MY HOOKY TREASURE
Margaret Hubert made her amazing freeform jacket for a very special event – and now you can make it too.
Last summer, I made a freeform crochet jacket to wear to the CGOA (Crochet Guild of America) conference, which was held in Chicago in July. I think that, to date, this is my favourite crochet piece that I’ve created, and I’ve made a huge number of pieces over the years.
I teach freeform crochet, so designing and making something in freeform was something I really wanted to do for the conference – plus, I wanted to wear something new that no one had seen before!
It’s pretty special to me because I love butterflies, for a lot of personal reasons. So, I created this jacket and called it ‘Butterfly Garden’.
The yarn I chose is a fine, lace weight yarn with black as the base colour for the main pieces of the garment, and bright jewel tones for the many embellishments, which I thought matched the theme of butterfly wings. It’s worked in double and treble crochet, plus bullion stitch, which I mixed and matched in all sorts of combinations.
Since I’m always working on several things at once, I’m constantly juggling projects – big, small and everything in between – but I think it probably took about a month to make the jacket all totalled, what with constantly picking it up and putting it down. Of course, I had a deadline, so that helped me to hurry up and get it finished!
After the conference, Connie Ellison, who is editor at Annie’s online craft store in America, saw a picture of me wearing it and offered to buy the piece, along with the instructions… which didn’t actually exist! I was a little hesitant at first, as I was daunted at the prospect of writing instructions for this particular piece. I honestly thought it could well be impossible to do! It was a challenge, but I finished it, and now my ‘Butterfly Garden’ pattern is available online from Annie’s for anyone who wants to make it.
You can buy the pattern at bit.ly/SCM73_treasure, and you’ll nd Margaret’s blog online at www.margaretshooksandneedles.blogspot.co.uk