Karen D. Robinson: crochet

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Indie Design GAL: Spotlight on Karen Whooley (knit and crochet)

I focused on a crochet designer yesterday, and I'm doing the same today. Karen Whooley is primarily a crochet designer, although she does have a couple of knitting patterns as well. She is also a teacher and has a couple of crochet classes on Craftsy, including a new one for crocheting bags.

Although crochet is a craft of its own, I enjoy seeing places where crochet and knitting meet, such as in Karen's Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts since I usually think of Fair Isle as a knit-specific technique (note: this particular pattern is available in a book, not as a Ravelry download).

But, for me, Karen excels with two types of patterns: shawls and socks. And yes, crochet socks!

Shawls
Karen has patterns for shawls that are knit, such as the pretty Dahlia Shawl:

And at the same time, she designs lovely crochet shawls, such as the Tanglement Shawl.

Socks
Like I said before, I don't crochet, so I'm not sure how popular crochet sock designs are, but Karen has made some great entries into the crochet sock world. From basic crochet socks--Toe-Up Socks--to patterns socks--Cassandra Socks--Karen has your feet covered. (She's actually giving the sock patterns facelifts right now, so they may not be available at the moment, but keep them in the mind for the future!)

Maybe someday these crochet designers will inspire me to try crocheting again. It's nice to see what other things are possible with yarn!

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Indie Design GAL: Spotlight on Tanja Osswald (crochet)

Although Tanja Osswald does have some patterns for knitting, she mostly works with crochet. But I have to admit that her fingerless mitt patterns really make me wish I knew how to crochet (I took a beginning crochet class once and tried it for a while but just never felt comfortable with it).

I mean, seriously, how awesome does Wanderwellen look?


Copyright Tanja Osswald

Or Comet?


Copyright Tanja Osswald

And I know that owl cables are used in knitting quite a bit, but look at these super cool crochet owl mitts: Consider Owls!

But for those of you, like me, who don't crochet, Tanja does have one knitting pattern for some awesome mitts: Mohnteilchen (which is a knitted version of the crochet version of Himbeerwellen). It looks like there are some new things to learn to do this pattern, and I do see some project pages where knitters used two colors (which is what I really love about Tanja's designs), so perhaps at some point I'll attempt to make these myself.

I've focused on the mitts in this post because that's what really drew my attention, but Tanja does quite a few other types of accessories such as hats and shawls, so even if fingerless mitts aren't your thing, if you crochet, you should definitely check out the rest of her patterns. And if you don't crochet, maybe Tanja's patterns will inspire you to learn!