Goodbye Jean
I was surprised to read today on the CGOA blog that Jean Leinhauser passed away. Although I never met her, I had the great pleasure of reading and learning from many of the great crochet books she produced alone or with Rita Weiss. Rita and Jean were the Creative Partners, LLC, and they brought many amazing needlecrafts books together. Jean had just won the 2010 Flamie Award for Individual Life Time Achievement. (Flamies are the Oscars of crochet, for those of you who don’t know.)
It is hard to imagine what the current state of my crocheting would be like without Jean’s contribution to the needlecrafts industry. I have many great memories of creating projects from her books.
Thanks to the record-keeping at Amazon.com, I can see that I purchased this book in August, 2005.
I made my first ripple afghan using a pattern from The Ultimate Book of Scrap Afghans.
Students in my crochet classes sometimes try out their first sweater pattern from this book.
I love making afghans, and the one that now alternates between hanging over the back of our couch and serving as a cat window seat pillow (when folded) is made using a modified pattern from 100 Afghans to Knit & Crochet.
One of Jean’s recent contributions is the wonderful Crochet Master Class. (You can read my review of the book on Amazon.com.) The book is really fantastic and has inspired my most ambitious crafting goal for the year. I’m also participating in a project started on Ravelry, Come Blog-a-Long, where I’ll be blogging about my projects from the book starting in July.
Jean was an animal lover, and Rita Weiss suggests that if we want to honor her memory, we can make a donation to an animal rescue organization that works with dogs. I will send my contribution to the Humane Society of New York, where I met the two cutest putty brothers back in 2000. I’m also going to make a free shelter dog blanket pattern in the next few days using the sizing specifications from the Snuggles Project.
Thanks Jean for inspiring a love of crochet and knitting among so many.
[...] I need to mention here the sad fact that crochet author Jean Leinhauser recently passed away. RIP Jean and sending kind thoughts to her loved ones. The crochet community mourns this loss with posts by Crocheting With Dee, Bella Crochet, CrochetMe, Jaybird Designs, Doris Chan’s Everyday Crochet, The Crochet Cabana Blog, WIPs n Chains, Margaret’s Hooks and Needles and Underground Crafter. [...]
Thanks for sharing my link with your audience, though under such a sad circumstance.