My friend Mrs Robinson visited this weekend. She was here because we were going to a memorial service on Saturday, but stayed to spend a crafty day on Sunday… and what a brilliant day we had. In the morning I taught her how to wet felt and in the afternoon she taught me how to crochet a sock.

It’s always lovely to make something useful when you are learning a craft, so Mrs Robinson’s first ever wet-felting resulted in a case for her mobile phone. I showed her how to lay out the fibre, and she did this whilst I made an apple, date and chocolate cake. Then she made a lovely colourful pattern for the outer layer and got to work with rubbing and rolling whilst I made squash and sweet potato soup. By lunchtime, the felt had shrunk down to the right size, and she was able to cut into it, remove the resist and cut it to shape so that there was a flap, before a little more felting to strengthen the edges and a final rinse to remove the soap. Sadly, we were being so sociable that I completely forgot to photograph it… it’s a shame because it turned out really beautiful.

After a lunch comprising the things I cooked in the morning plus bread made by Mr Snail-of-happiness, we reversed roles and I learned the principles of crocheting a sock. We didn’t have time to make a whole sock (I had to return her to her family early in the evening), so we made a ‘sock sampler’ which includes all the elements of a sock and which I can use as a reference when I come to create a real pair. I love the idea of a sampler… forget your ideas of a framed piece of cross stitch with the alphabet and some twee or religious quote. A real sampler is simply a representative collection of something. So, for example, you could make a knitting stitch sampler in the form of a scarf or a throw (afghan).

My sock sampler contains all the parts of a sock: the toe, foot, heel and leg, with appropriate stitches including a rib (which I never knew you could do in crochet) and a stretchy stitch that works well for the foot part. It’s never going to be worn but it’s going to be really useful when Mrs Robinson is back up in Preston and I can’t call on her for help in person.

I’m really enthusiastic about this sort of skill-sharing… we had a lovely sociable day, with lots of cups of tea, delicious food, and some tangible outputs. There really should be more of this… so, who wants to have a go at felting in exchange for teaching me a new craft or helping me improve an old one?