Welcome to Woolly Hooligan Desings,

I am so grateful to share my designs, ideas with all of you amazing crafters. It's the community of unity and support, enables me to expose myself in this vonurable way.

My first BLOG is an introduction to myself, who I am, and how the idea of "woolly hooligan" came to be. I want to share a bit of myself, so you can understand more where the "ideas" are born. I was born in communist Poland in late 70's, I was exposed to a difficult life. Living within a dysfunctional family plagued with abuse and alcoholism, was not easy. My childhood thought me to be an objective and introspective thinker; always rebelling against the abuse. I was a "hooligan" from the start. The wonderful gift from my communist education was craftiness. Learning how to mend clothing, cooking, knitting, crocheting and weaving was part of school life. My favourite classes.

I think, I combined both; the survivor skills and creativity to develop this imaginative perception of clothing.

Coming to Canada in 1991 shone a hopeful light. To my disappointment, I was met with another groosome family life. My "second" family just as conflicted as the "first", thought me to be a survivor. My rebellious spirit forced me to live on my own since the age of 16. I pushed my way though High School and University, working to support myself all throughout that time. Hard work is no stranger to me. To this day I work hard, as an RDH, in a specialty practice, and run Woolly Hooligan Designs as a part time business. Sometimes, I think, the time devoted to the business is wayyyyyy more than to actually working as an RDH....but nevertheless I work everyday on both my passions.

Then came my family. My amazing, intelligent and kind man Wojtek entered into my life, and the rest is a blur of happiness and contentment. Its within, this calm and loving embrace, I finally had a chance to devote myself into textile arts and devote retrospective thinking to my "healing". Being a visual, sensitive, tactile person, I always noticed the geometric beauty all around me.

My wonderful daughters, help with noticing the small pieces of joy all the time. I try to insert that "joy" into my knitting designs. Colour, geometry, a visual pleasure is what I am always aiming for.

Colour heals me, my wounded soul is filled with momentous joy that feeds my creativity. Working with my hands, feeling the fabric run through them, seeing an idea come to life is my never ending drug. But... yes I am a rebel. I tried to knit patterns, I really did...but I could never finish anything anyone else imagined. I wanted to change it up as I went along...I guess I just could not conform. lol

There are rules, already established rules in the "knitwear" design community. I don't purposely break them....lol no maybe I do!, I do it on purpose but I want to challenge the norm. I want to create something, not to be like others, or to fit in a box. I want to "hooligan" around. I want to knit stranded with lace, I want to feature the wrong side and I want to construct garments in "my way". Thus the name Woolly Hooligan.

If I can take you along on this fun journey, that's sooo great.

Maybe my experiments with yarn, will inspire you to try your own. Why not? really ? who is stopping us? If I like it, and you like it then who is to say that's wrong. Visual perception is different for everyone. Lets just knit, create, what makes us happy. Please join me on this fun yarn adventure.

Plans for the BLOG include yarn dying and sharing what and how I created it. I will share the formulas and the processes, so you can also try it too. Why not? Let's share, let's grow, let's imagine together.