There are terrific crochet designers, makers, artists, and bloggers all around the world. Today let’s take a look at some of the great crochet coming out of Australia.
Sponsor Love: American Yarns (in Australia!)
American Yarns is a company that brings popular US yarns to Australia. From the website: “American Yarns was created from my passion of crocheting, I could not find quality nor the variety of yarn from the stores locally and hence I went looking elsewhere. During my research I discovered this wonderful opportunity to provide Australian lovers of craft quality yarn to complete craft projects at an affordable price. My idea was to provide only yarn to my customers, but, I decided to offer quality handmade products using the quality yarn that I could not find in Australia. All our handmade products for sale are 100% Australian handmade by our designers and our yarns are imported directly from the US. We provide in fashion colours that will match you’re in style home decor and or wardrobe. Our aim is to provide and deliver quality products made with love and care along with a friendly, reliable and quality service to all our customers.”
Australian Crochet Books
Kate of Greedy for Colour is an Australian living in New Zealand who has created the crochet character Stanley and shares his adventures through writing and patterns. Her book Let’s Go Camping!: Crochet Your Own Adventure
Craft for the Soul: How to Get the Most Out of Your Creative Life
Strange Material: Storytelling through Textiles
Frankie is an Australian magazine that regularly features crochet
Australian Crochet Designers
Michelle of Poppy & Bliss is a Melbourne-based crochet blogger and designer. Picture above is her Tunisian Sunset crochet blanket pattern. All of her work is rich in color and inspiring in design.
Jenny King is one of the most prolific Australian knitting and crochet pattern designers. This is her Hoshimi shrug crochet pattern.
Julie of Little Woolie lives “on the quiet side of the Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne”. This is her tapestry crochet washcloths pattern.
Crochet designer Shelley of Spincushions lives by the coast in South West Victoria, Australia. She creates beautiful crochet patterns (including this cotton bag crochet pattern) and has curated some of her work into more than half a dozen ebooks.
One of the earliest known crochet designers was Mary Card, a 19th century Australian crochet designer
Australian Crochet Art
The Crochet Coral Reef Project was launched by California-based scientific crochet artists Wertheim sisters and has had installations around the world. It represents (and raises awareness) about the damage being done by humans to the Great Barrier Reef.
5000 Poppies … “Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight set out to crochet a humble 120 poppies to “plant” at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne Australia for Remembrance Day in 2013 in honour of their fathers … It was this simple tribute of love and honour that sparked a massive community outpouring with an estimated 50,000 plus contributors to the project and hundreds of smaller localised installations throughout Australia, New Zealand and beyond..”
Prudence Mapstone is an amazing freeform crochet artist and textile artist from Australia who recently curated the 50 Years of Flower Power Project, which has been displayed multiple times throughout the country.
Jane Balke-Anderson, better known as Queen Babs, is a terrific Sydney-based yarn bomb artist who does beautifully colorful crochet work and shares inspiring messages of hope with those who follow her on social media.
YARN BOMBING WINE project at Taranga Winery in South Australia. The work was used as cover art for a wine bottle!
Helle Jorgensen, AKA Gooseflesh, is an Australian artist who does beautiful work using reclaimed materials to create fresh takes on nature. She has some done some interesting work combining crochet with driftwood.
Magda Van Der Vloed is a South African crochet artist but in this piece she collaborated to upcycle telephone wires into brooches and sell them through Australian company Stem
DeviantArt Australian crafter Honourary Weasley takes commissions for little cute crochet characters made in microcrochet.
The art for the iPhone game Loopy Lost His Lettuce was made using crochet creatures was made by Australian crafter Gem of the shop Twizzlez
Digital Granny Square Art from WorkbyKnight
Australian Crochet Fashion
Lisa Maree is one of the world’s leading crochet swimsuit designers
Deborah Elkes is an Australian crocheter who shared her story with us back in 2012 about how she uses crochet to help her through chronic fatigue. She has also created some drag queen crochet fashion.
Chuckles and Boo was an Australian clothing line inspired by vintage crochet fashion
Australian business Coussinet has sold upcycled pop tab crochet accessories
Mandalas for Marinke: Contributions from Australia
The Mandalas for Marinke project received contributions from all around the world including many from Australia. Here are some of those:
Athena Field, who recently shared her steampunk bunny with us, contributed to Mandalas for Marinke and shared that the profits from her work (Lilliputi Crochet and Design) go to the Black Dog Institute in Australia.
Leanne is from the Central Coast of NSW, Australia; she shared her touching story along with her mandalas and a recommendation for the resource R U OK? for depression sufferers, particularly those in Australia.
Spoke crochet mandala from Kym in South Australia
Here is one from Lynda in Melbourne
Treble Stitch is also in Melbourne
Misha-Anne sent hers in from Syndey
Wendy is from Central Victoria
This one is from Vicki Morley
Here is a pretty one from Ali of AliPinkHandmade
Jan is in Queensland
This one is from Roxanne on the Gold Coast
Kerry contributed a fun mandala-inspired canvas art piece
The Best Australian Crocheters on Instagram
FlamingPot is a beautiful Etsy store and gorgeous Instagram feed from Paula in Melbourne.
Robyn (@crochetgirl99 on Instagram) is the co-owner of Yummy Yarn & Co in Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia. She has one of the most beautiful crochet feeds on Instagram!
Natalie Schwarz is a crocheter based in Melbourne, Australia, whose shop is appropriately called Little Cosy Things. That’s exactly what you’ll find there – crochet stuffed animals
Lynda Carroll, on Instagram as @lyndapc, says she is a “historian and writer at large, crochet-reading through the world from a little corner of Australia, cup of tea and a camera always nearby.”
And more crochet in Australia!
The Australian Women’s Weekly was a terrific crochet resource starting in the 1930s and the archives are a great place to look for vintage crochet!
Hello Hart interviewed First Born, a fair trade handcrafted knit/crochet clothing business in Australia. I’m always interested in Fair Trade crochet and I think it’s important to learn as much as we can about these businesses so it was great to see this interview.
Kaij is a crocheter in Australia who makes fascinators
There is a granny chic bar in Sydney called Grandma’s Bar that would be a great place to crochet with a cocktail in hand
This post was sponsored by American Yarns. In addition to their yarn, you can enjoy crochet patterns on their site.