Two years ago I decided to pick up crochet again and knitting, after years. Since childhood, actually. My husband wasn’t well that year and I was watching over him, so I was sitting around with tons of time on my hands, and I started to watch videos in Youtube of different women all over the world crocheting things, in their own languages. I had no idea there was something called a CAL, which is a crochet-along with others, but I started to see these. They are nothing like what we knew in my childhood – these new mandalas and so forth are total works of art. So these flowers date from that very autumn, in my life two years ago now.
The colors and the patterns, the intricacy and delicacy of the designers. But I met a kindred spirit in Janie’s designs. For one thing, the gorgeous homages to people like Monet, and now May Morris. Best was Frida though, one of my favorites, just because.
So, a woman in Youtube was doing the stitches in a video and I sat for hours with her hands, “teaching me” – those videos are here.
Then I searched for Janie and found that she does patterns for a yarn company called Stylecraft in the UK, so I saw the originals. I was just swept away by how exquisite her things are. The flowers and the leaves. The only yarn I could buy here is not the kinds of colorways they have over in the UK. So, I made each square, just to see if I could. I guess there had been kits for these things, once. It’s a bit like doing a paint by number, except, you want to pay homage to the designer herself? The work that goes into designing to begin with.
One of Frida’s Flowers, that I crocheted, using American cotton yarn, as you can see, the colors are not the same…
The colors! They reminded me of a time years ago when I was up in the Sur and getting books by Kaffe who does things with Rowan Yarns. Well, it has been ages since I was so inspired, that it is almost like using oils.
Some of her patterns are over in Stylecraft, you can see that here, and I just was able to find some of that special yarn and it will be here in seven to ten days! Yay!
Because, the new blanket is total Arts & Crafts, both versions. So gorgeous, omg. You can watch her talking about the design here.
❤
xxoo!
from Adrienne
(who is going to make these, while we are going through so much of a nightmare with the coronavirus situation)
The yarn will arrive and I can start on Fruit Garden, even though I was not able to match all the colors exactly.
Adrienne Wilson 