Iconic Women Crochet Patterns

Today I want to share with you Crochet Patterns of ten Iconic Women.

Throughout the years, history has seen some fiercely intelligent, powerful, and inspirational women who have been pioneers for women’s rights and racial equality and have defined the worlds of science, mathematics, aviation, and literature.

Whether these famous females were inventors, scientists, leaders, politicians, or literal Queens, these 10 strong women undeniably changed the world for the better.

The famous women in this list are remembered for being the rule-breakers and pioneers that showed their male peers what it means to be role models.

Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014)

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou is one of the most influential women in American history and was a poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist, whose award-winning memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman.

Angelou had a difficult childhood. As a black woman growing up in Stamps, Arkansas, Maya experienced racial prejudices and discrimination throughout her life. At the age of seven, Angelou was assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend, who was then killed by her uncles as revenge. The incident traumatized Angelou to the point that she became a virtual mute for many years.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, as well as her other works, have been one of the loudest voices in the civil rights movement, and explore subjects such as identity, rape, racism, and literacy, and illustrate how the strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma.

You can get Maya Angelou crochet pattern in Manuska Etsy Shop. The link is here.

Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1939)

“Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.”

Amelia Earhart was the definition of a rule breaker. An American aviator who became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to the US, Amelia was a pioneering aviator and a genuine female trailblazer.

Earhart refused to be boxed in by her gender from a young age. Born in Kansas in 1897, Amelia played basketball growing up, took auto repair courses, and briefly attended college. In 1920, Earhart began flying lessons and quickly became determined to receive her pilot’s license, passing her flight test in December 1921.

Earhart set multiple aviation records, but it was her attempt at being the first person to circumnavigate the globe which led to her disappearance and presumed death.

In July 1937, Earhart disappeared somewhere over the Pacific and was declared dead in absentia in 1939. Her plane wreckage has never been found, and to this day, her disappearance remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century.

You can get Amilia Earhart Crochet Pattern in AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop. The link is here.

You can also read AmourFouCrochet inspirational interview here, and check out her other patterns.

Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel (1883 – 1971)

“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”

Coco Chanel was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style, replacing the “corseted silhouette” that was dominant beforehand.

She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her design aesthetic in jewelry, handbags, and fragrance.

Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.

You can also find Coco Chanel Crochet Pattern in AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop. The link is here.

Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1926 – 1962)

“I don’t mind living in a man’s world as long as I can be a woman in it.”

Marilyn was an American actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comedic “blonde bombshell” characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s and was symbolic of the era’s sexual revolution.

She was a top-billed actress for only a decade, but her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2019) by the time of her death in 1962.

Long after her death, she continues to be a significant icon of pop culture. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Monroe sixth on its list of the greatest female screen legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Marilyn Monroe’s beautiful Crochet Pattern is also in AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop. The link is here.

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (1907 – 1954)

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”

Frida was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by Mexico’s nature and artifacts. Inspired by the country’s popular culture, she employed a naïvefolk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.

Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. She is known for painting about her experience of chronic pain.

You can also get Frida Kahlo Crochet Pattern in AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop. The link is here.

Make sure you read AmourFouCrochet’s inspirational interview here and check out her other patterns.

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валентина Владимировна Терешкова, born 1937 – )

“Once you’ve been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is.” “Anyone who has spent any time in space will love it for the rest of their lives. I achieved my childhood dream of the sky.”

Valentina is a member of the Russian State Duma, engineer, and former cosmonaut. She is the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. She orbited the Earth 48 times, spent almost three days in space, and remained the only woman on a solo space mission.

Before her selection for the Soviet space program, Tereshkova was a textile factory worker and an amateur skydiver. She joined the Air Force as part of the Cosmonaut Corps and was commissioned as an officer after completing her training.

After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, Tereshkova remained in the space program as a cosmonaut instructor. She later graduated from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and re-qualified for spaceflight but never went to space again. She retired from the Air Force in 1997, having attained the rank of major general.

Get amazing Valentina Crochet Pattern in AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop. The link is here

Rosie the Riveter

“We can do it!”

Rosie the Riveter is a media icon associated with female defense workers during World War II. Since the 1940s, Rosie the Riveter has stood as a symbol for women in the workforce and for women’s independence.

Beginning in 1942, as an increasing number of American men were recruited for the war effort, women were needed to fill their positions in factories.

Since many of these women had not previously worked outside the home and had small children, the government not only had to convince them to enter the workforce, but it also had to provide ways for the women to care for their households and children.

To accomplish this end, the U.S. Office of the War produced various materials designed to convince these women to enter into war production jobs as part of their patriotic duty. Rosie the Riveter was part of this propaganda campaign and became the symbol of women in the workforce during World War II.

The first image, now considered to be Rosie the Riveter, was created by the American artist J. Howard Miller in 1942, but it was titled “We Can Do It!” and had no association with anyone named Rosie.

It is believed that this initial drawing was part of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s wartime production campaign to recruit female workers. Miller’s drawing portrayed a woman in a red bandana with her bent arm flexed, rolling up her shirtsleeve.

In 1943 the song “Rosie the Riveter,” by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, was released. This song touts the patriotic qualities of the mythical female war employee who defends America by working on the home front. Following this song’s release, Norman Rockwell’s drawing of his version of the female defense worker appeared on the Saturday Evening Post cover on 29 May 1943.

This version of Rosie was a much more muscular depiction of a woman in a blue jumpsuit, with a red bandana in her hair, eating a sandwich. Rockwell placed the name “Rosie” on the worker’s lunch box, and thus Rosie the Riveter was further solidified in the American collective memory.

You can find her pattern in the CrochetNeverStops Etsy shop. Click the link here.

Marie Antoinette

“Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?”

Marie Antoinette, born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 1755 – 1793), was the last queen of France before the French Revolution.

She was born an archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She became dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne.

In 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI, and she became queen.

Marie Antoinette’s position at court improved when she started having children after eight years of marriage. She became increasingly unpopular among the people, however, with the French libelles accusing her of being profligate, promiscuous, harboring sympathies for France’s perceived enemies—particularly her native Austria—and her children of being illegitimate.

The false accusations of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace damaged her reputation further. During the Revolution, she became known as Madame Déficit because the country’s financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending and her opposition to the social and economic reforms of Turgot and Necker.

Several events were linked to Marie Antoinette during the Revolution after the government had placed the royal family under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace in October 1789. The June 1791 attempted flight to Varennes and her role in the War of the First Coalition had disastrous effects on French popular opinion. In 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the royal family to take refuge at the Assembly, and they were imprisoned in the Temple Prison. The monarchy was abolished.

Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Marie Antoinette’s trial began on 14 October 1793. Two days later, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed, also by guillotine, on the Place de la Révolution.

Marie is also a Crochet Pattern from AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop.The link is here.

Elizabeth II

“When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.”

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and 15 other Commonwealth realms.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Her father ascended the throne on the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive.

She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In 1947, she married Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, with whom she had four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

When her father died in February 1952, Elizabeth became head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. She has reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities, Brexit, Canadian patriation, and the decolonization of Africa.

Between 1956 and 1992, the number of her realms varied as territories gained independence and as realms, including South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (renamed Sri Lanka), became republics.

Her many historic visits and meetings include a state visit to the Republic of Ireland and visits to or from five popes. In 2017, she became the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee. In 2021, after 73 years of marriage, her husband died aged 99.

She is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch. She is the longest-serving female head of state in world history and the world’s oldest living monarch, the longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving current head of state.

As you can see most of the beautiful crochet patterns today are from the AmourFouCrochet Etsy Shop. Click The link and check out her Iconic Women Patterns here.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born 17 January 1964)

“Strong men, strong men, men who are truly role models, don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful.”

Michelle Obama is an American attorney and author who served as the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In her early legal career, she worked at the law firm Sidley Austin where she met Barack Obama. She subsequently worked in non-profits and as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago, as well as the vice president for Community and External Affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle married Barack in 1992, and together they have two daughters.

Obama campaigned for her husband’s presidential bid throughout 2007 and 2008, delivering a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She has subsequently delivered acclaimed speeches at 2012, 2016, and 2020 conventions.

As the first lady, Obama served as a role model for women and worked as an advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy eating. She supported American designers and was considered a fashion icon.

After her husband’s presidency, her influence remained high; in 2020, Obama topped Gallup’s poll of the most admired woman in America for the third year running.

You can also find Michelle Obama Crochet Pattern in CrochetNeverStops Etsy Shop here.

You can find more Iconic Women Crochet Patterns in the book. Get in on Amazon here.

I hope that after reading this article, you feel inspired to go after your dreams too. Crochet your role model, write down her quote, and just do it.

Let me know in the comments who your inspiration is.

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Have a beautiful day, and enjoy crocheting.

Katja