Not The High Street

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Hello and welcome back to the Yarn Over podcast. A podcast covering all things crochet with some incredibly talented people from around the world, sharing their journeys and their top tips. I’ve learnt so much since recording these and find it so interesting listening to others talk about what they do. I hope you feel the same. It can be a bit ‘little fish, big pond’ in the world of crochet. Sometimes you might find yourself in a sticky situation but we’re all here together. A community of crafters making beautiful creations – no competition required. And just in case you missed season one you can catch up here.

INTRODUCTION TO OUR GUEST

This week we’re chatting to Nicola, you may recognise her as she is part of team Bella Coco and goes under the name @bunnyandblossomhome on Instagram.

We’ve been chatting about this topic for a while now so we were both very excited to sit down and voice some of our concerns around crochet on the high street and the negative impact this can have on the people making mass produced crochet and the impact on crochet designers being under sold. As always our chats seem to digress with an element of laughter and in this instance from a not so ‘well worded’ sentence from yours truly!

Joking and laughter aside, this is a topic of conversation that we want to keep alive, keep raising awareness to educate those who aren’t aware of these issues and help empower the amazing crochet designers out there who do not charge enough for their work due to the cheap crochet available on the high street.

NOT THE HIGH STREET tote bag

In 2021 I released a pattern called the Not The High Street Tote Bag which was a replica design of a very cheap high street crochet bag from a well known high street brand. You can read all about the production of this bag in more detail by clicking the button below.

OUR CONCERNS

Throughout the process of making this bag as we were breaking down all the costings and time down to the last penny and minute we started to question the fashion industry and pay more close attention to the manufacturing process; How much are these workers being paid? What are the working conditions like? And how these cheap high street makes impact independent crochet designers, Does it impact their pricing? The more research we did the more questions were raised…

pin for later

RAISING AWARENESS

Please help spread awareness around this topic, like, share, comment and keep this conversation going as we’re only just getting started! tbc…

#saynotocrochetonthehighstreet

Sarah-Jayne x