I do most of my work with my hands. I love to make things for myself and others. My hands are almost restless. It seems that I must always be in the middle of some creative process or I feel “itchy.” It started with cross stitch in my early teens and it was steadily followed by papercraft, scrapbooking, mixed media art, and most recently and most obsessively, crochet!
My mother’s crochet hooks were all different colours and came in a cool plastic case where they would sit neatly side by side in order of size. My brain liked that. I used to play with them and admire the order of it all. She taught me the basic crochet stitches when I asked about it, which probably wasn’t until much later. I didn’t think much of it until 2006, when I saw a Crochet magazine in my local WH Smith. It was American. There was not a UK Crochet magazine at the time, so I picked up the import and re-learned the basics from the pictures in the back.
I got attached to the Granny Square and immediately planned a huge blanket project, grabbed all the yarn I could from the local 99p shop, and a few months later I had a blanket made in a pattern of three solid colour squares and one multi-coloured square. This was only the beginning.
By now, a site called Ravelry had come about and I joined their waiting list for an account. It didn’t take too long for them to create my account and since then it’s been non-stop.
One of my favourite makes is Claude the Octopus. His pattern appeared in Simply Crochet Magazine and rights have since passed back to the designer and he can be found on Ravelry. He was sitting in the Unravel & Unwind window and someone asked me if I could make one to sell- so I got permission and ended up making two! I loved doing commissions for other people and started to seek out more crochet-related employment.
From 2017 – 2022 I had the joy of working for Stitch & Story, making samples for them to send to their retailers. Getting work in this area was a real confidence booster and I loved the company so much. The feeling was mutual and I was invited to represent them at a couple of trade shows.
During this time, I also attended two Crochet design courses and two of my designs have been published in UK Crochet magazines Simply Crochet and Inside Crochet!
I am gifted with the ability of finding errors in things. I combined this with my knowledge of crochet and took another course to become a Tech Editor. If you are a crochet designer and need someone experienced to cast an eye over your pattern before publication, I’m your gal.