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Crossways Wool and Fabrics is a local yarn store in my local city of Perth, Western Australia. It is a very long standing institution in the busy and stylish suburb of Subiaco, near the centre of town. Shop owner Thea was generous to offer me a wonderful opportunity to display my crochet designs, and I decided to treat it like a little fashion show! It’s pretty special for me, and my crochet will be hanging out here until the end of January 2020 😱
This post I will show you a bit of the store, and next post I will give you some details about the garments displayed in the window and kick off a little competition. Here is most of my window display!
Shop assistant Tegan was SO great to help me set this display up! Its a bit of an awkward space to climb in and out of, and it was a VERY hot day, so it was like a sauna in there! I took this photo just after it was finished. The glass reflection is hard to avoid, but this shows the overview pretty well. There is still a bit more on the far right hand side I didnt manage to capture in this pic.
But as you can see, my window display is ONLY the left hand side of this shop - it’s a HUGE store!
Crossways has been around for many years, offering knitting and crochet classes, advice, contract makers, fabrics, haberdashery and sewing machine repairs. I shopped there for years before I started designing crochet myself, and I fell in love with the Misti Alpaca range I could find there!
Thea has been owner of this shop for the past few years, and employs a select staff of knowledgeable makers to help her manage the store. This pic shows Thea on the right, and Tegan on the left (taken before we climbed into the hot window space - though Tegan looked just as fresh at the end of set up, and I looked like I had run a marathon - lol)
As you can see, the yarn range is extensive - lots of yarn porn and colour therapy in one spot! There are embroidery threads, sewing threads, zips, buttons, a large craft table for classes, fabrics, a sewing pattern book station, finished items for sale, and it feels light and bright inside. What more could you ask for!?
It was difficult at first to choose what was going into the display and what was staying at home. I started a bit of a fashion rack to decide. I am mostly about wearable crochet rather than homewares, so I thought I would stick to that, and choose items that were either already published garment patterns, or patterns I was developing...
Left to right, the blue Arcade Lace Camisole is in testing now, being sized from XS through to 5XL (my most size-inclusive pattern yet), and the green Arcadia Dress is based on the Cami, with some skirt shaping, a frill hem and added bling. Both should be published by early January, so stay tuned for those.
The navy blue Spider Lace Maxi Dress in front on the right.... well pattern writing has begun! Whoo hoo! This garment won the Grand Prize and 1st in Fashion at the 2018 CGOA Crochet Design Competition, and many have asked me for the pattern. It will take months of work to develop it, but I feel like my pattern writing and grading skills have come far enough now to do a decent job of it. Exciting times!
The purple Olga Cardigan in the middle is the first pattern of mine that was published by the Dutch yarn company Scheepjes in the YARN 6 FOLK Bookazine. The photo below has Olga laid out on the floor and the Bookazine in on the stand. I am proud of that design and it kickstarted my relationship with Scheepjes, so it will always be a favourite.
The other design in this pic is actually my very latest pattern published by Scheepjes - it came out the day we set up the window - the Hyperbolic Puff Beanie published as a single pattern booklet, and as a digital download on Ravelry. The Pom Pom technique is a bit unusual, and it highlights their merino/nylon sock yarn, Metropolis, which comes in a gazillion colours!
I had these pattern cards printed and they are hanging out at the sales counter in store for locals who are as yet not familiar with my designs. These are some of my ravelry patterns that are digital downloads. Thea has set up an account so she can place a Scheepjes order for customers, (yay!) and these pattern summary cards tell you how much yarn is required for each pattern if you are local to Perth and keen to order. All that info for each pattern is of course also on Ravelry, in my pattern store.
I am also running a competition for locals to win some beautiful merino blend Scheepjes Metropolis yarn and a colour-gradient Whirl as well. Guess the number of kilometres of yarn I have crocheted to make all the finished garments in the window display is the idea, with the person closest to the correct answer winning the yarn at the end of the display! Entry forms are in-store (yes - actual paper to pop in the entry collection box) to encourage you to visit this wonderful shop!!
But what about everybody else? Well, ...I will be running a separate competition on social media for everyone else, and I will say more about that next time!! 🤗
Bye for now,
Susan (Peppergoose)
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