I was asked a few days ago to post on the CGOA Now blog (as a Board member of CGOA) as part of the National Crochet Month Blog Tour through Crochetville. If you’d like to know what I do as a CGOA Board member and Co-Chair on the Masters Committee, just read the CGOA Now blog here.
There is an updated schedule for the blog tour that you can read here. A few people have been added (including more CGOA Board members), so please check it out to see who’s new!
I’ll still be taking my turn on the “designer” part of the National Crochet Month Blog Tour on March 26th. Please check back that day to see what I have to blog about and give away!
Can we have a drumroll, please? Before I announce the winner in my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths giveaway, I want to thank all of you who read my blog posts and commented this month. It was really nice to read what everyone said! It appears there are more wiggly crochet lovers out there than I thought!!! How wonderful! Long live wiggly crochet!!!
Okay, I’ve kept you waiting long enough. The lucky winner of the autographed copy of this booklet is… Jessica Ramos! Congratulations, Jessica! Thank you to all of you who entered. For those of you who didn’t win, you can purchase this booklet on the Annie’s website, in print or as a pdf download.
Locomotive Toy (published in Crochet World magazine, Dec. 2009)
Where did February go? It’s almost March already! And that means National Crochet Month will be starting! Yahoo!!! Do you have plans to do anything “special” for National Crochet Month? I do!
Dragon Ship (published as a web bonus online in Crochet World magazine, Feb. 2011)
There will be a blog tour called “A Tour through Crochet Country” starting tomorrow, March 1st, and running every day in March on Crochetville. Each of the 31 days in March, 1 or 2 crochet designers from the Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) will be blogging about crochet. Most of the crochet designers live in the US, but there is at least one designer taking part in the blog tour who lives outside the US (in Australia). Go here to see the list of designers and the schedule for the day each one is participating in the blog tour. There will be some really fantastic crochet designers participating; some you may not know yet! I’ll be blogging on March 26th for this blog tour. It should be a blast!!! I can’t wait! I’m sure we’ll all learn something new about crochet or about some of our favorite crochet designers. I hope you enjoy this blog tour and have a wonderful “National Crochet Month”!!!
Stay tuned for the announcement of the winner in my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths giveaway tomorrow morning! Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog this month! I really enjoy the feedback!
This is the last stop on the Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths blog tour. Boohoo. I’m sad to see it come to an end! It’s been a lot of fun!
Today, we’re going to visit the blog of Andee Graves. I first met Andee at a CGOA Conference (I think it was in 2009 in Buffalo when I had a broken wrist – I definitely wasn’t able to crochet for a while then!). Here’s a photo of Andee and I, along with Shari White (one of my mentees and a very talented designer) and Joyce Bragg (another very talented designer), waiting to meet with the editors at the Buffalo conference (from left to right: Shari, me, Andee and Joyce):
Waiting for Editors at CGOA Conference in 2009
If you’ve been reading my blog for more than a few weeks, you might recognize Andee’s name. I wrote a blog post for Andee’s blog tour of her new Texting Mitts booklet, published by Leisure Arts, on February 10th. Here’s a photo of the front cover of her booklet:
Texting Mitts front cover
Andee’s texting mitts are fun to make! I made 2 pairs of them when I was preparing for her blog tour. You can read more about this booklet on my Feb. 10th blog post or on Andee’s blog!
Andee is a fantastic newer designer (newer than me). She is a bundle of energy and a wealth of information! And she’s a really nice person, too! Andee already has over 50 published designs in just the last 3 years! Wow! Way to go, Andee! You can see all of Andee’s published designs on her Ravelry designer page. This is one of my favorites of Andee’s designs:
Andee’s Heart Pillow
This heart pillow was published in Crochet World magazine’s Feb. 2012 issue. Isn’t it pretty?
Please hop on over to Andee’s blog to read what she’s written about my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet and the dishcloth she’s made from the booklet.
Since this is the last stop on my blog tour, I will be picking and announcing a winner for the free autographed copy of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet on Friday. If you haven’t entered yet, just leave a comment by 6PM (Arizona time) tomorrow on my blog post from either Jan. 27 or Feb. 9. I wish you all good luck in the giveaway!
Today we’re visiting a very talented crochet designer named Kara Lyon. Kara designs amigurumi dolls that are absolutely amazing! Here’s a photo of one of her dolls:
Kara Lyon’s Viking Doll
Isn’t that awesome? To see all of her amigurumi dolls, visit her website.
When I first saw Kara’s amazing dolls online, I contacted her and encouraged her to attend the CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH in 2010, where we met face-to-face. We had previously communicated through e-mails and it was wonderful to meet her in person! Here we are at that conference:
Susan and Kara
Kara took my wiggly crochet class at the conference and I think she really enjoyed it. She designed her own wiggly crochet rug the following year. You can see and read about her rug on her blog. It’s very creative!
Today Kara is blogging about my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet. I can’t wait to read what Kara has written and see what kind of wiggly crochet dishcloth she’s created (she’s so creative!). I hope you’ll visit her blog to read about what she’s done!
If you haven’t already entered to win a free, autographed copy of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, you still have a few more days. Just leave a comment on either my Jan. 27 or Feb. 9 blog post to enter. Good luck!
Our 3rd stop on this blog tour is with the very talented Ellen Gormley of Go Crochet. Ellen has been blogging for many years and always has something wonderful to share with her readers! She’s a very talented designer and one of the experts on the Knit and Crochet Now show.
Ellen Gormley (right) and Susan Lowman (left)
In 2010, Ellen took my Beginning Bruges Lace class at the CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. She really took to Bruges Lace and started designing in it almost immediately. Last year, she had a booklet published by Annie’s called “Learn Bruges Lace”! Here’s a photo of Ellen and me in that class:
And here’s a photo of Ellen’s Bruges Lace booklet:
Learn Bruges Lace front cover
If you missed my blog post about Ellen’s booklet, you can read it here. Bruges Lace is a lot of fun. I’m not sure which I like better: Bruges Lace or Wiggly Crochet!!! They’re both wonderful crochet techniques!
Last year at the CGOA Conference in Reno, I had some of my wiggly crochet projects on display in the Designer Showcase that the extremely talented Doris Chan spent many hours organizing! Thanks so much, Doris!!! Many crochet designers participated in the Designer Showcase and it was a huge success!!! Here’s a photo of my Wiggly Fish Rug on display there:
Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug
I self-published this pattern last year. It’s available as a PDF download right here on my website (under “Patterns”), on Ravelry, and on Craftsy.
If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, please download my “FREE” May Flowers Hot Pad & Coaster pattern on the Coats & Clark website. That way, you can give this crochet technique a try before purchasing any wiggly crochet patterns to see if you like it. After giving it a try, you might be “hooked” on wiggly crochet (pun intended!) like I am! And if you’d like to make some Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths, you can purchase my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet on the Annie’s website as a hard copy in the mail or as an instant PDF download for $8.95.
So head on over to Ellen’s blog today to read what she has to say about wiggly crochet and crochet in general!
If you missed the first stop of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths blog tour on Feb. 13th, you can still read what Brett Bara wrote on her Facebook page that day. Brett is a super talented lady who wears many hats (and her cat, Fifi, is adorable!!!). You can read her blog and see photos of what she’s up to (and Fifi) on her website. Brett is currently the host of the Knit and Crochet Now show on PBS. Brett was the first editor of Crochet Today magazine for many years. I tech edited for Crochet Today for several years before I met Brett at a CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. She’s just as nice in person as she looks in her photos!!! Brett is putting on a full day of craft classes called the Brooklyn Craft Camp on Saturday, March 16th in Brooklyn (where else?). I wish I lived closer so I could attend!!! Here’s a photo of Brett, in case you haven’t gotten acquainted with her yet:
Brett Bara
Today’s stop on the Blog Tour is with Kathryn White. Kathy is a very talented crochet designer who has won numerous awards in the CGOA Design Contest in the last 2 years. She’s also a really good friend of mine. We met at the CGOA Conference in Greensboro, NC in Sept. 2011. We quickly became friends and learned that we lived only 130 miles apart! We see each other every month when Kathy drives up here to attend the monthly crochet group that I’ve attended for many years. You can read more about Kathryn White on her blog, her website and her Facebook page. Kathy is a very accomplished thread crochet designer in the crochet world. She’s a great source of inspiration for me! Here’s a photo of Kathy (on the left), the famous Rita Weiss (in the middle) and me (on the right) at the fashion show/dinner at the CGOA Conference last year in Reno, NV:
Kathryn White, Rita Weiss and Susan Lowman
Kathy’s newest booklet of crochet designs is Beautiful Bullions. This is a wonderful booklet of fabulous designs! Kathy never fails to impress me with her designing abilities!!! Here’s the cover of that booklet:
Beautiful Bullions booklet cover
Click here to see and/or order this booklet from Annie’s.
And if you haven’t yet entered to win a free, autographed copy of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, you still have time. Just leave a comment on my blog post from Jan. 27 or Feb. 9 to be entered. There aren’t too many entries yet, so your chances of winning are great!!!
To celebrate the publication of my “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” booklet, I’m going to have the first of many giveaways on my blog. At the end of the blog tour for this booklet, one lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” in the mail. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this blog post (or the blog post from January 27th on my “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” booklet, where you’ll find more information about the patterns inside). Good luck!!!
Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths
I’ve finalized the blog tour dates of this booklet with my crochet friends. Here they are in the order in which they’ll appear:
Please visit these blogs to read more about my Wiggly Crochet booklet and what each of these very creative people think of it! You’ll also see some fantastic designs and ideas on each of these websites and blogs from some very talented ladies!
As many of you probably already know, Brett Bara is very crafty. She was the editor of Crochet Today magazine for many years and is the host of Knit and Crochet Now, along with other crafty endeavors!
Kathryn White is an extremely talented, award winning thread designer. Her designs are fabulous!!! And she’s a very good friend, too.
Ellen Gormley is a force to be reckoned with in the crochet world! She has many published crochet designs and is a crochet expert on the Knit and Crochet Now show.
Andee Graves is an up and coming crochet designer. She’s gotten a great start on her designing career. She just had her first crochet booklet published by Leisure Arts called “Texting Mitts”. Check it out on her blog or on my blog post for her blog tour (on Feb. 10th)!
Kara Lyon has an awesome talent for designing amigurumi figures. You’ve got to see her designs! I love them!!!
I hope you enjoy this blog tour and getting to know these very talented ladies!
