DAREDEVIL CROCHET

Battling bobbles or trying new colours, Lucy Croft is a designer after our own hearts.

You may have seen that some of our most colourful designs have something in common. From the mandala series to our Pick ‘n’ Mix CAL, they comprise small, irresistible segments by Lucy Croft. Lucy’s fondness for projects in “bite-sized chunks” began when her daughter was tiny. Not only are these manageable, but they help to curb her own restless nature.

“Crochet is the ideal antidote to my tendency to fidget,” she explains. “I get excited by the result and then move on to the next thing. Seeing your ideas become a physical thing is thrilling.”

FINDING HER OWN WAY

Lucy first became interested in crochet around 15 years ago, through a friend of her husband’s who loved knitting. “She was an amazing knitter and I wanted to learn a craft, but knitting was just too regimented and right-handed for me.”

At that time, crochet had yet to regain its status as a cool pastime. “It was still something people sneered about, an outsider, but I love an underdog,” says Lucy. “I’m not good at being taught things – I don’t like being told what to do – so I taught myself to crochet using various booklets, but hadn’t progressed very far.”

It took a book to change that. “The discovery of Debbie Stoller’s The Happy Hooker was the catalyst that made me take crochet seriously, as it had so many fun projects.”

Before settling in Bristol, Lucy and her husband lived in Spain, and travel remains important to them. “Nowadays I mostly crochet at home, but I love that it’s so portable,” she says. “When we used to drive back from Spain, it was vital for passing the time! Back then I was an ardent reader, but my husband is an ardent talker so he was constantly interrupting me. Learning to crochet was crucial as it was something that I could do while he chatted and drove.”

Lucy soon developed a passion for “intricate, lacy projects”, and the more complicated the better. “I love the process of making them,” she enthuses. Her rebellious nature meant that before long she was tinkering with the crochet patterns she was following. “I’m the same with recipes – I tend to use a pattern as a starting point, which made creating my own patterns fairly easy,”

she says. “I come from a scientific background and have a mathematical brain so charting makes sense to me. I love experimenting to get the results I want.”

It’s all helped with making Lucy one of our go-to crochet designers. In issue 49 last summer, we launched our first crochet-along exclusively for subscribers, and Lucy was our chosen designer. Her Pick ‘n’ Mix CAL (shown left) is a vivid blanket, with gorgeous squares in every shade of the rainbow.

Considering her recent creations, it’s no wonder that Lucy describes herself as “a colour person. I’m definitely someone who feels happier with blue nail varnish than a French manicure. I grew up in a very colourful family with a mum who had the confidence to use colour well, so I’d say I’m least comfortable in neutrals.” CONNECTING TO THE WORLD Much of the décor in Lucy’s home is grey, providing a fabulous backdrop for playing with different hues. “I’m lucky enough to have my own studio at home now,” she says. “We have a two-storey garage and the top floor is my space, currently full of mandalasin-progress. The shelves are overflowing with yarns and I put up images on the walls for inspiration. It’s very woolly in there!”

Lucy says she’s “a sucker for a thick DK yarn.” This made her ongoing mandala project for Simply Crochet, based on the artwork in our 2017 calendar, something of a departure for the designer. “I was a bit daunted when I was asked to create patterns using a 4ply cotton yarn, but it’s won me over because the stitch definition is really crisp, and it’s just so bouncy.”

Until recently, favourite techniques included bobble stitch. “I loved it so much I mentioned to Sara, Simply Crochet’s editor, that I’d love to design something based on it. That turned into 1,400 bobbles in a single project, so now I like it a bit less.” She laughs ruefully. “Right now, my favourite crochet stitch is probably a cluster.”

To reach her studio, Lucy goes outside “into our tiny backyard”, and then up a flight of stairs. It’s a degree of separation she finds useful. “I can down tools and walk away leaving everything exactly where it is, which is lovely.”

As a “mostly full-time mum”, Lucy also works inside the family home a lot, “fitting crochet around nap times and nursery.” You must read a lot of blogs, we suggest brightly, but she shakes her head. “I used to, but baby life has taken over,” she comments. “I used to love reading novels too, but I haven’t read a book in about five years now. Five years! I blame all the mothering.”

These days, Lucy much prefers to turn to Instagram for inspiration. “You can get a snapshot in an instant,” she says. “I don’t really have the time to sit and read, but I can flick through Instagram while my daughter’s watching TV, or on the bus, or even while cooking dinner.” Favourite folks to follow on Instagram include @maryluvscrochet. “She’s absolutely prolific in her crochet, which always makes me want to do more.”

Lucy says that magazine commissions are vital to her own output. “I almost need deadlines to push me to finish a project,” she says. “I always start things, then get excited about the next potential thing. For instance, this week I went to an art shop to buy paints for my daughter, then got distracted by all the possibilities in there and came home with the tools to make a massive version of one of my mandalas as a decoration for the garden.”

Social media also offers incentives to complete designs, as well as providing a powerful feeling of community. “It’s hugely heartwarming to see people posting their pictures of projects completed from my designs,” Lucy says. “I always leave a comment or a ‘like’. I especially love it when they’ve tweaked the colours to suit themselves and that small change has completely changed the look.” That sense of adventure through crochet sums up Lucy’s unique design approach, and is just part of the reason that we love her.

“I GREW UP IN A VERY COLOURFUL FAMILY, WITH A MUM WHO HAD THE CONFIDENCE TO USE COLOUR.”