Hi, my name is Chloe, I am 17 years old, and have the fantastic opportunity of doing work experience at Larks Design make and I am about to start year 13 in sixth form.

I have always loved everything crafty and have lots of hobbies including Crochet, cross stitch, knitting, embroidery, sewing and macrame. I spend most of my free time creating new crochet animals, blankets, and clothing and I love to sell my products as garage sales and on social media.

Growing up I had lots of family members that shared my love of crafts who first introduced me to knitting and cross stitch.

During Lockdown, I heard of crochet from social media and was interested in starting a new hobby, later in the year my Nan taught me how to do a granny square and immediately I could not stop crocheting and would find YouTube tutorials to help me develop my skills.

HOW I FOUND LARK DESIGN MAKE:

After crocheting for a while I was lucky enough to stumble upon Larks Design Make when looking for a place to buy yarn, and immediately loved the shop and started buying my yarn there. Soon enough I started looking at the other crafts they offer such as macrame lessons, which helped me to develop new skills. At Larks Design Craft there are many workshops that you can book for crochet, which can help you if you’re looking to start making clothing including Sarah’s Hexi cardigan course. There’re also the macrame wall hanger lessons.

TIPS FOR CROCHETING CLOTHING:

My favourite things to crochet are animals and blankets but recently, I stepped out of my comfort zone and made a dress for my textile coursework as well as other tops. From this I learnt lots of helpful tips and tricks for making clothes.

TIP 1 -

PLANNING AND BRAINSTORMING - What I think is most important when crocheting clothes is planning and brainstorming your ideas through sketches. When producing ideas, it can be helpful to take inspiration from different social media such as Pinterest or Instagram and from that you can start planning out new ideas.

TIP 2 -

DON’T BE AFRAID – When crocheting, it can be intimidating to create something you feel you can wear and go out in, but confidence is always important, and you must believe in your ability. Nothing is permanent in crochet, everything can be undone.

TIP 3 -

FITTING – A key factor in crochet is the fitting of it, usually if I am making an item of clothing that is large like a dress of cardigan, it is best to not make it too oversized because wool stretches.

A trick is to use a mannequin that is the same size as you if you fear it not fitting, or you could use an item of clothing that fits your body well e.g., a tank top and base your measurements on that. It’s also important to constantly try on the clothing to ensure the fit is good before finishing the project.

TIP 4 -

HELP – If stuck you can always look for tutorials online for certain parts of the make. For example, I like using YouTube tutorials, here is a few that i think could be helpful:

BRA CUP TUTORIAL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC7xGhYrdpU

MAGIC RING TUTORIAL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsWmVcp9RMU

GRANNY SQUARE TUTORIAL - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvjeEMjm3Mw

Enjoy having a go and if you get stuck maybe see if the team at Lark have any workshops coming up ;-)

Crochet Wearables : Top Tips