Crochet Collage Garden

Two of my favourite pastimes are gardening and crochet, and writing this book has allowed me to combine the two. I was interested in gardening and growing things from a very early age. I was given a packet of candytuft seeds as a child, and I can remember my delight when they actually grew into flowers. I was hooked from then on, much encouraged by the excellent examples set for me by my parents, and particularly my grandparents, who were all enthusiastic gardeners. Now, I'm lucky enough to have a garden of my own, on the edge of the beautiful North York Moors National Park, and I can grow flowers, fruit and vegetables to my heart's content. I am constantly inspired by the colours, shapes and textures in the garden, and they provide most of the ideas for my creative work.And now for the crochet part of the story! I have always been a knitter, taught by my grandmother when I was about seven years old. Skip forward to ten years ago, and I remember seeing a colourful crocheted granny square blanket at a local vintage fair and being fascinated by it. I decided it was time to teach myself to crochet! It was the start of a wonderful creative journey for me, not only learning new skills, but making new friends along the way. Once I'd learned the basic stitches, I started finding new ways to use crochet.My love of gardening inevitably led me to want to crochet flowers and leaves, and I began to combine them together to create pictures, or collages. Again, I think this has its roots in my childhood. I always loved playing with those little felt shapes that magically 'stuck' onto a background board, creating an endless variety of scenes. Now, I'm doing the same thing, but using crocheted shapes! I started an Instagram account to share my crochet creations, and discovered a whole new crochet community.This book contains 10 crocheted collages, each providing 10 different motifs, all inspired in some way by my garden. They roughly follow the pattern of the seasons in my part of

Chris Norrington is a crochet designer and gardener based in the north of England. Her crochet collages, which are inspired by her garden, combine her two passions.