CLARE COOPER
Meet the amigurumi designer behind the adorable Flower Fairies™ in our calendar
Five years ago, Clare Cooper was determined to teach herself crochet. She'd fallen in love with the work of Finnish crochet designer Molla Mills, and with one of Mills's books and a plethora of YouTube tutorials in hand, she learned how to create planter pots made from recycled T-shirt yarn. There was no turning back – her crochet journey had begun.
Next came the discovery of her current crochet method of choice: amigurumi. "My first venture into crochet was a simple crocheted bunny for my daughter," Clare explains. "It was lopsided and slightly creepy, but she has since smothered it in love, so I guess it turned out ok!"
Later, Clare realised she could put her own unique spin on the amigurumi dolls she'd been creating. "I had an idea to design a flat-headed crochet doll, inspired by the traditional rag doll made by stitching," she says. "What followed was my first collection of 'quirky dolls’, and things have just progressed slowly from there."
As with her Flower Fairies™ designs, Clare loves to find inspiration in illustrations, and cites artists Helen Dardik and Suzy Ultman, who both create bright and whimsical folk art-inspired scenes and characters, as influences. "But inspiration really can come from all sorts of places: toys I enjoyed from childhood, or my love of yoga, for example."
And running her own small crochet business gives Clare the creative control and fulfillment she desires. "A positive review or kind comment absolutely makes my day," she says. She works from a small studio space in her home, filled with natural light and drawers full of yarn. "I surround myself with notebooks full of sketches, current prototypes and empty cups of tea," says Clare.
She says her crochet journey has had "no major disasters, but plenty of mistakes. The nature of design work is very much trial and error. So, lots of do-overs, lots of frogging. I've learned to keep working at a project or a design, even when my faith in it may be dwindling! And if I'm not happy with a particular element, to frog early and often."
Over the years, Clare has honed her craft, and has found the tools and techniques that make her patterns simple and fun. "One of my favourite techniques to use in amigurumi is 'join as you go,'" Clare says. "This can be challenging from a design perspective, but the end result is a doll that requires very little sewing. The base dolls for the Flower Fairy™ collection, for example, are worked seamlessly from the feet up.
"As for yarns, I work almost exclusively with cotton, which I love for its organic nature and beautiful stitch definition. Having said that, I had great fun experimenting with mohair yarn for this collection, and I think I may have to sneak some into future projects!" she says. And if you're planning to make some of Clare's dolls, either from this collection or one of her independent designs, she advises you to have an embroidery needle close at hand. "It makes all the difference in creating the faces for my dolls," she says. "I also love adding simple embroidered elements to my crochet work. It's a beautiful way to incorporate small details into the design, and it allows makers to create something truly unique.”
In the future, Clare hopes to work on more collaborative projects like this one. "It has been such a pleasure to bring Miss Barker's magical illustrations to life," she says.