petra_creutziger

Black Sheep Crochet is more to me than just crochet.
I believe that everybody has a story and Black Sheep Crochet is the place where I honour the story of others and myself.

My mother and Oma (Grandmother) were very crafty and spent a lot of their time crocheting, making macrames and sewing for us kids.
As a teenager I collected sewing, knitting and crochet patterns of which I turned some into garments for my 3 boys in my tween years. Life got a little busy while I studied architecture and after my fourth son was born and I took a break from doing any handwork.
It wasn’t until we had immigrated to Australia and a friend asked me if I could show her how to crochet that I had a hook in my hand again. Sophie’s Universe, Nya blanket, Stardust Melodies. I can’t even begin to describe how exciting it was to see how crochet had evolved from being plain and rather unattractive to being modern, hip, even fashionable and oh so versatile. Not a day passed since then without hook in hand, exploring hundreds of patterns and ideas.

A friend in the home educating community noticed my crochet work and motivated me to offer crochet workshops, which was great fun. She also encouraged me to showcase and sell my dress-up designs for the little Peg Dolls at the Steiner school fairs and in their shop, where a mum saw them and asked me to collaborate with her. I have been designing and making little Peg Doll hats, cloaks, shawls, scarves, clothes and accessories for a few years until I took a break from them to focus on my big project: Wrapped in Jamie and Image Overlay Crochet.

The idea for the Wrapped In Jamie CAL was a natural progression of looking for the next level in crochet while listening to my favourite novels: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I was wondering what it would look like if the story was translated into a pattern and the idea for the first square pattern I ever designed was born. I created one square after the other, with random motifs at first, but then worked methodically with the timeline of the story. Wrapped in Jamie is a long-term project with two more Seasons to come. I can honestly say that offering a CAL has completely changed my understanding of what it means to be a designer and how much work goes into offering a pattern. I am forever grateful for this experience.