I started crocheting as a child, my Dad taught me. I was never very serious about it. I got back into it in my early 20's.  I had just bought a house, couldn’t afford to go out and needed something to occupy my evenings. I started getting requests for items I had made and, in an effort to make ends meet when the interest rates went sky high, decided to make items to sell.
I hadn’t even considered there would be a market for the patterns until I started getting requests for them. I was always good at just "making things up as I went along" and never thought of it as designing until I discovered the wonderful world of crochet online. I got involved with a group of lovely ladies who encouraged me to write down my designs and sell them.
My first pattern, the Rainbow Afghan, was a success and still remains my best seller.p>
Although I usually design items for children with machine washable yarn, I have discovered how much fun thread can be and tried my hand at designing jewellery. I also experimented with working directly into fabric to produce clothing and, more recently, I designed Lacy Lingerie in sizes up to a UK 22.
However, yarn remains my favourite and there are now a whole load of bright and cheerful puppet patterns to choose from, as well as some brand new garden sized games!
My most recent experiments have been in Scrapbooking. I took this up a couple of years ago. As much as I liked the idea of it, the designer in me didn't like putting my photos in the middle of a whole load of stuff other people have designed. So I started making crocheted embellishments for my scrapbook pages. I now have a few patterns for them.
My other love is Silk Painting. I paint the silk, back it, quilt it on the sewing machine, then spend hours hand sewing beads on. I find this almost as relaxing as crochet - apart from trying the thread the needles!
Of course, I just couldn't resist combining all of these and came up with "Scrapbook Style Quilted Photo Frames".
I hope you enjoy looking at my work.