Carmona - The art of crochet blankets: 18 projects inspired by modern makers

18 PROJECTS INSPIRED BY MODERN MAKERS

Rachele Carmona

To both my husband and my mother, for wholeheartedly supporting my every whim.

Crochet is my passion and it has been since I first taught myself the craft in 2005. Blogging was an emerging form and YouTube was in its infancy, so I started with books I checked out from the library. I also joined a group of other crocheters and we would meet in a caf, where they helped me correct some of the techniques I was doing all wrong, and we had a lot of yarny fun.

Back then, I was already crocheting on a daily basis, trying any pattern I could get my hands on, until I eventually found myself fixated on crochet blankets. Since that time, I have made over 300 blankets, and there is no end in sight. Each and every day, you can find me at my home in Texas, with a hook in my hand, and a cup of coffee by my side.

With a growing number of crochet artists putting patterns and designs out every year, I started to feel a bit like there was nothing new under the sun. After making granny square after granny square, I began to crave inspiration from outside the crochet community.

My journey is not so different from the journey of any artist:

Phase 1: ImitationArtist creates a direct replica of existing art within her craft, so as to familiarize herself with the process. (All those early blankets crocheted following a pattern designed by someone else.)

Phase 2: AmbitionArtist creates her own pieces, still drawing inspiration from artists within her craft, while seeking out her definitive personal style through color and texture. (My beginning blanket designs were all riffs on traditional crochet shapes.)

Phase 3: AscensionArtist works on a completely independent plane, and creativity has ascended above the realm of crochet and fused with other art media. (This book and my newer pattern designs are all focused on this idea of ascension.)

Receiving positive comments from artists whose creative interests are rooted outside the crochet community is my personal proof that my craft is evolving through this fusion of art forms. I set out on this journey with the goal of bridging those creative gaps.

This book is more than a straightforward pattern book. In each chapter, we will explore inspiration from other art forms: weaving, digital art, screen-printing, quilting, and even paper crafts. The featured artist for each medium is an influencer in their field. I chose three of their works from which to draw inspiration, and I translated aspects of their work into crochet for an innovative fusion piece.

Through these inspired designs, I hope youll find new ways to spot shapes, textures, and colors in other beautiful art forms and transform those attributes into your own crochet projects. In addition, within the three uniquely constructed designs in each chapter, I incorporate interesting techniques that you can use in your own future designs.

I hope you will love how these blanket designs make you flex your creative muscles. If you are looking to develop, refresh, or evolve your hooky hobby and learn some new skills along the way, then go ahead, pick a chapter, and dive in.

Rachele Carmona

Maryanne Moodie is an Australian textile artist and educator with a studio based in Brooklyn, New York. As an author and a self-proclaimed fiber-obsessed weaver, she explores the tradition of weaving and tapestry while playing with color, form, and texture to bring new life to an ancient art. She is very involved in the textile art community in New York and Australia and spends much of her time teaching the skill to others through workshops worldwide. Maryannes work has been featured in New York magazine; Anthology; O, The Oprah Magazine; Grazia; Interwoven; and online on Design*Sponge and The Design Files.

Loom weaving is as connected to the earth as petals to a flower, and it draws from the naturally occurring textured surfaces all around us: the dappled pastures of rolling meadows; the geometric striations of rock formations; the lines of a landscape against an orange sunset. The textured planes and contrasting colors in Maryannes woven art remind me of these nature scenes, and I have designed the blankets for this chapter with them in mind.

To design these blankets, instead of creating an overall pattern as for a typical crocheted piece, I pictured the blanket vertically, with a definite top and bottom, and integrated asymmetric artistic elements that purposefully guide the eye down the piece. This method of designing a blanket from top to bottom is a direct by-product of examining the weaving process, which also focuses on vertical movement to construct an art piece.

Like a natural loom weaver, I also played with diverse textures to design these blankets. Each project is inspired by one of Maryannes works and features a different way to crochet a woven stitch. Rolling Plains features springtime colors and gentle texture, including rows of puff stitches, which mimic the thicker fibers that Maryanne incorporates into her pieces. Rock Ridge combines a clay-like landscape with textural stony layers in linen stitch and a unique fringe trim. Sun and Sky is a fun piece that layers puffy white clouds over warm and cool basketweave corner-to-corner patches.