Here’s the link to my Ravelry and Etsy stores where you are able to purchase the pattern for this shawl. And here’s the story behind my design…
Back in May I took a photo of the ‘Sea Thrift’ flowers on our local clifftops and published it to my Instagram with the following comment…
‘Sea Thrift… I love these beautiful little coastal flowers. We saw this gorgeous display yesterday. I’m not sure what is making the spring flowers in the South East of England particularly spectacular this year! I haven’t seen the Sea Thrift look this good in years…’
The photo then provided Sheena from The Mermaids Purse Handmade with some inspiration…
“Wow. I was looking for some colour inspiration and then saw this. Perfect!”
Sheena dyed some of her gorgeous yarn inspired by these colours… ‘Sea Thrift is inspired by a stunning photo by @coastalcrochet’ …and of course I couldn’t resist buying some!
I so love it when nature provides the perfect inspiration and we are able to share this across the world through our online connections…
Another fellow Instagram user used another of my photos as inspiration for her needle felt artwork. Melissa from Yarn of a Tail produced this stunning needle felt wool painting (on the left) based on one of my photographs (on the right)…
Melissa doesn’t live anywhere near the sea…isn’t it amazing that she captured my local clifftop flowers so well! 🙂 🙂
Back to my Sea Thrift shawl…well, now that I had 100g of beautiful 4ply cotton I needed something to crochet and a shawl seemed the perfect thing. So I designed my ‘Sea Thrift Shawl’ – a small, light and airy shawl, perfect to wrap around your neck on a summers evening coastal walk past the Sea Thrift flowers…
My daughter has yet again proved to be a fabulous model for my crochet creations!
…isn’t that mermaid gorgeous!? 🙂 🙂
So there you have it – a little background to my ‘Sea Thrift Shawl’. This is the first pattern that I am charging for. I know that many people don’t like to buy patterns and why would they when there are 1000’s available online for free!? But I spend a lot of time writing my patterns and work so hard to get them right. It is very time consuming and although I do it because I so love crochet, I also dream of being able to make an income from this craft I love. So unless I start charging how will that ever happen?
It’s also about valuing ourselves and the craft of crochet. I don’t think anyone would ever dream of asking a songwriter to write them a song for free or expect an author to write a book for free or a wedding photographer to take wedding photos for free! Why should a crochet designer write crochet patterns for free…
I hope that you will understand… 🙂
As ever, Happy Crocheting Everyone… 🙂 🙂