Rainbow Valley
Rainbow Valley is a craft shop in Chatteris catering mainly for textile crafts. It is run by Helen Free, a designer and prolific crocheter.
Helen learned to crochet as a child, her Dad taught her. She was never very serious about it. She got back into it in her mid 20's. Helen had just bought a house, couldn’t afford to go out and needed something to occupy her evenings. She started getting requests for items she had made and, in an effort to make ends meet when the interest rates went sky high, decided to make items to sell.
She had never considered there would be a market for the patterns until she started getting requests for them. Helen says "I was always good at just "making things up as I went along" and never thought of it as designing until I discovered the wonderful world of crochet online. I met a group of lovely ladies who encouraged me to write down my designs and sell them."
30 years on, Helen has a large portfolio of patterns many which have been published in Inside Crochet, Lets Knit, Yarnmaker and Reloved. Her patterns are unique and colourful. Helen teaches a variety of weekly crochet classes in the shop as well as more specialist techniques on the weekends