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We love hearing from our Talking Crochet readers. While we are not able to respond to individual e-mails, be assured that we read each and every one that we receive. We really enjoy receiving your great tips, stories, suggestions and, of course, wonderful photos!

Write to us using our easy feedback form and share your crochet experiences and expertise with us! We'll include as many reader letters as we can in upcoming issues.

Until next time,

Carolyn Christmas
editor, Talking Crochet newsletter

Carolyn Christmas has spent most of her life involved with needlearts. A fourth-generation seamstress, quilter and crocheter, she learned to knit and crochet at age 5. Growing up in sparsely populated West Texas, she often knitted and crocheted to pass the time on her 110-mile round-trip school bus ride. Far from the distractions of shopping malls, movie theaters, or even telephones and consistent television reception, Carolyn filled her time at home with painting, sewing and other creative pursuits.

Carolyn studied art, journalism, chemistry and political science in college, and then she started offering her original crochet, knitting, plastic canvas, needlepoint and cross-stitch designs to publishers in 1984 shortly after her second and third children, twin daughters, were born. Carolyn recalls, "At home with my babies in my twenties, I pored over issues of McCall's Needlework and Crafts and other magazines, reading the tiny print with designer credits. I knew there were people out there succeeding at designing things for publication. I finally got up my nerve to investigate how it all worked and began to send out my work."

Over the two decades that followed, Carolyn shared her love of crochet through her roles as author, magazine and book editor, publisher, product designer and teacher. She created hundreds of designs for publication -- everything from fashions to afghans, stuffed animals to doilies. And all the while, she held down corporate jobs in needlework publishing and in advertising and marketing. In 2002, she left the corporate publishing world to begin working at home.

Carolyn and her husband publish crochet patterns under the Gourmet Crochet brand from their home in the Texas Hill Country, where their companions are Henri and Clementine the cats, Sam the dog, and Dolce, baby Vita, and Paco the llamas.

Send feedback!

Fill out my easy feedback form and let me know your thoughts, questions, news or anything else you want to tell me about. You never know, I may feature it in an upcoming issue of Talking Crochet newsletter. Keep reading!