Things to make and how to do it

I’m Nikki, with a love of all things yarn related.  My passion is knitting, and having knitted my way through hundreds of patterns, I now enjoy adapting, altering and designing my own.  My ideas often come from my young daughter, and her friends – they describe things they would like, and we make it up, work it out, and if it looks good, it becomes a pattern for The Yarn Genie.

​

I run workshops too – I love teaching & helping.  Rescuing wayward projects is fun, and finding a way to adjust for personal preference is an enjoyable challenge.  I have been accused of being a bit of a knitting geek – I took it as a compliment 🙂

​

I work from home, in a small town buried in the depths of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds (England).   It is a lovely part of the country, and we feel blessed to be surrounded by some of the most beautiful countryside.  Yet from my studio overlooking a small valley, I can send out my patterns around the world – how amazing is that?

​

The Yarn Genie was born as I realised that I enjoyed spending much of my time explaining patterns to my knitting & crochet friends.  And it seemed to be quite often needed.  Even the most competent knitters, would still struggle with a pattern – “why do I need to do it like this”, “what is meant by that?”.  I enjoyed working out the answer, or finding an alternative (?better) way to achieve the result – I encouraged them to have a go at a new technique so that they could tackle all sorts of other projects, and I found myself reworking, rewriting and eventually designing my own patterns in order to achieve the desired results.  The patterns are popular too – cute animal heads are quickly multiplying throughout the school – and even finding their way into adult wardrobes (sometimes without ears!!).

 

So the Yarn Genie sets out to give you a pattern for a great practical, cute and desirable item – plus a helping hand to guide you through the pattern.  I hope you will find all that you need inside our pattern to help you to make sense of what you are doing.  I want you to have fun, enjoy your craft, and perhaps to learn a new technique which can open up all sorts of other possibilities for you too.

My patterns have full instructions in the usual pattern style (great for experienced knitters & crocheters).

Then they have side instructions which give you information about what you are doing, why you are doing it, what the instruction actually means and helpful hints on how to do it.

In parts of the pattern, I also give you some alternatives, so if you are just not ready to try the new technique, you can still achieve a great project result.  Often the differences in the finished article are only minor, and the great thing about hand crafted items is that they are all unique anyway!

And then there is a techniques section which gives you full instructions, with pictures, on how to do do all those little bits that everyone else’s patterns just assume that you know.

Read just the directions, read just the bits you need to, or read it all cover to cover – you get a LOT of information and lovely stuff in your pattern and I hope you will find it a great resource as well as the means to a delightful crafting project.

​

Have fun