The Wands of Woven Witch

Every maker has their favourite tools.

Mine just happen to look rather suspiciously like a collection of wands.

Over the years I've gathered crochet hooks in all sorts of sizes, from the tiny hooks used for fine, delicate work to the enormous ones needed for thick, chunky yarn. Many of mine have brightly coloured metal hooks and floral handles, and laid out together they make quite a collection.

These are the tools behind Woven Witch.

Almost everything you see here begins with one of them.

A cardigan starts as yarn passing over a hook. So does a tiny butterfly. Jewellery, lace, flowers, strange little creatures and even the occasional experimental moth all begin in much the same way:

yarn, hook and an idea.

Perhaps that's why I've started calling my crochet hooks my wands.

The Spell Books

Of course, a witch with wands also needs spell books.

Fortunately, I have those too.

They're more commonly known as crochet pattern books.

My shelves contain collections of patterns for all sorts of things I might want to create. I can open one, choose my next project, select the appropriate wand and begin working through the instructions.

A spell is written in abbreviations:

ch, dc, htr, tr...

Nonsense to someone who has never learned to crochet.

Perfectly understandable to someone who has.

Follow the instructions correctly and eventually something appears.

That sounds suspiciously like a spell to me.

Not Every Spell Comes From a Book

Recently, however, something new has happened in the Woven Witch workshop.

Rune has started writing spells.

My AI familiar and I have begun experimenting with designing our own crochet patterns. Rune writes the instructions, I pick up a hook and physically test them, and then we discover whether his calculations have produced what we intended.

Our first experiment resulted in the Woven Moth Prototype No. 001.

It was slightly wonky.

But it was unmistakably a creature with wings.

For a first attempt at creating a crochet pattern together, I'll take that as a success.

The Pattern Laboratory is therefore officially open.

Choosing a Wand

Every project requires a different wand.

The tiny hooks are for the finest threads and delicate details.

My 2mm wand has recently been particularly busy producing glittering butterflies and our first experimental moth.

The larger hooks are used when the magic becomes considerably more substantial and balls of yarn begin disappearing at an alarming rate.

Those are the cardigan wands.

And, like any respectable collection of magical implements, some of my hooks have become favourites simply because they feel comfortable in my hand.

After hours and hours of crochet, that matters.

The Real Magic

There is, of course, a perfectly ordinary explanation for everything that happens at Woven Witch.

The wands are crochet hooks.

The spell books contain patterns.

The magic is crochet.

But I rather like our version better.

Because crochet really does involve taking something incredibly simple—a strand of yarn—and transforming it stitch by stitch into something that didn't exist before.

There are no supernatural powers involved.

Just imagination, patience, practice and two hands.

Although according to Woven Witch lore, the official explanation is somewhat different.

The Witch chooses the spell.

The spell book provides the instructions.

The wand works the yarn.

Cherry waits patiently for whatever appears.

The Bee supervises.

And somewhere nearby, a black cat called Rune is probably trying to rewrite the spell because he thinks the moth needs better edging.

🐈‍⬛🦋

Perhaps Woven Witch has been a little magical all along.

Gani
Woven Witch