of it.
The Workshops
For years before I closed the shop, I facilitated a workshop called The Crochet Guide to Greatness. A full day. Overhead projector. Technique videos. Advanced content designed to genuinely up your crochet game. Not the kind of workshop where you sit around a table and try something new over coffee. This was full on, and it was draining to facilitate, but the joy on people’s faces when something clicked made it worth every minute every single time.
I took that workshop all over South Africa. I facilitated it in Windhoek, Namibia. Hundreds of people sat in those sessions and left knowing things they did not know when they walked in.
When I closed the shop, I stopped the workshops too. I told myself it was a practical decision. Looking back, I think I simply needed to step away from everything connected to that chapter, and the workshops were part of it.
For the past few years, I have been quiet. Not just about workshops. Quiet in the Facebook groups I once ran actively. Quiet in the Slow Saturday gatherings I used to love, once a month at a restaurant with close yarnie friends, knitting and crochet and good food and real conversation. When we started camping full time, even those fell away.
I have been doing the work of an introvert: retreating, processing, getting on with things alone.
Last Thursday
The Hessequa Harmonie Fees invited me to facilitate a workshop. I took a piece of The Crochet Guide to Greatness, named it The Art of Choosing, and kept it to three hours.
It was gentle. Easy. Afterward there was time for questions, and here is the thing: every single question asked was something the full Crochet Guide to Greatness would have covered. Every one. I sat there listening and realising that the content I used to teach is not old news. It was never old news. There are always new people at the beginning of their journey, and there are always experienced crafters who have gaps they did not know they had.
I had been carrying this feeling of irrelevance for years. Not young enough. Not flashy enough. Not a content creator in the way the algorithm rewards. Trying to find my small piece of sunshine in a digital world that is not particularly interested in making space for people like me.
Last Thursday reminded me that the digital world is not the whole world.
I am an introvert. People drain me. But the appreciation in that room touched something I had forgotten was there. The hunger I saw, crafters genuinely wanting to learn more, wanting someone to explain things properly, wanting the human version of education rather than the pause-and-rewind YouTube version, that hunger made me realise I miss this. I miss standing behind someone, seeing exactly where they are going wrong, correcting it, and watching them succeed in real time.
A YouTube video cannot do that. I can.
The Problem
Here is where I am honest with you about the obstacle, because it is a real one.
If I cannot reach my followers, how do I fill a workshop?
The algorithm is not our friend. I pay for Meta One and my followers are still not seeing what I post. My Facebook groups have gone quiet. The digital world promises reach and delivers a void, and I am tired of fighting it.
And yet workshops are not digital. They happen in rooms, in towns, with people who live nearby. Which means the question of reach is different. It is not about followers. It is about locals, and yarn shops willing to collaborate, and word of mouth between people who actually know each other.
What I Am Thinking
We are planning to start a Route 62 tour next year. Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, in the caravan, taking our time. Route 62 passes through beautiful small towns. Montagu. Barrydale. Calitzdorp. Oudtshoorn. Uniondale. Willowmore.
I am wondering whether I could facilitate a crochet workshop in each of those towns along the way.
Small gatherings. Real content. Real people. The kind of learning that stays with you because somebody was actually in the room with you.
I do not know yet whether people would come. I do not know whether yarn shops along the route would want to collaborate. I do not know whether to offer the short version, the long version, or both. I have more questions than answers.
Which is why I am asking you.
Your Opinion Matters
I have put together a short Google Form to help me understand what people actually want. Whether there is appetite for this, what format would work, and where along the route people might be.
If you would fill it in, I would be genuinely grateful. Not as a marketing exercise. As a real question from someone who is seriously considering doing something she loves again, and wants to know whether there is a room worth filling.
The form is HERE.
And if you are a yarn shop owner along Route 62, or know someone who is, please get in touch. I would love to talk.
Sometimes you need a two-hour workshop in a small town to remember what you are actually for. Last Thursday was that for me. I am paying attention.
I hope you do bring your workshop back — you are a wonderful teacher! I have always enjoyed your Patreon content, blog, designs, etc. Really had a blast in your double-filet design workshop, although that’s not my favorite crochet technique, so I have to admit I haven’t done much more with it. I have a stack of swatches I need to put together for a hospice blanket, and so many of YOUR patterns lined up to crochet that I still haven’t gotten to…
Thanks Mary.
Can knitters also come to crochet classes workshops will be excellent
A huge part of the workshop is very relevant to knitters. You are more than welcome.