Last week we met six knitters and their all-time favourite projects; this week, we hear from crocheters. While knitting requires two needles to make V-shaped stitches, crochet uses a single needle with a hooked end to create knot-like stitches.
Whether to pass the time on a commute, to create gifts for family and friends or items for a small business, crochet seems to bring a lightness and joy to the people who do it.
Here, four crocheters share the projects they are most proud of.
‘When she wears this, it brightens our day’
Sahra O’Doherty made this cardigan for her business partner (who is also her best friend). “I love making pieces to gift to others, as the process of crocheting and working out new patterns is what I enjoy,” she says. When her friend wears it, “it brightens our day”.
The Sydney-based psychologist found the fluffy, textured yarn in the discounted “mill ends” section at Spotlight. “They often have expensive brand name yarns without labels sold in bulk carry bags, so I always check out there first.”
To make the cardigan she used a repeating “granny” pattern (a square created by working from the centre outwards) with alternating yarns to keep things simple and to let the yarn speak for itself.
As a child, O’Doherty learned how to crochet from her grandmother but as an adult, she had to relearn by watching YouTube. “My granny passed away last year, and before she became too unwell to do so, she could crochet by feel, even when her eyesight was failing her,” says O’Doherty.
She crochets whenever she gets the chance: “I carry the current piece I’m working on in my handbag. When I’m on Zoom meetings, watching TV, on trains, or even going to Lizzo’s concert, I’ve got my crochet with me,” she says.
‘While everyone was baking, I learned to crochet’
Andrea Zanola, the Brescia-based designer behind Italy’s Patchouli Studio, learned how to crochet from a Russian grandmother on YouTube during the 2020 Covid lockdowns.
“While everyone in Italy was baking or singing from balconies I decided to learn a new technique,” he says. Learning the skill has been “truly life changing, I have not stopped crocheting ever since”.
Zanola made this sweater in 2021 when he was a finalist in Feel the Yarn, an international knitwear design contest. In keeping with the competition theme – “fluid”– he designed a seamless garment with a unique stitch of small rectangles connected at the corners by looping strands.
“It was particularly difficult to achieve the seamless structure with this kind of stitch. It took me around 70 working hours to complete,” he says. “If this was not time-consuming enough I designed it really oversized. Anything for the right look.”
‘It’s gotten quite a bit of love over the years’
“This is a bit of a showpiece,” says Rachel Rutt, founder of crochet label Rutt Australia. “I’ve worn it often when getting my photograph taken and loaned it to friends. It surprisingly fits a few sizes so it’s gotten quite a bit of love over the years.”
For Rutt, the dress holds a lot of memories because the piece was made from leftover yarn from other projects. “When I look at it I see parts of a baby blanket made for a friend, a mohair costume for a live performance, a charity shop yarn haul, or the last hank intended for a scarf,” she says.
Before making the dress in 2012, Rutt had never really attempted crochet. But she was a keen knitter and adapted her skills, plus some basic crochet knowledge, to make the piece freeform from top to bottom, and tried it on as she went.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a great crocheter, but I think the beauty of hand craft is less about perfection and more about self-expression, even if something is made purely to perform a function,” she says. “I’ve been [crocheting] since my early 20s, and I’ll probably continue to do it forever.”
‘It reminds me of home’
Like Zanola, designer Cielle Marchal turned to crochet during the pandemic. She had been taught by her stepmother several years before, but when Marchal found herself out of work in Paris in April 2020, her crochet began in earnest.
“I had a lot of time at home to create, with absolutely no restraints or time barriers,” she says. She was looking forward to summer and wanted to make an original bag to wear when the weather warmed up.
She found a spiral pattern on YouTube and used that as a starting point, but gave it a more psychedelic look by making the width narrow in the centre and wider as it unfurled. “It reminded me of home in the northern rivers of Australia,” she says. She was so proud of the design it kickstarted her own crochet brand Par Cielle.
And true to her word, when summer arrived and Marchal and her boyfriend travelled along the Gorges du Tarn in the south of France, she wore her crocheted bag every day.
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