1. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, general day to day life, hobbies (other than crafting)
I am a 40 something mum, living in deepest, darkest south Devon with my husband and two young boys. The majority of my day to day life is taken up with my day job, (I am a sales manager for a steel stockist) and everyday family life of school runs, after school clubs, lunchboxes, the never ending mountain of laundry and dinners. Our weekends are spent as a family either on one of our glorious beaches or a walk and a picnic in the countryside. I am a huge lover of baking and almost always have a tin of homemade cakes or biscuits (or both!) in the kitchen.
2. Tell us a fun fact about you
I have a bit of a talent for languages and can speak fluent German. I spent most of my early twenties living in Europe – south Germany, Vienna and Voronezh in Russia.
3. When and why did you start crafting?
My mum and my late nana are and were keen knitters, mum always has a knitting project on the go and I am now the same!
My mum taught my sisters and I the basics of knitting, crocheting, cross stitch and sewing when we were very young. I have become a bit of a jack of all trades, I love free hand embroidery, have metres and metres of bunting, and an army of seasonal amigurumi characters. Over the last 20 years I have gifted dozens of crocheted blankets and dolls, knitted cardigans and personalised bunting as new baby gifts to family and friends.
During lockdown I found I needed something to do which was all my own. It was a stressful time for all of us, I was working from home, home schooling a 7 year old and entertaining a 2 year old! I took to crafting in the evenings in front of the TV when the children were finally in bed and it gave my head some peace.
Two years ago, after years of being a dedicated crocheter, I fancied trying to knit a pair of socks. I found a basic vanilla pattern and some lovely self patterning yarn and gave it a go. I can honestly say I have not stopped since. I love it so much, it occupies my busy head and relaxes me after a stressful day. I find now, if I don’t knit for a few days I am itching to get back to it like it’s an addiction!
4. Do you have specific inspiration behind any of your projects?
A lot of my patterns are seasonal, Christmas, Halloween, Easter etc. but essentially, I was first inspired by what I liked, hearts, flowers, rainbows and bees. All things that make me happy, fortunately it turns out that my customers have very similar taste!
I find that I start with a basic idea and as I’m knitting up the first sample it changes and evolves into the final piece. A finished sock design of mine is very rarely how it originally looked in my head when I conjured up the idea.
5. What is your favourite project you’ve done so far?
My Bee Happy sock pattern is my favourite, I have a love of bees and find myself very drawn to them.
I love the (almost) hexagon pattern which runs throughout the sock and the special little stitches for the bees wings. It’s a happy coloured sock and makes me think of summer.
6. What does your creative process look like?
Lots and lots of frogging!!
I start off with an idea, and draw it up on an excel spreadsheet – which is what I use to design the colourwork portion of the pattern. Once that has been done, and I’ve worked out how to make my design fit into a pattern repeat, I have to choose colours and yarn (my go to is Drops Nord, but I love West Yorkshire Spinners signature 4ply for bright colours too) and just have to go for it and cast on.
There is a lot of trial and error and frustrated frogging, but eventually it will all come together. Sometimes it doesn’t and I’ve lost count of the WIPs at the bottom of my basket which have been abandoned as I got frustrated trying to make them work. Sometimes though a break is exactly what a tricky design needs and I will come back to it later and it usually works out the second time around.
7. Does your home reflect your crafting passion?
Absolutely! I have made all my own curtains and cushion covers and the walls are decorated with embroidery hoops and bunting which I’ve made myself. When the Christmas, Halloween and Easter decoration boxes come out there is a myriad of homemade decorations – amigurumi vampires and santa gnomes, a hand sewn angel for our Christmas tree and pom pom chicks for Easter to name a few!
8. What designers are you loving at the moment?
Stone Knits (@stoneknits) is my inspiration, Charlotte’s colourwork patterns are just gorgeous! I also love Jacki at The Woolly Badger (@thewoollybadger) for her stunning shawls and knitted tops and jumpers and Isle Stitch (@isle.stitch), Karysha’s chunky yarn hats are beautiful!
9. Do you have any tips for readers developing a passion for crafting?
Just try it, please, you won’t regret it. It may be tricky to begin with but the sense of achievement you get from making something by hand is immense!
So many people message me saying that they would love to try knitting a pair of socks but wouldn’t know where to begin. If you can knit and purl then you can knit a pair of socks! And if it doesn’t work out when frog it and try again.
Youtube is a wonderful resource now for help on unknown abbreviations and new stitches, you can find help there on almost anything.
10. We’ve asked all of our staff this during their interview process… If you were a yarn, what yarn would you be? 🙂
I would be a soft and snuggly self patterning merino yarn. Probably DK as it can try it’s hand at anything!
11. What are your future plans with From Devon with Love?
Children’s knitting kits – I have a 10 year old I’ll be using as a guinea pig – I am hoping to get some ready in time for Christmas, scarves and hats in chunky self patterning yarn with non slippy wooden needles!
I am also working on an online course to teach yourself to knit a pair of socks. Starting with DK yarn and slightly larger needles to make it quick and easy. I am hoping to have this ready at the same time as my website which I’m working on now so the two can be launched together.
Other than that, I am regularly waking in the middle of the night with new colourwork ideas, I would love to expand my repertoire to hot water bottles, wrist warmers and hats, so there will be a lot more to come from me yet!
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