MY HOOKY TREASURE

Knitwear designer Katie Jones tells us what her customised wedding outfit means to her.

My ‘hooky treasure’ has to be all the clothes worn for my wedding, and especially my veil. I knew I didn’t want a wedding that was only white, so I got a rainbow bright selection! All of the pieces were made in a huge range of stitches, using small hooks. It took weeks and weeks to do, but I loved every minute of it, and it’s not often you find a project you can dedicate so much time to.

The veil was given to me by my mum. It was originally hers, and I added a pompom trim onto the lace edging. It took a million hours as the thing was massive and I was crocheting with a 1.5mm hook!

All the tops for the bridesmaids, flower girl dresses and my top were crocheted from scratch. The maid of honour top took two weeks of long 15-hour days – it was very much a labour of love.

For the skirt of my dress, I upcycled the skirt of a wedding dress from a charity shop. I added an edge trim and covered it in intricate crochet flowers and hearts. It was mainly crocheted with a 2mm hook but some of the small flowers were made with a 0.75mm hook, so the hours I spent on it are up in the hundreds! One row of the skirt trim took four hours, and we spent five days just sewing on all the flowers.

I knew the wedding was going to be craft-tastic, and it ended up sparking quite a big change in my crochet career. I’d run my own fashion label for the past four years, which had become very successful, but growing larger meant I was spending more time on admin and not as much on making. So, I decided to downsize and got making again. I’ve started running more workshops, I’ve launched a retreat called The Great Make Escape, and I’ll be releasing a new pattern collection later this year, too! You can check out Katie’s patterns on her blog at www.katiejonesknit.co.uk, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @katiejonesknit.