PROFILE: LOU BARNES
YouTuber Lou Barnes invites us into her beautiful crochet life…
When asked about her crochet beginnings, Lou Barnes has a confession to make. “I actually started out as a self-taught knitter when I was pregnant with my daughter,” she says. “I made her a sweet knitted blanket, but when the pattern called for a crocheted border I stared off into space for a long time before giving up and adding a wonky knitted border instead.”
Two years on, the urge to dabble in amigurumi prompted Lou to give crochet a try. “I made my partner an amigurumi zombie and taught myself the basics through YouTube videos until I got it right.”
As the crochet bug settled in, Lou spent months working her way through lots of amigurumi patterns from a variety of designers. “After a while, something inside my head just clicked and I felt ready to try writing my own patterns,” she says. “My first was a seal pup wearing a jaunty little scarf, and things just rocketed away from there. Once I knew that I could make pretty much anything my brain could conjure up, I couldn’t stop.”
THE SECRET LIVES OF INANIMATE OBJECTS
Lou soon hit on an original design that swiftly became addictive – her adorably geeky fluffy cacti.
“I’ve always been dreadful at keeping plants alive,” she says. “It’s a running joke in my family that I have a ‘black thumb’ rather than a green one. My lowest point was when I accidentally left a cactus on a radiator. The poor thing went floppy and grey. I was then inspired to make a series of unkillable crochet plants for other people who shared my terrible plant-keeping abilities.”
Lou admits that she’s always loved the idea of inanimate objects having secret lives, dreaming up “vast histories, personalities, likes and dislikes. I like looking at objects around me and giving them life! A lot of my inspiration comes from Japanese culture and their similar desire to put adorable faces on everyday objects.” We’re also huge fans of her almost-sweet-enough-to-eat pupcakes, available to buy at her Etsy store www. yarntistryuk.etsy.com. Seeing is believing!
Lou’s creations have helped to keep her mind as well as her fingers busy, which led to her making her creations public. “I have
struggled with mental health issues for my entire adult life, and found that creating my amigurumi characters was incredibly soothing when I was finding things a little difficult,” she says. “During a particularly dark period, I began creating standing amigurumi dolls and decided to share them with a social crochet group on Facebook. The response was overwhelmingly positive and people asked if I had a business page of my own that they could snoop around.”
With so much encouragement behind her, Lou found the courage to launch her Yarntistry page at www.facebook.com/ yarntistry. “I decided to give it a whirl!” she exclaims. “Over 600 people liked the page within three hours of me uploading photos of my work, with many asking how to buy my creations, and Yarntistry was born.”
COMMUNITY OF CRAFTERS
Lou’s activities on Facebook allow her to connect with huge numbers of crafty folks. “I’m part of a collective of crafters who specialise in different creative outlets from crochet to illustration to plush design to sculpture. We all try our best to support each other by keeping up to date with each of our new projects and various goings on.”
Lou enjoys being able to share her passion for crochet with others. “I love how relaxing it is,” she says. “I find that it’s a great way to unwind and, even when I’m having a day off I usually spend it working on a personal project or a gift for a loved one, just because it’s also my much-loved hobby. Amigurumi is especially free in terms of the things that you can create with a simple ball of yarn.”
The key, she explains, is not to expect perfection. “Everything is a case of trial and error, and it doesn’t matter how confident you are with a hook, you’re never too good to get tripped up by a confusing new technique,” she says. “I remember when I first learned loop stitch, it took me hours to get comfortable with it. My hands wouldn’t cooperate in the slightest!”
GROOVING ON YOUTUBE
We first fell for Lou via her irresistibly cheerful videos. “I started making videos on my own channel as another creative output and to connect with a wider audience,” she says. “I created a video called Crochet is an Old Lady Hobby.
I shared it with the Simply Crochet
Facebook page, with little hope that anyone would even see it, but within 48 hours we were on the phone discussing starting a brand new channel, and the rest is history.” Now Lou fronts the Simply Crochet Yarniversity YouTube channel, and we work closely with Lou to decide what each episode will feature. “It’s very much a team effort,” she says. “I like to create videos that will coincide with the skills and techniques in the next issue so the readers can experience another dimension to the magazine and get the most from patterns.”
Grand plans for the channel include creating an enormous catalogue of stitches and techniques, as well as “behind the scenes goodies and designer info so our readers have another level to the magazine that they can get truly involved in. While it won’t happen overnight, we’re looking forward to being a vast resource for newbies and veteran treblemakers alike.”
The biggest challenge of creating the films is simply how much time they take. “Even for a video a few minutes long, the set up and editing takes several hours,” Lou says. “With the tutorial videos, it’s difficult to get the detail in so that the techniques are clear enough for people. Teaching somebody in video format is far different from being able to interact with them in person.”
Lou has managed to designate a corner of her home that’s devoted to crochet. “My favourite place to work is at my enormous, IKEA-hacked desk in what is thankfully a spacious living room,” she says. “I share the space with my brown Syrian hamster, Seymour, countless toys for inspiration and even some real cacti that I haven’t managed to kill… well, not yet, anyway!”
Written by Judy Darley
“I LOVE THE IDEA OF INANIMATE OBJECTS HAVING SECRET LIVES WITH LIKES AND DISLIKES!”