Yarn Ready Designs
Hello everyone! Welcome to Yarn Ready Designs. My name is Diana, and I’m the main crafter behind the patterns and projects here. While I do like to dabble in other fiber crafts too, my main handcraft is crochet.
I think, like most people, the beginning of my experience with crafting started in childhood. My mother passed on her knowledge of a wide variety of crafts onto me just as her mother had done with her and her siblings. There was never a shortage of art and craft supplies, and the encouragement to be creative and think outside the box was boundless.
Were the results always inspiring works of art? No, heheh, of course not—as much as I’m sure my mother loved my flower-petal flavored (real) mud pies with surprise worms, I doubt she was motivated to actually try the unappetizing “treat”, no matter how much she pretended for my sake—but I was always uplifted to keep creating. And so I did.
Quickly, I took to fiber crafting of all sorts. But it was when I was twelve years old that my mother gave me my first crochet hook and my fascination the craft took off. I’d observed her making so many different items that were gifted to family and friends, I finally approached her to give it a try myself. Um, so my first solo project attempt was rather lofty. It was supposed to be a blanket made in simple single crochet and double crochet rows big enough for a queen bed. Heheh.
With no plan, no color palette in mind, and not remembering to stick to one yarn weight size, I only made it about eight rows in before I stopped. I couldn’t even recognize stitches well enough yet! That poor long strip of crochet stitching was a curly rippled mess. Oh, the distress over my accidental wonky scarf! Heheh. I went back to learning before tackling a big project of my own making again, and I’m glad I did. Now all my wonky scarves are on purpose, thank you very much.
Even though that got me started with crocheting, there was a lull in that activity for a handful of years as I experimented with other string fiber crafting like knitting, sewing, felting, embroidery, macrame, weaving, and knot work. All of which I love still. It was a joint project with my mother and grandmother that cemented my interest and focus on crocheting.
My grandmother visited from my mother’s home country for a time, and together we made a large granny square blanket with flowers of her own design. Only a few years later, she passed away, and my mother and I cherish that blanket like the tangible memory of her that it is. The part that stuck with me the most was how important it became to have this special item made by the hands of someone we wanted to hold on to.
And just as I will always treasure the flower granny square pattern my grandmother designed that we used for the blanket, I realized I wanted to make patterns that others could find as expressions of their affections for their own loved ones to hold on to as well.
Now, the majority of the patterns and tutorials available on this site will likely come from me, but you’re likely to spy a few other pattern creators from time to time as well. We hope you enjoy the projects!
