MY HOOKY TREASURE

US-based designer Jessie Rayot shares her story of the wrap that opened up a whole new world of possibilities...

So many of my crochet creations hold a special place in my heart, and if you ask me which one is my favorite make, you will most likely get a different answer every time. One that really stands out to me, though, is the Fall Leaves Wrap. I designed and made it for the 2014 Crochet Guild Of America Design Competition.

Up until this point, my crochet designs had been made in very common shapes. I come from a costume design background where I was especially fond of musical theatre and children’s shows. Fantasy and creativity abounded in my life, yet my crochet designs didn’t often show that.

With the Fall Leaves Wrap, I finally embraced that more creative side of me and designed something I might have made up in fabric for a character costume. I didn’t let the thought of ‘but how do you actually crochet that?’ stop me. I just designed it and then figured it out.

It was so wonderful when the Fall Leaves Wrap took first place in its category at the CGOA competition, and I received a lot of lovely praise for its design. It was a turning point for me as a designer, where I finally embraced the amalgamation of my costume design background and my new profession as a crochet and knit designer.

Later on, I re-visited the Fall Leaves Wrap pattern for another competition to design a shawl for Stevie Nicks. This time, I made a lacier and larger version of the wrap in shades of grey-black. While I didn’t win that one, it was a lot of fun to adapt the original idea, and I sure do love the shawl.

Ever since I designed the first Fall Leaves Wrap, I feel much more free to design fun and quirky patterns in my work and my life, even if they take a little while to figure out how to actually hook them up. Life is so much more fun this way!