PAST MONTH'S ARCHIVES
This month we are pleased to present...
Carolyn HookBy Rita Vainius Click here for her FREE PATTERN
Carolyn Hook grew up in Melrose, MA, a characteristic New England town, not far from her present home in historic Salem, MA, widely known as the Halloween capital of the world. Carolyn's father made his living from the sea and her mother was a professional seamstress. As an experienced craftswoman, Carolyn's mother was called upon to sew and tailor clothes and also to fashion more formal garments such as wedding gowns, which she skillfully embellished with elaborate embroidery and other decoration. Thus was Carolyn exposed to quality in the needlearts at a very early age. As a young child, Carolyn watched her mother sewing and wanted to "make" something too. She learned some embroidery basics and stitched ever so diligently using her first hoop made from cardboard. Her enthusiasm for needlework has never subsided. She continued under the expert tutelage of her mother, which gave her a firm foundation on which to build. Experimenting on her own, she became self taught in various other stitching techniques. Carolyn went on to attend classes at the Elsa Williams School of Needle Art to fine tune techniques she was already adept in and expand into other forms of needlework. Under under the instruction of Shuji Tamura, Carolyn studied Japanese Embroidery and graduated the ten phases in 1988.
Twenty one years ago, Carolyn opened the needlework store, "It's a Crewel World," by which time she was well versed in many aspects of needlework. In addition to running the shop, she taught several classes in different techniques and was an accomplished designer in her own right. It's a Crewel World began as actually only half of a shop in Boston, sharing space with a knit shop. When the shop relocated to Salem, it was to another tiny space which quickly became crammed with every cross-stitch leaflet known to man or woman, as well as all the best handpainted needlepoint canvases. The next move was to a building with a staggering 10,000 square feet of space. This was the historic Gothic Revival Daniel Low and Co. structure.
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"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven," (Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3). So too, for Carolyn, the seasons are changing and it is time for her to move on. The most dramatic change she has made is closing her shop, It's a Crewel World, much to the dismay and chagrin of stitchers who have become accustomed to it being their "home away from home." She is embarking on a new phase of her life, one in which she plans to devote much more time to designing. She has also made herself available for creating stitch guides for handpainted needlepoint canvases. Many renowned handpainted designers are already queuing up to take advantage of her talents and expertise. Carolyn's original designs will be marketed under her own name and the name of her design business, Crewel and Unusual Designs. She is using her former retail space for her design work and continues to service her mail order clientele from there as well. How appropriate that her building actually housed the first mail order house in America!
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Click Here for Page 2 of our Designer Feature
DESIGNER ARCHIVES Click below if you missed our previous Designer Spotlights and FREE patterns Thea Dueck
Deborah Wilson
Karen Buell
Orna Willis
Linda Wyszynski
Jean Smith
Libby Sturdy
Emie Bishop
Stephanie Novatski
Rosalyn Watnemo
Linda Reeves
Carol Tinson
Julie Pischke
Catherine Reurs
Charland Garvin
Martina Weber
Cassandra Prescott
Mary Duckworth
Claudia Dutcher
Leslie Levison
Judi Kauffman
Linda Connors
Sue Kerndt
Dawn Lewis
David McCaskill
Linda Barry
Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum
Pam Davenport
Sue Stehle, of Sekas & Co.
Diane Evans, of Something Different
CARON email: mail@caron-net.com / Webmaster nika@optonline.net
