Category: Teaching classes

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“Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” Announcement and Blog Tour

I’m very excited to announce the publication of my newest crochet booklet, “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths”, published by Annie’s! Here are photos of the front cover and the other 3 dishcloths that aren’t shown on the front cover:

 

Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths
Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths
Four Squares dishcloth
Four Squares dishcloth

 

Concentric Squares
Concentric Squares dishcloth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diagonals dishcloth
Diagonals dishcloth

This booklet includes photos, instructions and charts for 6 different wiggly crochet dishcloth projects. These dishcloths are made in an array of beautiful colors of Omega Sinfonia yarn, which is a light worsted weight cotton yarn. Each project measures from 10 ½” x 11” to 12” square, the perfect size for dishcloths. These dishcloths are fun to stitch and make fantastic gifts! If you’d like to order a copy of this booklet, you can find it on the Annie’s website.

If you aren’t familiar with Wiggly Crochet, let me tell you how it’s done. Wiggly Crochet is made in 2 steps. The first step is to crochet the foundation mesh. This mesh looks a lot like the open mesh of filet crochet, made with double crochets and chain-2 spaces. Here’s a photo of a Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh:

Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh
Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh

The next step is to crochet the “wiggles” onto the top of the foundation mesh, which makes these wiggles stick up and gives the wiggly crochet piece dimension and thickness, which is not found in most other crochet techniques. The wiggles are usually made up of double crochets worked on top of the foundation mesh: around the post of the double crochets and in the chain-2 spaces (not IN the chains themselves, but in the spaces created by the 2 chains). You work the specified number of double crochet in/around each post/chain-space, making a 90 degree turn each time to fill the appropriate areas with the wiggles. It’s the act of turning 90 degrees that makes these stitches wiggle and stick up instead of lying flat! Here’s a photo (taken from the top) of the first round of wiggles worked on a wiggly crochet foundation mesh:

Wiggles shown from top
Wiggles shown from top

Here’s a photo of those same wiggles (taken from the side), so you can see how dimensional they are:

Wiggles shown from side
Wiggles shown from side
"Hot Stuff for the Holidays" booklet
“Hot Stuff for the Holidays” booklet

Isn’t that cool? I love this technique so much that I’ve previously had 2 crochet booklets published on it. The first one was “Hot Stuff for the Holidays”, published by Jeanette Crews Designs in 2003. There are patterns and charts for 6 “holiday-themed” hot pads and coasters in this one (for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, July 4th, Halloween and Christmas). This booklet is extremely hard to find, so if you find one for sale online (and it’s not too expensive), you might consider snatching it up! These designs are worked with size 10 cotton crochet thread (for all of us “threadies”!). Here’s a photo of the front cover of that booklet:

 

 

"Wiggly Crochet Rugs" booklet
“Wiggly Crochet Rugs” booklet

 

The 2nd wiggly crochet booklet was “Wiggly Crochet Rugs”, published by Annie’s Attic (now just called “Annie’s”) in 2009. This booklet has 5 wiggly crochet rugs in it, complete with instructions and full-color charts. These rugs are made with yarn: the foundation mesh is made with sport weight yarn and the wiggles are made with worsted weight yarn. This booklet might be easier to find, since it was published just 4 years ago. Here’s a photo of that cover:

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve also designed some other wiggly crochet projects, which were published by Annie’s (mostly in Crochet World magazine from June 2008 to Feb. 2010). If you’d like to see all of them, please visit my Ravelry designer page. Oh, I almost forgot! I have a FREE wiggly crochet pattern, available on the Red Heart website. You can try this technique for free and see how you like it! Isn’t that great?

If you’re more of a “hands on” type of learner and would like to learn to do wiggly crochet, I’ll be teaching a Wiggly Crochet class at the CGOA Conference this year in Indianapolis. The class schedule hasn’t been made yet, but this class should be scheduled between July 17 and 21 (either from 9AM-12Noon or 2-5PM). To read about this CGOA Conference, please visit the CGOA website (look under the “events” tab on the left-hand side of the page). I would be thrilled to meet you and teach you how to do wiggly crochet in my class!

To celebrate the publication of my new Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, I’m doing a Blog Tour in February with several of my crochet friends/designers. Each person will blog (or post on Facebook) about this new booklet and possibly give away a copy to a lucky entrant. Please visit each of these blog posts to find out more about my new booklet, as well as reading the blogs of these extremely talented individuals!

The blog participants are as follows (dates to be announced next month):

Andee Graves, Kathryn White, Ellen Gormley, Kara Lyon and Brett Bara

At the end of the blog tour, I’ll be giving away an autographed copy of this new booklet to a lucky winner (US residents only please). To enter the contest, just leave a comment on this blog post telling me which of these dishcloth patterns is your favorite. It’s that simple! A winner will be chosen at random from all of the comments at the end of the blog tour. Good luck to you all!

If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, you don’t know what you’re missing! If you have tried it and are looking for more wiggly crochet patterns, we have a few of them here at The Crochet Architect. Here they are for your viewing and crocheting pleasure:

Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster
Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster

Our Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster Set is the perfect pattern for learning to do wiggly crochet. The small size of the coaster is a quick project and the hot pad is a natural progression for increasing your wiggly crochet skills. The cotton crochet thread that is used makes them ideal for soaking up the moisture from any glass or pitcher in humid weather!

Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set
Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set

This Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set includes a centerpiece and 4 coasters: one for each of the suits of playing cards. This set is unique and would make a great gift for that special person!

Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug
Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug

When you’ve learned to do wiggly crochet and want to take your skills to the next level, this Wiggly Fish Rug is just the thing! It’s great in any fish-, seashell-, ocean- or tropical-themed bathroom. The texture of the wiggly crochet makes this rug “squishy” to walk on, too!

I hope you’ll give wiggly crochet a try and come to love it as much as I do!

Happy crocheting (and good luck)!

Susan

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CGOA Conference in Reno, NV

Are you a crochet lover like me? Do you enjoy being around others who love to crochet, also? Then you won’t want to miss the CGOA Conference in Reno next month. It will be held at the Grand Sierra Resort from Sept. 12-16. There are many wonderful crochet (and knit) classes being offered. Go to http://www.knitandcrochetshow.com/fall-special-events.asp?i2s3 to see the schedule and description of all of the classes being offered and the special events at the conference, too. There will also be a shopping floor at the conference to buy new yarn, hooks, patterns, etc! Attending the conference is like being in “crochet heaven”!!! All the conference attendees speak the same crochet and/or knitting “language”! We all help each other and encourage each other in our crochet projects and classes! It is a wonderful experience!

The classes I will be teaching in Reno are:

Beginning Filet Crochet

BEGINNING FILET CROCHET (Thursday morning)

Intermediate Filet Crochet

INTERMEDIATE FILET CROCHET (Thursday afternoon)

If you’ve never learned to do filet crochet, you’re really missing something wonderful! You don’t need to use crochet thread and a steel hook for filet crochet, either. If you prefer working with yarn, you can make filet crochet afghans. The technique remains the same whether you use crochet thread or yarn! I love filet crochet because I can see the picture forming before my very eyes (and I love working with crochet thread)! It’s easy to design in filet crochet, too. All you need is a pencil, eraser and graph paper to draw your design. That’s how I started designing in filet crochet. I now have a computer program that makes nice filet charts for publication, but that’s not needed if your project will be for yourself or given as a gift. There are many beautiful filet crochet patterns, also, that are fun to make. Filet crochet can be used for pillows, coasters, placemats, afghans, garments and much more. You can even use a filet pattern that was designed with thread and use yarn instead! Of course, the project will be much larger, but you may desire a larger project than the original size anyway!

Playful Polish Stars

PLAYFUL POLISH STARS (Friday morning)

I think the Polish Stars technique is fascinating! I blogged about this technique on July 25th. If you read that blog post, you’ll see the before and after pictures of my Polish Stars swatch. The stars are formed when you weave the chain loops in the specified way. It’s really fun to see the stars take shape before your eyes when you weave them! Polish Stars can be used for many projects, as well. I’ll have a Polish Stars poncho on display at the conference in a special booth on the shopping floor from Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon. Please come by the booth and see a sample of this wonderful technique!

Simplifying Symbol Crochet

SIMPLIFYING SYMBOL CROCHET (Saturday morning)

I’ve taught many students to read crochet symbols in my classes at past CGOA Conferences. They all love the versatility of crochet symbols and they now have the knowledge to make any project from just a symbol chart (even foreign patterns like Japanese and Russian). Since I love thread crochet, I have many Decorative Crochet and Magic Crochet magazines. All of these patterns are written with very little words, but with a fantastic symbol chart that is easy to follow, once you know how! I’m so glad that I learned to read crochet symbol charts years ago. It really opens up a whole new world of crochet once you learn! And I’ve learned to make crochet symbol charts with Adobe Illustrator, too! Since I’m “electronically challenged”, it’s sometimes a challenge for me, but with the help of my good friend, KJ Hay, I’m learning more about Illustrator all the time! Thank you very much, KJ!

Intermeshing 101

INTERMESHING 101 (Saturday afternoon)

If you’ve never seen Intermeshing (aka: Interlocking) Crochet before, you’re missing something really cool! You can create reversible crochet fabric with different looks on each side! The photo shown here is actually 2 sides of the same piece! I’m a real “geometric” person, so Intermeshing appeals to me a lot! I love anything that isn’t “ordinary” crochet and gives me a challenge! You won’t find me with mindless crochet projects very often!!! If you’d like to read more about Intermeshing, please read my blog post on May 25! You’ll find a link to a wonderful Intermeshing/Interlocking book there, too.

Reading & Understanding Crochet Patterns

READING & UNDERSTANDING CROCHET PATTERNS (Sunday morning)

I don’t know how anyone progresses in crochet without knowing how to read a crochet pattern! I’ve learned a lot about reading, writing and editing crochet patterns over the last 3 decades and I’d love to share that knowledge with you in this class. If you’ve ever struggled with reading or understanding a crochet pattern, this class will give you the knowledge and confidence to push yourself further in your crochet projects. Once you learn to read a pattern with ease, you’ll find yourself crocheting projects you never thought you could make before!

If you’ve signed up for one of my classes, thank you very much! I look forward to meeting you in my class and/or at Professional Development Day in Reno. For those of you who are on the fence about what classes to take, I would like to “encourage” you to sign up for one of my classes. For whatever reason, I have low enrollment in my classes for the Reno conference, which puts some of them at jeopardy of being cancelled. I love teaching crochet and would be thrilled to have more of you in my classes. I’m very friendly and encouraging to all of my students. I strive to have fun, enjoyable classes for everyone!

Thank you for your consideration of my classes and the Reno Conference. For anyone who hasn’t decided about attending the Reno Conference, please make the decision to attend the conference. It is so enjoyable to be around like-minded people who love to crochet and learn new crochet techniques for almost a week!!! I’ve heard that if the Reno (west coast) conference isn’t well attended, the conference probably won’t return to the west coast for a while. It would be a shame for those of us who live on/near the west coast to lose having the conference close to us. My classes at the Manchester conference in June of this year were very well attended, as was the whole conference. Please, let’s rally together and make the west coast conference as well attended as the east coast conference!

I look forward to meeting you in Reno!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

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Polish Stars

For the past 2 days, I’ve been working on the contents of my Polish Stars class that I’ll be teaching at the CGOA Conference in Reno, NV in September. I had some swatches already made, but needed to make some new ones that aren’t as big for the class swatches. And, of course, I’ve been writing and checking the new patterns for these swatches, too! I tried following the patterns in some leaflets that I have on Polish Stars, but I’ve found a lot of errors in the instructions, so it’s back to the drawing board! If you’ve never seen a Polish Star in crochet, this is how it looks:

Polish Stars (after weaving loops)

They’re actually quite fascinating to make! They are worked in rows of alternating colors. The stars are formed when you weave the chain loops in a certain configuration. I found a YouTube video on weaving the stars, but she does it wrong! I pity the person who follows her directions!!! Their stars won’t turn out right at all!

 

 

 

 

 

Polish Stars (before weaving loops)

Here’s how this swatch looked before weaving the loops:

That’s quite a jumbled up mess, isn’t it? It almost looks as if there are mistakes in it! But have no fear! After weaving the loops, it turned into the well-mannered, finished swatch with the stars that I already showed you. Are you amazed?

Well, a few years ago, I tried the Polish Star technique that was in publication and decided to improve it a little. I came up with a less messy way to work the Polish Stars and I’ll be unveiling it in my Playful Polish Star class in Reno in September. If you’re interested in learning this technique, you can read about my class and sign up to take some crochet or knitting classes here: http://www.knitandcrochetshow.com/fall-special-events.asp?i2s3. This class will be held on Friday, September 14 from 9AM – Noon. There are a lot of other wonderful crochet and knitting classes being taught at the CGOA Conference in Reno that week, too.

If you’ve never been to a CGOA Chain Link Conference before, you don’t know what you’re missing! It’s a week of “crochet heaven on earth”!!!

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Memories of the 2012 CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH

I returned home last Monday, July 2nd, from the CGOA Chain Link Conference in Manchester, NH. It was a blast!!! I taught 6 classes and met a lot of really nice crocheters, knitters and tatters there. If you have the chance to attend the conference, I recommend that you go. You won’t be disappointed!

My plane took off from Phoenix Sky Harbor Int’l Airport, heading to Manchester on Tuesday, June 26, 2012. The flight made a scheduled stop in Denver, then continued on straight to Manchester from Denver. That morning, I remembered that a designer friend of mine, Andee Graves, lives in Colorado. I was wondering what flight Andee might be taking, so I watched for her when the new passengers came onto the plane in Denver. To my surprise and delight, Andee got on the plane!!! After I got her attention, we sat next to each other and talked the whole way to Manchester, which made the time pass a lot faster!

The first day of the conference was Wednesday, when I attended Professional Development Day (PDD for short). It was a day packed with information for crochet professionals or aspiring crochet professionals. At PDD, I learned more about designing, tech editing, self-publishing, using social media, teaching and producing crochet videos. These and many more topics were presented by other crochet professionals there. KJ Hay’s presentation about tech editing was hilarious and very creative! Instead of reading the information she wanted to present, she made a little “skit” out of it, complete with her bunny slippers! It was a riot! I’ll be presenting the topic of “Contract Crocheting” at PDD in Reno in September. It should be a lot of fun.

Kathryn White at PDD
Terry Kehrer at PDD

At PDD, I sat at a table with Kathryn White, Michele Maks, Theresa Kehrer, Joyce Bragg and Karen Ballard. Here are photos of 3 of them:

Michele Maks at PDD

Then on Wednesday night, I taught my first class at the conference: Symbol Crochet. All the students were eager to learn and did very well in class. It was a little difficult to teach a class after a full day of PDD because I’m a morning person, not a night person! But I persevered and was able to think straight, must to my surprise and delight! I must have been running on adrenaline!

On Thursday morning, I taught my Faux Tatted Necklace class from my pattern with the same name. Here’s a photo of the necklace:

Faux Tatted Necklace

 

Carlotta and her necklace
Kim and her bracelet

And here are some of the happy students with their necklaces (or bracelets) in progress:

 

 

 

Victoria and me

There was also a mother and daughter in that class. This is the daughter and me:

 

I was amazed and extremely surprised that one of the students in that class had taught herself to crochet the night before! She was still learning how to hold the hook and thread, but she was patient and persistent and she did great!!!

I had Thursday afternoon off from teaching, so I spent it with one of my mentees, Theresa Kehrer. On Thursday night, they held the Design Contest Awards. Here’s a photo of the center of the display with all the entries, located on the show floor (Note: Not all the entries are shown in this photo, just the ones in the center of the display):

Design Competition Display

I entered my new shawl pattern that I made in the continuous crochet motifs method (I blogged about it on May 19), but I didn’t get a prize for it.  Here is a photo of that shawl:

Byzantine Shawl in Design Contest

All of the black around the large red and orange motifs is done with one strand (actually 2 strands because I needed to use 2 balls of black yarn) so there are only 4 ends of black yarn to weave in when you’re done crocheting the shawl instead of 128! I’m thinking about designing an edging for this shawl before I publish the pattern. I think it needs a little something extra. It’s too bad I didn’t add an edging before entering it in the contest. Oh well! Better luck next year!

Kathryn White, who is a good friend of mine, won 4 prizes in the contest! She took first and third places in the Accessories category, third place in the Thread category and first place in the Artistic Expression category! Her designs (and all the winners’ designs) are amazing! You can view the winners here on Doris Chan’s blog: http://dorischancrochet.com/2012/06/28/cgoa-2012-crochet-design-competition-results/. You can see all the entries in the Design Contest here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/14498426@N03/sets/72157630091305846/show/. Enjoy the eye candy!!!

After the Design Contest Awards came the shopping floor preview, which is always a lot of fun! Who doesn’t love looking at and touching beautiful yarns?

I went to the Dance Party for a little while after that, but left in plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep so I could think straight the next morning to teach classes again! It’s important to me to be my best and think as clearly as I can when I’m teaching. I owe that to my students. And that doesn’t include staying up until the wee hours of the morning!!!

Whenever I have to travel to the East Coast for the CGOA Conference, I start adjusting my internal clock 2 weeks before the conference so I don’t have to try to adjust to the 3 hour time difference in one night! It works great! Over the course of the 2 weeks, I was able to eventually go to bed and get up in the morning 2-3 hours early before I left for the conference, so I was already used to East Coast time when I got there!

On Friday, I taught my Beginning and Intermediate Bruges Lace classes. Both of these classes went well and the students enjoyed learning how to form several styles of Bruges Lace tapes, how to curve them, join them to each other (and to motifs) and loop the tapes over themselves. It was a great day!

That night, the CGOA Annual Member Meeting took place. Normally, I sit with the other members in the audience, but this time I sat at the head table with the CGOA Board members. I had to keep the secret for weeks of me filling a vacancy on the Board: Karen Whooley is leaving the Board due to family matters. This is the first time I’ve been on the CGOA Board in the 10 years that I’ve been a CGOA member. I’m looking forward to giving back to CGOA and helping to improve the CGOA Masters Program (I’m the new liaison to the new Masters Committee: Jane Rimmer and Carol Moore are taking the places of Karen Whooley and Kathleen Sams as co-chairs of the Masters Committee).

On Saturday, I attended my first CGOA Board meeting bright and early at 7AM with the other Board members (I’m glad that I’m a morning person!). However, I had to leave the Board meeting early in order to teach my Shuttle Tatting class all day! Every one of the 11 students in the class learned to shuttle tat at various skill levels. It’s not exactly an easy thing to learn, but they were all patient and persistent students! I’m very proud of every one of them! I can’t wait to see what they create in shuttle tatting!

The Fashion Show and Dinner was held on Saturday night. I modeled in the Fashion Show and pinned a Masters Pin on one of my mentees, Carlotta Craig. Here we are in the pinning ceremony:

Pinning Carlotta!

It was a wonderful night and it was hard to say goodbye to many friends at the conference, as many people leave that night or the following morning. I saw Karen Manthey, Bobbie Matela, Carol Alexander, Kathleen Sams and many, many more friends and colleagues at the dinner and conference. Here is a photo of me at the Fashion Show (in the center) with 2 of my mentees: Theresa Kehrer (on the left) and Shari White (on the right):

 

 

Terry, Shari and Me

 

 

I taught my last class, Writing Crochet Patterns, on Sunday morning. The students in this class were all very eager to learn more about writing crochet patterns and improving their pattern writing skills! Many of them were newer or beginning designers. I look forward to seeing their design careers grow!

 

After having lunch with Jane Rimmer and Carol Moore on Sunday afternoon, I walked into the show floor and found myself volunteering to help take down the Red Heart/Crochetville booth. It was a lot of fun! I received many skeins of free yarn and crochet thread for my efforts!!! Normally I wouldn’t accept so much yarn at a conference because I’d have to find a way to get it home! But I knew I had extra space in my second suitcase because I gave out so many handouts in my classes and that space was now vacant to fill with yarn on the way home!!! Thank you very much, Kathleen! I will use the yarn for some crochet designs as soon as I find some extra time to make them! Here’s a photo of Andee Graves wrapping up the boxes on the pallets with plastic/shrink wrap before the driver took them away:

Andee wrapping boxes

All in all, I had a wonderful time at the conference and I’m looking forward to teaching 6 more classes at the CGOA Chain Link Conference in Reno in September! I’d better get to work and prepare those classes before time slips away! It’ll be here before I know it!!!

 

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