My name is Birgit. I was born and grew up in the Ruhr Area in Germany. My husband and I lived in Berlin for six years but left to go to Toronto, Canada in 2004. A few days before Christmas and only a couple of month after our son was born. We were meant to go for a year but ended up staying for two wonderful years. I loved Canada! With another baby in tow we moved to London, England where we spend another two- this time not so wonderful- years. In London I got the cultural shock that I did expect in Canada but never got there, so we moved from London to Wellington, New Zealand which immediately felt like home. The people were as friendly as in Canada and the space and nature and the small size of the city was just perfect for us! We are living in the capital but live pretty much feels like living in my hometown again where everybody knows everybody. I know that as a teenager I found this rather boring but having had my experience with big cities now and know that they have a tendency to attract crazy people who can only survive where there is a lot of anonymity, I had enough of it and very much appreciated living in a community again!

I learned to crochet in primary school. We crocheted pot holders for mothers day. Mine were orange and brown- matching my mum´s kitchen- which I made using a yellow 6mm plastic crochet hook. For years I had that hook which totally amazes me, as now I loose them all the time. now! If you happen to find a crochet hook under a seat at the stadium, or at the side of the public pool, you may have come across an unintended marking of my territory!

To be able to turn a string of fibre into something useful was absolutely fascinating (like the `nose warmer´, my first invention when I was six, made out of the brown left over yarn from the pot holder). The possibilities where endless and they still are. There are always new stitches to discover, different materials to touch, different hook sizes and materials to use and my favourite different colours to combine!

When I was a teenager my mum often tried to tell me that I couldn´t combine this colour with that colour because they don´t go well together, but I did not listen!

I crocheted and later knitted my way through classes in the later years of high school- not to every teachers approval.  And then I stopped crocheting altogether and exclusively knitted until one day I felt pain in my wrist. The pain started spreading throughout my whole body. I could not run, I did not sleep well as the pain woke me up all the time and I could not even lift the kettle or open the fridge door without pain! I learned that I had psoriatric arthritis.

It made me angry. It made me mad! I did not want to have arthritis! All of a sudden I could not do what I was used to doing and what I took for granted. I was in mourning when it hit me: Would I ever be able to crochet again? Why did I waste all those years knitting when crocheting was so much more fun? I swore to myself: if it ever got better I would start crocheting again! And it got better!

In 2011 I got the opportunity to have a table at a local craft market and I did not think twice. I just needed a name.

It had been thinking about names for ages but none of my ideas had really excited me so far. One sounded like work (and who wants to buy work?) the other like a tongue twister. Rather irritating than appealing.
It had to be something cheerful! `Merry´ was the most cheerful english word I could think of. It also sounded like a name. How about a last name? Last name… last name… something pretty… Audrey Hepburn… Holly Golightly…. I got really excited! That was it! Merry Golightly! Yes!

I am still madly in love with this craft. Creating something with my very own hands means I can make whatever I want however I want. Gladly it can be combined with listening to audiobooks and drinking lots of green tea while the Princess Leia, our cat, is sleeping sleeps on my lap.

Often I think it is intriguing that a pair of gloves is made with 200 meters of spun sheep fur. Or a blanket with a few kilometers even!

Natural fibers are my true love!