Date
Friday, 17 April 2026
Time
15:00 - 16:00 (1 hour)
Price
£5
Have you ever wondered when people started to crochet? Where they came from? How they learned? What they made? How they kept up with the latest trends? Who made it cool and who disapproved?
Join crochet historian, Eleanor Gilchrist, for a rapid romp through 300 years of crochet history told through books, hooks, bags and blankets. Along the way we will meet the women (and the odd man) who developed and popularised crochet. We will see how its fortunes changed as fashions for dress and furnishings came and went. And we will think about what crochet of the past can teach us about the craft today.
About Eleanor Gilchrist
Eleanor was taught to knit at age 7 by her grandmother and taught herself to crochet as an adult. She became fascinated by the history of crochet after reading Richard Rutt’s History of Hand Knitting. Being unable to find a similarly satisfying book about crochet, she embarked on a PhD and is currently a post graduate researcher at Newcastle University. She studies the earliest crochet texts, museum objects, and archival sources, using making to underpin traditional research methods.