I love colour and design and incorporate both into my knitted and crocheted items. I love to recreate the feeling of a bygone era into my work, when working a crocheted owl tea cosy I am in the 1970's, a beret and I can almost hear the Beatles playing and Mary Quant mini skirt clad dolly birds rushing by. However I can be brought right back to the present with modern fashionable fingerless gloves or slouchy berets. I have so many ideas in my head but nowhere near enough hours in the day to bring them to life.

I learnt to knit when I was 5 years old and growing up in country Tasmania where the winters were brutal, staying indoors knitting in front of an open fire are some of my happiest childhood memories. After leaving high school in 1982 I found myself unemployed and bored to tears!! My mother told me to knit a jumper, which I did and all of a sudden my love of knitting grew into an obsessive hobby. I Found a job which was really just manning a desk and dealing with the occasional customer, my boss said to me "to save yourself from boredom bring a book or something". So I took my knitting, bonus I got to knit and get paid at the same time! I started to get asked by customers could you make me this or that, so I started taking orders..............years later and here I am on Etsy still making and selling my woolly creations.

I have recently began machine knitting and will also be offering pieces for sale made on my manual vintage knitting machine. I'm really excited as this has opened up a whole new world of creativity at Shazza's Knits.

I pinch myself each day that people on the other side of the globe own my items, that gives me the biggest buzz.