Carla learned to crochet during her years in France while on holiday. Her right handed mother taught left handed Carla to crochet, so Carla feels that she crochets “the wrong way around”. Now, this makes one wonder what the ‘right way’ would be as Carla’s technique is certainly effective!
To make things even more interesting – or perhaps challenging for the rest of us – Carla sometimes creates her patterns with the roll of the dice! Here’s her explanation for this method:
“There are 2 blankets which are made with a dice. It is very difficult to
make a random pattern. So a dice with 12 and 20 sides works well. Each
number had a color connected. And the dice made out wich color to use next.”
I’ve used the dice idea myself when working in freeform – where each number on the die represents a hook size, a yarn size, or a color. It’s a lot of fun to work freeform like this, leading to exceptional scrumbles which may be joined to create an afghan, sweater, or other FO. But, when this method is applied to color alone, as in Carla’s description where she relies on the dice for her color selections, it may seem terribly random. Clearly, for each blanket, Carla has chosen a coordinated collection of yarns to which she has assigned each a number on the die. So, while these are ‘random’ color choices as far as the order of colors, Carla’s excellent color sense predetermines her color palette wherein only the colors she has chosen for her palette for a particular project will be used. For more on freeform, check out http://www.freeformcrochet.com/
To create an even larger palette from which to choose her colors, Carla even relies on the variations among dye lots! She’ll make sure she has enough of a particular dye lot for all the matching squares she needs, then will purchase the same ‘color’ in a different dye lot to have subtle shade variations available to her. Her yarns come from all over Europe as she travels on holiday and friends and family members are always looking for cotton yarns for her in their travels too. Her stash is huge, well organized, and absolutely essential to the kind of design work Carla accomplishes.
One thing that Carla does that may seem quite strange to some of us is that she sews her completed afghans to a fleece backing, fixed with colored knots. This element of quilting is unique to Carla as far as I know. One advantage of this technique that may benefit us all is the total elimination of all those HOLES that the men in our life want us to avoid when crocheting afghans! Sounds like a winning idea to me, especially when the afghan is made with cotton yarn as the fleece adds more warmth for those of us in colder climes.
Carla’s original afghans were used mostly by her children for family activities like picnics and play time – building a tent, rolling around to play on, and for naptime. Her first afghan was actually sewn to a sleeping bag! Imagine how toasty that must have been! With durability in mind, Carla has refined her technique over the years.
To view more of Carla’s work, please visit her website:
More on this in Part Three. Stay tuned!
Where can I find the pattern for the squares that Carla crochets? Thanks!