About Banana Moon Studio

About me

Hi friends! My name is April Garwood and I am the CEO and designer behind Banana Moon Studio. I love designing modern crochet and knitting patterns for you and your home.

I am happily married to my best friend, Daniel. We knew each other for a few years, and then dated for only 2 weeks before getting engaged. Yes, it was a crazy thing to do! We got married 6 months later in 2003.

My four daughters, Grace, Annie, Lucy, and Jewel are all close in age.  I am very blessed to be at home with them full-time. We homeschooled for several years, but eventually they all moved on to virtual or in-person public school, because frankly, I was worn out.

In addition to crochet, knitting, and handspinning, I love to bake, listen to audiobooks and podcasts, hike, and kayak.

I am an inclusive Christian and an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

My pattern design experience

I started out designing for crochet magazines in 2010 and was happily published professionally over 50 times!  You can see my work in various issues of Interweave Crochet, Crochet Today!, Crochet!, Love of Crochet, and Crochet World. I’ve also designed for Ancient Arts Fibre Crafts, Cascade Yarns, and Red Heart.

I gradually shifted to self-publishing and blogging instead. I have many free crochet and knitting patterns here on my website. You can easily see all my designs on my Ravelry Designer Page.

I have many self-published patterns for sale that can be purchased on Ravlery and Etsy. Many of my free patterns are also available as ad-free PDFs on these same sites.

I send out emails about new patterns and more to my subscribers. Every subscriber gets a free gift when they sign up! Click here to subscribe.

You can find me on social media! Find me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Ravelry!

So where did the name “Banana Moon Studio” come from?

You might wonder, how did you come up with the name Banana Moon Studio? I spent a day pondering what to call my business. What name would be interesting and true to my personality? While I was doing all this soul-searching, a favorite memory came to mind.

When Drama Queen, my oldest daughter, was maybe 18 months old, we were driving home from my parents’ house late one evening. There was a yellow crescent moon in the sky. Drama Queen was sitting in her car seat in the back of our little Toyota Carola, which we no longer have. She pointed out the window at the moon and said, “Beena”, her word at the time for banana. It wasn’t in a really excited voice, she was just calmly pointing out that there was a banana in the sky.

When I remembered that, it hit me that “Banana Moon” was a perfect name! I thought at first “Banana Moon Stitches” or “Banana Moon Stitchery,” but after an hour or so of thinking on it, I had it, “Banana Moon Studio”…Perfect!

This is my original logo. I made this logo the same day that I finally settled on a name. I actually painted the colors onto a banana and then pressed it onto a sheet of paper. The kids thought this was very funny. Mommy doesn’t usually do such silly things, after all, or so they think!

In November 2021 I updated and redesigned my logo and that is the one that I use today. It’s creation isn’t nearly as interesting as the original, but I love it too!

And that’s all about me!

Happy stitching!