Hi Welcome!
I'm Angela but go by my nickname Arjaye, I'd like to share how Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits came about. It was established in April 2018 from the living room when I began creating/designing from a chair in in my cozy cottage, there I created by own cozy, tranquil, haven. Inspired by the pine trees surrounding my home in Auckland New Zealand, my love of woodland animals. In 2021 designs took on a new direction that lead to a collaboration with Scripture Prescription Ministries. Designs are now also inspired by God, His word and His love for us all.
Mission statement
Here at CWCK (Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits) I am passionate about using therapeutic knitting, it's helped me a lot over the past 2years with my chronic illness diagnoses and my chronic pain caused by them. I know alot of you have chronic illnesses and pain too, and I'm here to help you through therapeutic knitting. I love helping beginner knitters learn how to knit because of this I strive to create a place for therapeutic knitting for beginners - experienced knitters.
Garden
Ever since I was little I loved to spend time in the garden amongst the flowers, plants, fairy and gnomes with my grandparents. We would pick flowers from the dinning room table and pick fresh vegies from the garden well the ones that made it inside. As often I'd eat what i'd picked before going inside laughs. Now I share these with my own children along with the memories so dear to my heart, some of these will be told in my designs too once I finish knitting them up.
Designs
Designs are inspired by healing, and nature. I use the yarn to weave stitches, stories and memories together to create new designs for all of you makers to use. I use a pay what works model for the sale of my designs. Making them available for anyone who wants to use them and I will try and make these accessible as I can do but please let me know if there is something I can do better to make them more accessible. I love to design accessories and homeware, my favourite thing to design is knitted blankets. All of my designs are suitable for beginners and come with full pattern support because I want to help you if you are stuck. It's horrible being stuck on a pattern and not knowing what to do, which has happened to me lots of times.
Hand Knitted items
All knitted items are knitted by hand and are made using cotton or acrylic yarns, depending on the item as not all items are suitable to knit in cotton due to cotton has no stretch or give. The cut-off bits of yarn is saved as stuffing or used for features on knitted items. Each item is designed and created with love and inspired by nature and God. While we try to be as zero waste as possible we are sending items in plastic bags as to send items in a box is at least double the cost and we want to keep shipping as low as possible for you. Each item has a story to how it was designed and we hope that on your adventures/journey you feel this touch of whimsy and love too. Please check our shop for knitted items and the events and announcements for the next shop update and other interesting events and announcements.
Tote bags and mugs
All mugs have been designed by us just for you and you can customise them by choosing which colour handle and inside you'd like (currently these are both the same colour). You can also add a personalised name to your mug as well.
All tote bags and mugs are made to order and you can find them in our online shop.
Choosing a name
It was hard coming up with a name, I could have kept my original blog Arjaye's knits back when I'd started this website as a hobby which is why there is so many project posts for 2018 as that was what I'd created it for. The name didn't feel cozy enough or reflect my personality either, I wanted the name to reflect my blog - cozy welcoming, homely and relaxing. I considered using cozy pine tree cottage knits inspired by our enchanted pine tree forest surrounding our home. But I felt it was lacking something so I left the name. In the end I changed it to Cozy woodland cottage knits inspired by the pine trees and my love of woodland animals.
[Start of image description: Arjaye's enchanted pine tree forest. End of image description.]
How the website has changed over time
The website has changed a lot from when it first started in 2018. I've learnt more since I started blogging and had a few people help me and give me tips to improve the blog. I really appreciate their valuable help -a big thank you to all of you for being here with me. If you new here or haven't been here long here are a few things that have changed in the past few years:
- The colour scheme has changed from the oranges and browns they once were - while they were earthy the colours were chosen to resemble coffee since cups of coffee and knitting = cozy knitting time. To the forest greens, red of berries and yellow for the sunshine.
- The layout has of the website has changed
- The focus and values have changed over time to help every knitter to help those who use knitting as therapy.
- My photo is now in colour and I'm no longer shy about putting my photo up you will find plenty of them around the website instead of just one in black and white.
- The outdated typewriter font is gone, replaced with a font that is also easy to read.
- You can find my personality sprinkled everywhere now, its taken a while to heal from trauma and let my friendly, bright and fun personality shine.
- The website is also more accessible with image descriptions and alt text is used (I had no idea how to add alt text when I started).
- The website continues to go through changes to improve it and as we are gradually rebranding. Thank you for your patience with this as I am making the changes myself and they are all done manually so takes time but it will be worth it.
- Here is how the blog looked when it first started:
[Start of image description: a photo of an orange background on the sides with the words "Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits" and an about on the left side then on the right is a blog post. End of image description.]
A bit about me
I am a photographer, crafter and a book lover who can be found knitting when I'm not in my woodland forest. I'm a wife to a Journeyman (apprentice and teacher) die-caster and a mummy to Maser Crafters. A mischievous cat called Mischief, and a mummy to 14 Angels. Mischief is also my office manager/yarn keeper to stop both the Master Crafters from getting my yarn because who can resist playing with yarn anyways. Mischief also helps around with other things too. Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits is surrounded by our majestic forest, wild mushrooms, rural countryside of cows, chickens, sheep, birds, resident moreporks (New Zealand owl) and a touch of whimsy. You can find more about me here.
[Start of image description: Autumn Queen of the Autumn Court Arjaye knitting in the secret garden, she is smiling and enjoying the sunshine. End of image description.]
About the people behind the scenes
Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits wouldn't be complete without the people who help behind the scenes and a big thank you to all of them for helping make my small business a success. Not listed in any particular order and it is awesome to work with them all and they are all from different parts of the world too.
Photography
The Master Crafters take most of the photos for Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits. The Journeyman often finds beautiful places to take photos too. I'm thankful to work alongside my family my partner and my children.
All things tech
Superhero Tech Rebekah's tech business, The Lady Gadget, she provides affordable custom branded website/blog services and offers tech troubleshooting support. Rebekah and her team, who worked their tocuh of whimsy and came up with our brand colours to reflect our values, the tranquillity and peace for Cozy Woodland Cottage Knits and its community along with my personality. She also designed the website to how it is today and looks forward to furthering changes in the future to make the site easier to use, optimised for mobile use etc. Rebekah is a late-identified Autistic, small business owner, ministry/community coordinator and is a dedicated community coordinator, helper, mentor, teacher, author, and friend. Her natural knack for problem-solving, networking, tech support, building systems, and vocal/instrumental skills help her serve actively in her churches and communities.
Scripture Prescriptions
Rebekah passionately works with her fellow neuro-diverse like myself and neuro-typical individuals around the globe toward the healing of unresolved church/faith/spiritual abuse, trauma, broken relationships, and mental health challenges. I've found healing through abuse, anxiety and PTSD you can read my review here and find more about Rebekah's services here and more about Scripture Prescription Ministries here.
[Start of image description: mushrooms around the tree. End of image description.]
Owls and Owl Handler
They work together to wrap your hand knitted items with love and care adding the finishing touches of whimsy before posting and delivering your parcels.
About Mischief
This is mischief, my mischievous black and white cat she loves to play, run and get into anything. She loves to go for walks and watch the morning sunrise with Arjaye. She keeps things running smoothly in the office, she watches the yarn to make sure the little master crafters don't get into the yarn and play with it. Occasionally things get in a tangle but for the most part, they run well. When not in the office she can be found outside hunting, exploring, climbing trees or sleeping in her cat basket or snuggled up next to Arjaye.
[Start of image description: A photo of mischief playing outside walking on the lawn filled with daisies. End of image description.]
You can find me here amongst the forest and whimsical secret garden
Faith, peace and love,
Arjaye aka Forest Fern
Autumn Queen of the Autumn Court
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