JOURNAL: KATE BRUNING
Kate Bruning has been a crochet professional for three years now, and is passionate about helping her community and the planet…
This month is the three-year anniversary of when I quit the day job to go Cro-Pro (yep, crochet professional). In hindsight it was a completely bonkers decision. I mean, how on earth can you make a living out of crochet?! OK, so maybe it wasn’t completely and totally bonkers – my second book of patterns was about to be published, a third had just been commissioned and I knew that if I just had a bit more time I’d be able to find all sorts of other avenues to explore. Now, three years later, I’ve had to turn down a book deal because I have too much design work on, I get to write for lovely chaps like Simply Crochet, and I’ve been asked to create a clothes collection for a scrummy yarn company. It’s incredible!
HELPING MY COMMUNITY
But – and this is not a bad but – I have always wanted to make sure that whatever I do helps my community in some way. It’s why I worked in local government for years, and I can tell you, that’s a challenge and a half right there! We all know that getting tucked up on the sofa with yarn, a hook and a box set is just the best feeling, but, now I get to do it every day, I’ve started to feel like I should find a way to use it to make a difference somehow. So, on a bit of a whim, I applied for, and have now started, an MA in Sustainable Design (another bonkers decision… can you see a pattern here?) to see if there’s any way I can use my super power of crochet for good.
MAKING, NOT BUYING
So how can crochet change the world? I don’t imagine for a second that I’m going to be able to cure global warming, but I do think that all of us makers have a special understanding of the nature of ‘stuff’. When you’ve spent weeks making a blanket, and you’ve had hours of weaving in ends and joining squares, or you’ve whipped up a little ami for your favourite friend, you have a sense of satisfaction and love for the thing you’ve made. When the day comes and you have a big spring clean and get rid of stuff you don’t want any more, those things that you’ve made yourself, or those that have been made for you, are the things you keep. Making stuff is just way
more rewarding, important and personal than buying stuff, and anything that tackles our obsession with the need to buy more ‘stuff’ can only be a good thing.
GIVING CLOTHES A LONGER LIFE
Crochet is also a brilliant tool for remaking, remodelling and revamping things. My favourite make last year was taking a crazy old granny blanket, joining on with a matching yarn and working a couple of tubes to make sleeves. Now I can actually wear it – this is a life goal of mine, I love being wrapped in a blanket! Or, you know those single skeins of yarn that you hoard because they’re super pretty, but a bit too much money to buy more than one of, so you can’t really make anything with? Try using those to make a new yoke for an old top, giving it a longer life and making something that no one else will have. I know all of this stuff might end up in a landfill somewhere one day, but the more we use our creative, making skills to keep it going for a bit longer, the better.
LOVE, PASSION AND MEANING
So keep making crochet, and be content in the knowledge that even when tucked up on the sofa with your yarn and a box set, by creating something with love, passion and meaning, you’re actually doing your little bit toward helping the planet. You can keep up with Kate via her website and blog at www.greedyforcolour.blogspot.co.uk
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