Bag of tricks

Carol Ibbetson is a multi-talented maker who, when she’s not designing crochet creations or presenting on TV, uses her technical skills to double-check patterns and teach others…

- Lucy Evans

Try to pin Carol Ibbetson down to just one crafting career and you’ll struggle! Not only is she a designer, she’s a crochet technical editor, plus recently she’s branched out into presenting crafting TV. If that sounds like a lot to juggle, she actually has plenty more projects in the pipeline as well.

It’s been a busy year for Carol. Not only did she set up her website but she started presenting on a knitting and crochet show on Yarn TV. “Another family member works as a director/cameraman for the Sewing Street channel and told me they wanted to create a similar channel for knitting and crochet. He casually said, ‘Why don’t you apply to be on the show?’” recalls Carol.

Yarn Lane was eventually set up as part of Sewing Street for one hour a day on three or four days a week. Carol’s prior experience in teaching workshops stood her in good stead. “From my first visit to the studio to give a demo I absolutely loved the whole experience,” she says. “I felt like I was using skills I had built up throughout life, not just in crochet and knitting but also using my training experience.”

She now presents once or twice a month, sometimes demonstrating her own kits and other times specific techniques. “The presenters on the show are lovely and we always have a little bit of banter which helps to create a great show,” she enthuses. It sounds like great fun, but there’s a lot of prep work involved for each show: “If I am selling my own kits then I’m sourcing the yarns in the colours required, printing the patterns and putting the kits together. If I am presenting techniques then myself and the presenter will agree which sections of particular patterns I will demonstrate and then I prepare samples to use on the show.”