Donna Kooler is the president, designer, and creative director of Kooler Design Studio, a company she founded in 1985. Donna graduated from art school in Los Angeles in the 1950s. In 1973 she became Design Director for Sunset Designs, a needlework kit company in Northern California. Donna is also the author of over 20 books, primarily in the fields of needlework and knitting.
Under her direction, Kooler Design Studio has expanded into other crafts over recent years to include painting, gift projects, knitting, quilting as well as lifestyle, and has published over 600 books and kits in conjunction with Janlynn, Leisure Arts, and other publishers. Kooler Design represents some of the industry's leading artists including Linda Gillum, Barbara Baatz Hillman, Nancy Rossi, Basha Kooler and Sandy Orton.
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Crochet is a process of creating textiles by using a crochet hook to interlock loops of yarn, thread, or strands of other materials. The name is derived from the French term croc, meaning 'hook'. Hooks can be made from a variety of materials, such as metal, wood, bamboo, bone or plastic. The key difference between crochet and knitting, beyond the implements used for their production, is that each stitch in crochet is completed before the next one is begun, while knitting keeps many stitches open at a time. Some variant forms of crochet, such as Tunisian crochet and broomstick lace, do keep multiple crochet stitches open at a time.
A lucet is a tool used in cordmaking or braiding which is believed to date back to the Viking and Medieval periods, when it was used to create cords that were used on clothing, or to hang items from the belt. Lucet cord is square, strong, and slightly springy. It closely resembles knitted I-cord or the cord produced on a knitting spool. Lucet may unravel if cut, but is easily fixed with a small knot. Unlike other braiding techniques such as kumihimo, finger-loop braiding or plaiting, where the threads are of a finite length, lucetted braids can be created without pre-measuring threads and so it is a technique suited for very long cords.
A crochet hook is an implement used to make loops in thread or yarn and to interlock them into crochet stitches. It is a round shaft pointed on one end, with a lateral groove behind it. The point eases the insertion of the hook through the material being crocheted and the groove makes it possible to pull a loop back through the material. The shaft is then divided into a working area that determines the hook's nominal diameter and ensures the uniform sizing of the loops formed on it, and a handle.
Broomstick lace, also known as jiffy lace and peacock eye crochet, is a historic crochet technique from the 19th century made using a crochet hook and another long slender item such as a knitting needle. Traditionally a broomstick was used, hence the name, but the modern variant is a lightweight plastic knitting needle or smooth wooden craft dowel. A larger knitting needle or dowel will result in a lacier effect, while a smaller will provide a more closely woven effect. The technique is used to make clothing, blankets, and other crocheted items. In most crochet techniques, each stitch is finished before beginning the next. Broomstick lace is different; like in knitting and Tunisian crochet, many stitches are left open for broomstick lace.
Darning is a sewing technique for repairing holes or worn areas in fabric or knitting using needle and thread alone. It is often done by hand, but using a sewing machine is also possible. Hand darning employs the darning stitch, a simple running stitch in which the thread is "woven" in rows along the grain of the fabric, with the stitcher reversing direction at the end of each row, and then filling in the framework thus created, as if weaving. Darning is a traditional method for repairing fabric damage or holes that do not run along a seam, and where patching is impractical or would create discomfort for the wearer, such as on the heel of a sock.
Frank Havrah "Kaffe" Fassett, MBE is an American-born, British-based artist who is best known for his colourful designs in the decorative arts—needlepoint, patchwork, knitting, painting and ceramics. While still a child, Fassett renamed himself after an Egyptian boy character from the book Boy of the Pyramid by Ruth Fosdick Jones. His name rhymes with 'safe asset'.
Barbara G. Walker is an American author and feminist. She is a knitting expert and the author of over ten encyclopedic knitting references, despite "not taking to it at all" when she first learned in college. Other topics she has written about are religion, New Age, the occult, spirituality, and mythology.
Leon Conrad is a British polymath: writer, story structure consultant, educator, and specialist in historic needlework techniques known particularly for historically-styled blackwork embroidery designs.
Erica Wilson was an English-born American embroidery designer based in New York, known particularly for needlepoint. She also designed wallcoverings and greeting cards. Her designs were published by Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. Wilson earned the nicknames "Julia Child of embroidery" and "America's first lady of stitchery" for her work.
Alice Starmore is a professional needleworker, knitting designer, photographer and writer, born in Stornoway, Western Isles, Scotland. As an author she is best known for her widely-read Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting, a guide to the complex technique of knitting pullovers and other items using a palette of five colours, on which she is an expert. Her photographic work is devoted to the natural world, especially birds and insects.
Lace knitting is a style of knitting characterized by stable "holes" in the fabric arranged with consideration of aesthetic value. Lace is sometimes considered the pinnacle of knitting, because of its complexity and because woven fabrics cannot easily be made to have holes. Famous examples include the Orenburg shawl and the wedding ring shawl of Shetland knitting, a shawl so fine that it could be drawn through a wedding ring. Shetland knitted lace became extremely popular in Victorian England when Queen Victoria became a Shetland lace enthusiast. Her enthusiasm resulted i.a. in her choosing knitted lacework for presents; e.g. when in ca. 1897 the Queen gave a lace shawl as a present to American abolitionist Harriet Tubman. From there, knitting patterns for the shawls were printed in English women's magazines where they were copied in Iceland with single ply wool.
In knitting, binding off, or casting off, is a family of techniques for ending a column of stitches. Binding off is typically used to define the final edge of a knitted fabric, although it may also be used in other contexts, e.g., in making button holes. In principle, binding off is the opposite of casting on, but the techniques are generally not mirror images of one another. Sometimes, however, they can produce a mirror image appearance.
Marianne Kinzel was a mid-20th century designer of knitted lace patterns. She was born and raised in Bohemia, attending the Art and Needlework College in Prague, but later emigrated with her husband Walter to England.
Nicky Epstein is a knitting designer and author of books on knitting. She is known for her creative combinations of knitting stitches, and for the colorful patterns often found in her sweaters, especially involving applique of separately knitted motifs. In 2005, she was given an award by the National NeedleArts Association. In 2006, her work was included in a retrospective fashion show at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. Since the (winter) Holiday 2005 issue, Epstein has written a regular column in Vogue Knitting called "Nicky Epstein".
Norah Gaughan is an American hand knitting pattern designer.
Georgia Bonesteel is an American quilter. She is the author of several books about quilting, as well as the former host of multiple television programs about quilting, most notably Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel. She has been credited with inventing "lap quilting".
Women's Home Industries was a company founded in 1947 in London to earn export revenue for the UK in the post-war period by harnessing women's craft skills, such as knitting and needlework.
Eliza Warren née Jervis (1810–1900) was an English writer on needlework and household management, and editor of the Ladies' Treasury magazine. She was best-known professionally by the pen-name Mrs. Warren, but after a second marriage was also known as Eliza Francis and Eliza Warren Francis.
Matilda Marian Pullan —also writing under the pen names Mrs. Pullan and Aiguillette— was a prolific and influential 19th century British writer on needlework who contributed columns to a wide selection of periodicals in the 1840s and 1850s. She was the author of numerous books on needlework, especially the decorative forms known as fancywork, and she wrote a comprehensive encyclopedia on the subject. She was also an extremely successful businesswoman who ran a needlework supply shop that expanded to become a mail order business. Towards the end of her life, she moved to America, where she opened a consulting business whose clients included the actor Laura Keene.
Cornelia Mee, born Cornelia Austin, was a British knitting and crochet pattern designer and writer.