April 30th is often a memorable day....

... and this year was no exception.

Twice in my life, it was the final day of a contract at work, and both times brought about major changes to what I was doing.

In 1972, I finished working a winter season in the dining room of the Hotel Hohe Promenade in Arosa, Switzerland.

The next day I travelled down from the mountains, and encountered a change from late winter straight to late spring.

In 1977, I worked my last day as supervisor of the circulation department in the library at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.

The following day I started to pack up my apartment ready for taking a ship home later in the month.

This year I took part in a day workshop on freeform with Prudence Mapstone.

Eleven of us gathered at Pauline's house for a day of fun.

Having remembered to take my camera along, I did document the day a little .

But most of the time we were busy with needles and hooks.

We started off looking at some garments Prudence had brought over with her.

Ildi modelled this coat to great effect.

By lunchtime we had all started knitting and crocheting, but were reluctant to pause for long.

Those of us working in the dining room came out to the larger group in the conservatory to see what they had made so far.

Towards four we put all our pieces together to give an idea of how a garment could be pieced. Once on the table it seemed to amount to very little.

Prudence pointed out just how she would join such disparate pieces together.
The pieces are set out on the full size pattern pieces for the garment before being sewn together.

As we prepared to leave, Prudence modelled some more garments, but I was so busy looking that I failed to take more than this one picture.

This shawl is long and narrow, leaving the arms free to move freely whilst adding warmth to the body.

During the day there were many "April showers" including some hail, but apart from the dimming of the daylight and some noisy sound effects we weren't bothered by it.

Before going, I had checked out when I had first come across freeform. It was in 1991 when I attended a workshop with James Walters and Sylvia Cosh. Since then I have used scrumbling ocasionally, but never to make a complete garment.

p.s. My voice is back! I've had it back for a week now. This time around I was without it for 6 weeks.