Welcome to English Crafts - where you will find some cabin crochet nets and porthole covers made to both traditional and original designs and a selection of crochet booklets from which you can make your own..

Canal Cabin Crochet

During the heyday of the inland waterways system in England, many of the heavy cargos were carried around the country by barges and narrowboats.  The small cabins on these boats became the homes of the 'captain', and his wife and family, and were often ornately decorated with wood-graining, and painted castles and roses.  

The women beautified their tiny homes with pretty ribbon-edged lace plates, small pieces of gleaming brass, and crochet work, usually with 'van Dyke' points, which they pinned around the top of the cabin walls, around the shelf edges, and with which they trimmed the bed'ole curtain, their own, and their children's clothes.

In the days of horse-drawn boats, even the horse benefited from the boatwoman's skill, as it was customary in some areas to crochet earcaps, decorated with a multitude of brightly coloured tassels, with which to protect the horse or mule from flies, as he plodded along the towpath hauling his heavy load.

Although I used to get great pleasure from making nets to order, increasingly partial sight now makes this difficult, so I am currently just selling off nets and porthole covers I have in stock.  As with many other crafts, it is also impossible for the home cottage industry to compete in price with rolls of cheap imported crochet nets sold by the metre. 

I do still, however, encourage others to continue this old craft by supplying crochet booklets and pattern leaflets.

     Patterns and Links
 

Please click on the 'Products' button or the headings to browse the selection crochet items.  I hope you enjoy your visit.

Back to top.