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Today’s profile is of the delightful and feisty phenom that is lovingly known as, ‘The Fearless Leader of the Crochet Liberation Front’ - the one and only, Laurie Wheeler.
photo by Laurie Wheeler copyright used with permission
Laurie has a great sense of humor and is a treat to talk to.
I first met Laurie on Ravelry at
and then, at the Knit and Crochet Show last year, when I was teaching in Portland.
She and her daughter had a booth in the Marketplace,
and it was always fun to drop in for a crochet-ie chat between classes.
And, now, here’s a ‘chat’ with Laurie….
My questions are in green and Laurie’s responses follow…..
1. Do you have a favorite kind of project to design?
Designing for me is a spontaneous creative event. I had to really think about what my favorite projects are to design, and to be honest, I would have to say it’s hats. In fact recently my teenage daughter admonished me for not writing hat patterns since that’s what I do design most often but do not write down!
2. Do you have a favorite stitch or group of stitches that you prefer to design with and for?
My favorite stitche to use for plain fabric is a garden variety hdc, I think it lends a polished look, with less holes in the fabric than a dc. It’s less “leggy” and meets my personal taste in a garment fabric. Though lately I’m really addicted to the woven look of the Tunisian(Afghan) Simple Stitch. I am also a handweaver and I love being able to make a simple woven pattern without having to warp my loom!That being said, I would say for many of my designs I have to embellish with some kind of lacey element. My roots are in Irish Crochet (though I didn’t ever hear it called that growing up, I was just taught that was crocheting!) and a simple chain mesh is one of the quickest, most polished, and yarn saving ways to make shawls, sweaters, hats etc. It looks so complex and is most likely the simplest thing a person could crochet !
3. What aspect of being a designer is most challenging to you?
Writing out the darned patterns. I hate writing out patterns. I tend to crochet with yarns of an interesting texture in my personal life, so when I design I have to use plain yarn in order to keep my stitch count correct. Having to pay attention to what I’m doing versus just going for it is really quite annoying. I’ve crocheted all of my adult life and most of my childhood, so it’s an intuitive process, remembering that other people may not have had that experience was a daunting prospect when I first started. I didn’t look down upon anyone, rather I was worried about making sure my patterns were clear enough for people to understand was the challenge. I think I’ve been successful with that from the feedback I’ve recieved. Though, my other challenge is people using the wrong fiber for one of my patterns and then blaming the pattern. If I write a pattern specifying wool, cotton/bamboo or silk will not substitute well. I’ve begun writing that into my patterns just so I don’t hear the complaints about the pattern not working out in that way ( I don’t mind complaints if the instructions weren’t clear!).
4. What part of being a designer is the most rewarding to you?
I think like most designers, it’s seeing someone wearing something you designed. Beyond the “by-line” and “name in print” rush, it’s seeing that someone took the time and money to purchase (or even just the time because I have a few freebie patterns out there) something I wrote and then make the item! On my personal blog (The Secrets of Yarn) I have a free pattern for an Irish Crochet Rose, it’s a simple little embellishment, and it’s had over 8,000 hits since I listed it last year, it makes me happy to see that people find it and are making it!
5. How long have you been designing professionally?
I have been designing crochet wear professionally since 2003, that’s designing and creating crocheted items. I didn’t start writing patterns until 2005. I used to sell my crocheted goodies at bazaars, and in boutiques, but ladies kept asking for patterns. Eventually I learned to read patterns, so that I could write them (2004), and then I created a sock pattern because a very anti-crochet store owner said it couldn’t be done. It’s my best selling pattern still!
6. What triggers your creativity?
Most often yarn and hooks “talk” to me. I feel the yarn and as a handspinner I have the added benefit of knowing how a certain fiber, and yarn will want to work up. Sometimes it tells me it needs to be a hat, or gloves, or a sweater, some times I don’t listen so well, and I have to start over!
Other times it’s necessity. My son needed a hat this winter, so I went stash shopping until I found the yarn that said it wanted to be a hat. Sounds like I’m a crazy old lady, but I am claiming it as “Michael D’angelo Syndrome.” He would ask the stone what it wanted to be and then bring that out of the stone, I figure it works with fiber too!
7. What is most inspiring to you?
I love color and texture. I was taught my stitch work very young, and mastered good stitching technique early on. That got boring with straight yarn by the time I was in my late twenties. I love combining colors and textures into funk-tional art, and wearables.
8. Does where you live influence your work?
Absolutely, I live on Camano Island which is on Saratoga Passage of Puget Sound. It is rainy, windy, and cold a good part of the year. So I tend to create winter wearables, thus the hat and scarf sets (that I need to write down into patterns!), I love to make sweaters, though I don’t do too many of those, I’m too distractable! Socks for sandal wearing is also important here in the Northwest. I don’t think people can understand why people do that unless they live some place where it can be 70 degrees and sunny, and then drop 15 degrees in an hour and start raining buckets and change back again!
9. How do you balance homeschooling your kids with your crochet design work?
Insomnia! No, seriously this is the reason I’m not a prolific designer at the moment, I make loads of things, but I have kids finish raising and educating. However, crochet has become part of my math curriculum for my daughter (son can crochet but isn’t interested), handspinning and understanding fibers and animals became science and physics lessons, as well as biology lessons. We’ve found ways to incorporate fiber art into our homeschooling! I also make tons of cute items for my teenage daughter (and she’s doing very well at making things for herself), but since writing patterns is like pulling teeth it will probably be a while before I have a huge collection of patterns.
10. What is your favorite way of getting your designs out into the world?
I prefer to self publish via pdf downloads. I have never wanted to make a living as a crochet designer, at first it was to prove someone a design could be done, and later I started to write patterns to sell my handspun yarn. Once my shoulder decided I could not do that full time, I had to think about what I wanted in life. I would rather promote others than be a full time pattern writer. By the way did you notice I differentiate between designer and pattern writer? If I could just mock up my items and have someone else write the bloody things I’d be thrilled!
11. Do you self publish your designs?
Absolutely, and lately I’ve taken to making collaborative books with other people, through the Crochet Liberation Front. It’s a great way for people to get started, or to have a pattern published that may not be welcomed by a traditional publisher.
12. Where can people buy your designs and patterns?
I have my patterns available at http://www.lulu.com/camanomade and a few free patterns on my Secrets of Yarn Blog, http://www.camanomade.wordpress.com.
13. Do you maintain a blog? If so, what is it’s url?
I maintain two blogs: The Secrets of Yarn, where I discuss yarn and crochet. I think crocheters need more education about fiber and it’s uses. I do not believe in bad yarn at all, I think all yarn has a purpose, it’s understanding it’s properties that I feel is the weakest link in the current crochet arsenal.
I also mantain the Official Crochet Liberation Front Blog at http://www.crochetliberationfront.blogspot.com
This is the blog for CLF members to find inspiration, see other people’s designs, and crochet-inspiration. I felt we needed a voice for crochet that directed a word or two at the industry at large, and to be liberated from our down trodden image (and self image).
14. Can you tell us about how you created the marvie crochet community of CLF and how important is it to you?
In July of 2007, I was up all night (again) with insomnia, and was killing time surfing the message boards on Ravelry. I read one too many crochet bashing comments from ignorant people (not everyone on Ravelry, just a really few vocal special types) and I got annoyed. As a political analyst with a wacky sense of humor, plus being sleep deprived I channelled my anger into a stupid joke. I created a group called Crochet Liberation Front HQ on Ravelry.com that night. No one was more shocked than I was when I logged in the next day and saw two people had joined and were ready to cry “Crochet FREEDOM!”
By October of that year I had 300 members and saw that we could be more than a joke, so in December I created our Blog, and website, and in January of 2008 we started the planning of our first ever book! It was bizarre to have all these people come out of the wood work willing to sing the praises of crochet, pull out their flaming hooks of justice and ignore the detractors and just enjoy what we do in solidarity.
The CLF is important to me because, amongst having all the crocheting goodness, I think many of us have used the group as a vehicle for individual growth. People have taken leaps of faith and started businesses, started crochet groups in their local communities, begun designing, because they had a saftey net of fellow crocheters who supported each other. I have two rules that are written/unwritten. The written rule is that disagreement is totally important and allowed, however no one is allowed to get personal and cruel. (Which means we have one of the most active groups in Ravelry! with very few problems), the second is somewhat unwritten but I say it all the time; We are people first, people who crochet.
I have often observed crafters (mostly women) and crocheters in particular often have low self worth, or self esteem issues, I think liberating ourselves from negative thought patterns, finding value in ourselves, our creative endeavors, and finding respect for the creative endeavors of others is important in the wider scope of life. I like to point out that most of what we do IS beautiful, but even if something is ugly and it’s made with love it has a value that is important. Let’s face it most of us in the CLF are women (though we honor and adore our male members…go ahead and snicker Josh) and traditional feminine pursuits (and women in general) are marginalized unless they take on a “traditional male” role of some form. As a “neo-feminist” meaning I believe that making myself a parody of a man, or viewing that the only real power is the “man’s world” kind of power is silly and futile. In fact I don’t think the “man’s world” model works all that great for most men. I think women need to own their place, not apologize for the work we do both in and out of the home, our creative, nurturing selves, our strength lays in our ability to multi-task, and cooridinate (in general) information and people. I say this as having been to 23 countries, four continents and having worked in male dominated fields throughout my twenties! I learned to own and not belittle my feminity the hard way, and I want to share the positives of that with as many women as possible. WHILE empowering men to reengage their crafting roots (remember most textiles were created and dominated by men pre-industrial revolution!).
On top of all that serious talk, I want it to be fun, silly and worth spending our time doing. Who wants the long lecture above when we can do it with humor and in a tongue and cheek manner? Oh and yeah, if crochet ever totally get’s it’s freedom we’ll just change the name to Crafter’s Liberation Front, because crafters in general take a lot of smack from the ignorant.
15. Do you have an all time favorite piece that you designed?
I think it would seriously have to be my “Looks Knit, Great Fit” pattern for pattern design work, because I wrote it as a step by step process (which I do with all of my patterns now) but it was the first I got published in a “real publication” and that was cool.
My favorite piece was my first sweater I made out of my own handspun yarn, no pattern but my own design, it’s too big on me, and has to be washed and fulled on occaision because it grows, but it’s like a giant crochet hug.
16: Do you have any regrets on selling a piece/design?
Nope. Because, I have not done so. I’ve loaned my copyright but never sold one. I could I suppose, but I’m not interested in working with anyone in the publishing industry in that way, at the current time. Not that I dislike them or anything, but I’m just an Indie by nature and my life doesn’t permit that kind of attention to my schedule! (Refer to homeschooling teens! LOL)
17. Is there anything that I have missed that you would like to share with the readers of Hankering for Yarn?
Again, I do design, but it’s not my biggest focus. I really want to create a way to help promote the small designers of both patterns and yarn. I like editing the Crochet Liberation Front books, and helping other people take their first steps into getting published. I think working with easy going me, is a lot kinder on a newbie designer as I tell them what the real world says they have to do while allowing them extra time, and giving them a looser framework in which to work. That way they aren’t as suprised when they work with a larger company or publisher.
Laurie’s Link:crochet liberation front
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