Pink Mambo is a website featuring free crochet patterns and is run by me, crochet designer Carolyn Christmas.
I’m continually amazed anew at how crochet adds to our lives–we use it to make pretty things, but also to create community, to become more mindful, to celebrate the good times and to get through the times of life that are not so good. It’s an absolutely lovely undertaking and I’m so happy you have stopped by to visit and crochet.
A while back on Instagram, I was invited to play “who are you?” Some of what I wrote that day says who I am probably more than the many other bios and blurbs I’ve been asked to write about myself over the years. I appreciate you reading to learn a little about me, and will share it with you here, slightly edited.
I am Carolyn, mother of three daughters, grandmother of four, wife to David, pet mommy to our beasties, friend, doer and maker of things, writer, stitcher, dreamer, crochet designer.
I’ve worked primarily as a crochet designer for oodles of years, sometimes wearing the hats of magazine and book editor, author, product developer, blogger, marketer, teacher, and on and on, in the yarny realm. In all the aspects of my work over the years, the primary thread running through it all is my gratitude and recognition of my role as someone who provides tools for others to make art. To have a sense of accomplishment and feel the joy of creating.
Of all the myriad ways to share crochet, I prefer working quietly on my own, following my muse and seeing what happens. Sometimes I get off track and become overwhelmed by what the world of talented designers and artists are doing, and I get sidetracked by feeling I need to compare my work, or my pace, or my very self to others.
I absolutely believe that each one of us has unique gifts that we must let loose in the world for everyone’s higher good. I venture into many other creative avenues, but I have always come back to crochet as a humble, but deeply valid, medium through which to do that. Its contributions to the higher good are all around us in the crochet community. We pour out our sorrows and joys, our need for connection and community, our inherent desire to create beauty with our hands with crochet. We imbue those creations with the vulnerabilities of our hearts. Stitch by stitch, crochet brings us an ever-renewable joy in new beginnings, and solace through life’s difficult passages. We are mostly women, but there are men among us too, all of us observing the age-old pastime of sitting together and stitching.
We crocheters are at our best when we give it our all and offer up the results to the world, whether showing to our local stitching groups, our communities online or to our loved ones. For crocheters, loved ones are sometimes people we have never met.
Thank you so much for stopping by to crochet! 🙂 — Carolyn
