'Changing Tides' Crochet Along

We are thrilled to be supporting the Changing Tides CAL by crochet designer, Eleonora from Coastal Crochet. This crochet along (CAL) launched on 12th April over on the Coastal Crochet blog and it's a feast of texture and colours that capture the very essence of the turning tides.

Purchase your colour packs here >

"I’ve used the changing tides of the sea as my inspiration throughout the design process… from turning the blanket on each round just like the tides turn, to the different stitch combinations, textures and the colour choices too."

How wonderful does it sound?

Here, we meet the Designer behind the ‘Changing Tides’ blanket crochet along (CAL).

It’s wonderful that the ‘Knitting Network’ will be offering yarn packs to accompany my next CAL, the ‘Changing Tides’ Blanket. In this blog post you’ll learn a little bit more about me and what influences my designs…

My name is Eleonora and I am a crochet designer and write the crochet blog ‘Coastal Crochet’. The ‘Changing Tides’ blanket is my second blanket CAL which I’m hosting as a designer and it will be starting on 12^th April over on my blog. You can read all about it here.

I live by the sea on the South East Coast of England with my husband, three children and our dog, a Miniature Schnauzer called Salty.

Crochet has always been a part of me, it really has! My Dutch mother crocheted her own wedding dress in 1974 and I was wrapped in crocheted blankets soon after I was born. I really did grow up in a ‘handmade home’ with little crocheted curtains above the windows made by my mother and grandmother (very popular in The Netherlands in the 1970’s), there were crocheted pot holders in the kitchen, my cardigans and jumpers were knitted, school dresses sewn and toys crocheted!

So it was a natural progression for me to be a crafty person into adulthood.

Crochet became a serious part of my life when I started writing my crochet blog ‘Coastal Crochet’ in 2015. I also enrolled on the International Diploma in Crochet course. As a result my crochet skills are very varied and diverse.

I have had many designs published in UK crochet magazines including Simply Crochet, Inside Crochet and Crochet Now. I love to share my passion for crochet with others and host regular crochet workshops. In my day job I work part time as a nurse so life is certainly busy!

Living so close to the sea, I draw so much inspiration from these ever changing scenes which look different everyday depending on the tides, the weather and the seasons. How different the sea looks from day to day. Bright blue on a crisp winter’s day to hazy turquoise when it's hot, dull grey when it's cloudy, raging waves when it's windy and not even visible when the sea mist rolls in! This inspiration has filtered into my crochet. Not only does a brisk coastal walk clear my head and allow my creativity to flow with thinking space, but the colours, sights, sounds and smells all provide a gorgeous theme and basis for my crochet designs. When I’m choosing colours for a new design, I’ll often be drawn to the coastal palette and using nature as inspiration is so fulfilling as the colours of nature are never wrong.

I also love to combine my crochet with coastal finds. I love beachcombing and collecting sea glass as well as driftwood and anything else that we may find washed up on our shores. Some of it is sadly pollution, especially the plastics we all know about, but there are some things that combine beautifully with crochet. I crochet around seaglass to create little hanging decorations and pendants, I’ve designed lots of crocheted pebble covers and combined driftwood and crochet to create wall hangings too.

Starting my ‘Coastal Crochet’ blog and then subsequently posting regularly on Instagram as @coastalcrochet has made the biggest difference to my crochet. There is a very supportive online crochet community which I’m so happy to be a part of. It has enabled me to find so many wonderful crafty people who I would otherwise never have been able to connect with and I encourage anyone taking part in a CAL to share their progress on social media.

In hosting my previous CAL, the most unexpected and wonderful surprise was the sense of community and connection between crocheters from all over the world over on social media. New friendships were made as people shared progress photos using the CAL hashtag on Instagram as well as joining the Facebook group ‘Coastal Crochet CAL’.

Others taking part responded with such positive and encouraging comments and it was wonderful to be a part of. So my tip would be to embrace social media if you feel able to. It also helps to keep your motivation for the CAL going and it can be so inspiring to share the experience with others.

I hope that many of you will enjoy crocheting along as we make the Changing Tides blanket…