The Secret Stitch by C Jane Reid

The Secret Stitch by C Jane Reid is a historical fiction novel that traces the history of crochet, which is something we don’t see on the Yarn Thing podcast with Marly Bird often enough!

Jane’s visit came about by way of Laurinda Reddig, who has appeared on the program herself. The way Jane tells it and from what we know of her ourselves, Laurinda is quite the enabler!

It was actually Laurinda who taught Jane to crochet. Jane says she had been wanting to learn but confused by the difference in terminology between US and UK patterns. Between Laurinda’s help and Google, with lots of practice, Jane has actually progressed to where she can help with Laurinda test knitting the patterns she creates for publishing in magazine. Along the way, she’s also picked up knitting and she will pick up that craft when she needs a change from crochet. Over the ten years, they have become best friends that ‘spend too much time together’. It sounds, too, that even though Laurinda is left handed that’s not hampered Jane’s learning or there friendship whatsoever.

Jane’s career in writing began much earlier, in middle school she began as a poet. She admits that truly exceptional writers are those that have persue it their entire life. Sometimes inspiration comes from reading what others have written, and there was a book that she read that was not ready to walk away from when she reached ‘The End’. (She shared that it was the Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, published in 1983. She also mentioned the books by Elizabeth Peters and Laurie King. Including those in case you’d like to add them to your summer reading list…) After a while, she outgrew writing based on someone else’s work and by college, took every creative writing class that she could get into. She says her genre was ‘Fantasy’ fiction, but while she tried short-story writing, found it unsatisfying because she could really go into the detail she needed in her writing. Then, family pursuits interrupts the literary until she met up with Laurinda Reddig.

C Jane Reid has worked alongside Laurinda Reddig, ‘falling into it’, with Monica Lowe, who hand carves crochet hooks (Craftwhich Creations), they have created kits that included Monica’s hooks, local hand-dyed yarns, Laurinda’s designs and a story from Jane. The kits FicStitches, themed on the story, with the pattern, yarn, crochet hook, with yearly sign-ups (pre-orders are now open) are quarterly shipped.

The Secret Stitch is the beginning of a series C Jane Reid is creating called The Unraveling. She is very much a character driven author, she writes as if the character was telling the story, trying to keep up with the details, researching what would have been happening around, her character Ailee. A second book is coming out later this month, Elsie will be the character in that book, Jane says the character wasn’t completely truthful with the story so there was a major revision in that process. (If you peek at Jane’s newsletters, she is several books forward in the thinking, planning writing of subsequent books.) Adding the crochet elements is a result of her research, and becomes part of her American historical development as well.

The exciting thing for us is that Laurinda has created a book of patterns, to go with C Jane Reid’s book, The Secret Stitch, A Crochet Companion that includes 9 patterns. The shawl on front has really fascinated those that have seen it as it really does look knitted. Other items include a bag, hat and mitts with a cabled celtic knot (YES, crocheted).

C Jane Reid can be followed at her website: www.CJaneReid.com. She also has a Facebook page. In addition to the FicStitches link above, Laurinda has a website, too, she was unavailable today as she’s traveling to TKGA/CGOA happening in the next few days. She will have the books with her in the Hooked for Life booth, with MaryBeth Temple.

If you missed getting to hear this LIVE it is still available where it aired originally as an archived episode: 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/yarnthing/2016/07/12/the-secret-stitch-by-c-jane-reid or with your favorite podcast catcher like iTunes or Stitcher Radio.