Message Monday

Last week on chaincreative was a bit like Grand Central Station with visitors from toutes a nos crochets who brought alot of new friends to my little blog. Hmm, very chaincreative! It's so lovely to have feedback and new input to the whole crochet thing. What is also nice is that the friends return and last week also brought some established friends of chaincreative into the studio.

First off is Guro from Hobbykroken (please check out the adorable little vest she's made for her little boy. Aw, cute!!). Guro has long been a blog friend and being Norwegian she knows all about the fabulous blogs from there. One particular one that she drew my attention to is Pickles and their gorgeous Nordic light pendant. The best bit is that they have provided a free pattern for it. That's the generosity of crocheters, I'd say! I love the very Scandanavian chic of it!

At the same time as all this, I've been scheming over my jewellery workshops that I'm running at my 'home in the country' for all my London crochet students. I really enjoy this cooking process that goes into a workshop. Planning projects is so much fun and I like to draw in any contacts I might have made and call on their expertise.

Two such friends are Maria from kjoo and Yael from yoola. Both are firm friends of chaincreative and you would know them both from Designer Interviews and many mentions in the past. I had contacted both for information and, as often happens, they were more than generous with their advise and direction. I thought I'd pass on some of their words of wisdom to you in order to complete the chain.

This first from Maria:

'Some tips about crochet jewelry: First of all, chose the best cotton thread possible, always mercerized cotton thread, or some organic threads, the pick gorgeous colors. This will make all the difference! Then I like to make the crochet as tight as possible, even it takes the double of the time to accomplish the work. It will make the item looks more three dimensional because the good quality mercerized thread plus the very tight "knots" will give the crochet a very "strong body", will make the item more heavy so will fit better.'

Now from Yael on her lovely blog, Design with a crochet hook, you'll find that we agonize constantly about our craft.

'Some people say that because I use a crochet hook it should be called crocheted, others say that although I use a crochet hook it should be called knitting.I needles say that some were VERY confident about which term should be used. I kept apologizing that I wasn't an English speaker, as if it wasn't clear.... and that maybe they were right. To be honest it wouldn't have been anymore easier in Hebrew, my mother tongue, or maybe it would have been because in Hebrew you use the same verb for both techniques =(SRIGA). But I think that all of this in the past now, yesterday while I was discussing this issue with a very experienced lady both with crochet and with knitting we came to term that actually I was working on an invisible spool.... I immediately fell in love with this term and decided to adopt it, I wonder how it will be accepted. I hope it will be clear that it is NOT real spool knitting (personally I don't really like spools, especially with metal). I would love to hear what you think.'