Learning to teach crochet at Liverpool craft centre Abakhan

I first started teaching crochet in 2017 after I saw Abakhan’s call for tutors on Facebook. I had facilitated arts and crafts workshops before in my job at The Black-E Community Arts Charity, but thought ‘am I good enough to actually teach?’ Turns out the Managers at Abakhan thought it was worth taking a chance on me, and soon I was creating workshop plans and coming up with new ideas for classes.

To say I felt under-qualified would be an understatement. I am a quiet person and look a lot younger than I actually am, so I worried that people wouldn’t take me seriously. I was a bag of nerves the first time I was due to teach a class of 10 women the beginners class I’d created. But, I had fully prepared my plan for the day, printed my handouts, brought my examples, and the staff at Abakhan were kind and professional, ensuring that all the tools and materials were available for the class.

The class went really well, everyone engaged enthusiastically and encouraged each other when stiches got tricky. I found that many of the participants were full of self doubt, that they wouldn’t be able to get the hang of crochet having tried in the past unsuccessfully. I was patient and understanding with them and reminded them that it wasn’t impossible, that we had all day, and they could learn at their own pace. No one left without learning the basics of how to crochet.

After that first class, I felt more confident in my ability to teach and was looking forward to the Next Steps workshop that many from the beginners class had already booked on to.

I continued teaching classes on the beginners to advanced track, as well as themed classes on Christmas, soft toys, Yarn Shop Day, and running drop in sessions on various themes throughout the year.

The classes evolved as time went on, I gathered feedback from participants on how they wanted the day to be structured, what kind of thing they wanted to learn and how many people were in each class. This last point was one of my main issues when planning classes as 10 people per class was a good number for the themed classes and more advanced workshops, however it was too many for the beginners class. Participants needed my attention one on one a lot more as they started on their crochet journey, which meant people having to wait for me to get around everyone for each step. I overcame this problem by reducing the number of participants that could book on to each class, which worked out much better as everyone was able to get the attention they needed. I also offered classes that were shorter than the usual 6 hours for those who found they struggled to attend a full day. I had many people come back for more, which I was extremely grateful for, and I enjoyed seeing people improve their skills and gain confidence in their abilities.

“I’ve done first steps, Christmas and kids workshop. They all were great and very helpful” Aga, crochet class attendee.

I have now moved to Northern Ireland and therefore no longer teach at Abakhan Liverpool, however I have set up my own classes, which you can find out more about here.