Traveling – The Crochet Architect

May 2, 2022May 2, 2022

Crochet Sightings and Vacation Highlights

Last month, my husband and I took a 3 ½ week trip in our motorhome from Arizona to Texas and back. We met up with some good friends, Dan and Janine, for the first part of the trip and had a great time! We did lots of sightseeing, ate delicious food, did some walking and hiking, met up with an old friend, Kathy, and her husband, Randy, did lots of driving (my husband drives the motorhome while I crochet) and all around had a great experience! I even saw some crochet and other crafts on our trip!

Since we moved into our new home 7 months ago, we’ve been doing a lot of renovations (painting, decorating, etc). It was nice to get away from all the work, relax and see God’s creation!

Here are the places we went and things we saw on our trip:

Benson, AZ – saw/toured Kartchner Caverns

Tombstone, AZ and Bisbee, AZ – walked around and saw the sights

Kerrville & Fredericksburg, TX – did some sightseeing and shopping

San Antonio, TX – did some sightseeing, went on a riverboat/gondola ride, toured the Alamo, ate dinner at the Chart House restaurant that revolves at the top of Tower of the Americas (a tower that was built for the 1968 World’s Fair)

Houston, TX – went to the Space Center Houston and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft

Galveston, TX – toured the Bishop’s Palace (the 1892 Josephine and Walter Gresham house)

McDade, TX – stayed at Hummers Homestead Alpacas (a Harvest Host)

Austin, TX and Moody, TX – stayed and hiked at 2 Texas State Parks

Waco, TX – went to Mammoth National Monument and Magnolia Farms (Chip & Joanna Gaines from Fixer Upper HGTV show fame have a very nice area in Waco for shopping, relaxing, eating and playing outdoor games)

Here are the crochet/crafting highlights of the trip:

These are some cute crochet baskets that were at Magnolia Farms in Waco, TX. I think the same baskets that are on display on shelves are hung on the walls. Basically, from what I can see, the baskets are crocheted with rope and include a handle. I think they’re very cute (and stylish)! I’ve got some yarn that might work really well to crochet some of these beauties for my new home!!!

Crocheted rope baskets at Magnolia Farms in Waco, TX

More crocheted rope baskets at Magnolia Farms

Crochet rope baskets on wall at Magnolia Farms

This was a display at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. This was a free museum filled with crafts that are made from reclaimed/recycled materials. The display was called “Nothing Goes to Waste”. I thought this display, made with film slides, was absolutely awesome! So creative!!!

Close up of slides used in artistic piece at museum

Close up of mannequin covered in film slides at museum

Here’s a hyperbolic crochet piece on display at that museum. I’ve never done hyperbolic crochet before, but this is what it says online about it: “To crochet a hyperbolic structure you simply increase stitches at a regular rate in every row. The more often you increase, the more quickly the model will ruffle up.”

This piece of art was crocheted with 8mm film strips! Wow!

Art piece crocheted from 8mm film strips

Close up of film strips used to crochet piece at museum

Here are a crochet popcorn bedspread and a quilted bedspread that I saw in the Bishop’s Palace in Galveston, TX, along with the beds that these bedspreads were on.

Crocheted bedspread at Bishop’s Palace in Galveston, TX

Here is a crochet piece that was on the ornate dresser at the Bishop’s Palace, along with the dresser that it was on.

This is an embroidered piece with a bobbin lace edging that I saw at the Bishop’s Palace.

And this is the front of the Bishop’s Palace. It was an awesome place with lots of wood in the interior and lots of history!

These are some of the alpacas that we saw at Hummers Homestead Alpacas in McDade, TX.

Alpacas at Hummers Homestead Alpacas in McDade, TX

And this was the inside of their alpaca products store. They’re part of Harvest Hosts, which is a membership group where you reserve a spot at a participating host to stay in your RV for a night or two. In exchange for a spot to stay, you patronize their establishment. I bought 5 ounces of alpaca roving to spin on my Electric Eel Wheel spinning wheel (once I work up the courage to spin alpaca fiber)!

Alpaca roving from Hummers Homestead Alpacas
to spin into yarn

Here are a few other highlights (not craft-related):

While we were in Texas, we saw lots of bluebonnets blooming. They were everywhere and we loved them! In case you didn’t know, they’re the Texas state flower (and snakes like to hide in them).

This forest photo was taken at McKinney Falls State Park. This was our favorite place where we stayed during the whole trip!

Hiking at McKinney Falls State Park in Austin, TX

It was really nice to get away, but it’s nice to be back home, too!

I hope you enjoyed this look at our trip and all the crafts I saw while on our trip.

Happy crocheting, crafting and traveling,

Susan

April 30, 2019

Japan Trip Highlights

My hubby and I had so much fun on our trip to Japan last month! When our youngest son told us that he was going to be in Japan for 3 months for his work, we decided to take a trip to Japan, as well. We just couldn’t pass up that opportunity, especially since we could spend time with our son and have him as a bit of a “tour guide” to help us some days (when he didn’t have to work)! After the 10-hour flight to Tokyo, we took the shinkansen (the bullet train) to Kyoto that same day. We spent 4 days in Kyoto, then took the shinkansen back to Tokyo, where we spent another 7 days. The trains in Japan are very comfortable to ride. Everyone has their own seat and the seats rotate 180 degrees so 4-6 people can face each other. I never got a good photo of the bullet train when it came into the station, but here’s a photo of a bullet train in the railway museum in Kyoto, where we went one day:

As you can see, the bullet trains (aka: shinkansen) are very sleek and stylish!

Here are the highlights from our trip (in no particular order):

Besides touring the Nihon Vogue facilities in Tokyo (which I blogged about several weeks ago), our day in Arashiyama, outside of Kyoto, was the next best thing during the whole trip (it was also what we did the first full day we were there)! We rented kimonos and rode in rickshaws! How cool is that? We saw the monkeys in Arashiyama and the bamboo forest, as well. What a fun day!!!

Another fun thing we did was go to the Toyota Commemorative Museum in Nagoya (on the way back to Tokyo). I thought the museum was only going to have Toyota cars, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of the museum was dedicated to spinning and weaving! Wow! They showed the history of spinning with spinning wheels and lots of spinning machines. They had a ton of weaving machines, as well. It was all so interesting!!! In fact, I decided to look at the spinning and weaving displays/demonstrations again while my husband and son looked at the part of the museum with the cars!

I was fascinated by this manual spinning wheel for spinning yarn/cotton directly onto a drop spindle! I’ve never seen anything like this before and I think it would make drop spindle spinning much faster!

This is a portion of one of the yarn/thread spinning machines. They had so many machines on display and demonstrated many of them.

This machine wove intricate tapestries very fast! It was amazing!

There were way too many spinning and weaving machines for me to show you. This was a VERY fascinating museum to see!

We took a day trip from Tokyo to Hakone, where I saw Mt. Fuji for the first time! My husband had been to Japan while he was in the US Navy back in the 70’s, so he had already seen Mt. Fuji. Hakone was a wonderful place! We rode the cable cars, the rope cars and the pirate ship. If you’re not familiar with the term “rope car”, it’s another name for an aerial tram that takes you to the top of a mountain. Here are some photos from that day:

We saw some other interesting and fascinating things in Japan, too.

One day my husband and I went to the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum in Saitama (Tokyo). It was amazing to see the bonsai they had there! They had an inside museum with lots of information about bonsai. An English-speaking woman gave us a tour that was great! And we got to see all the bonsai on display outside. They were so interesting and beautiful! These are a few of them, along with a view of the outside display area:

We saw lots of beautiful views from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building observation deck and from the 38^th or 39^th floor of the building where our son was working in the Ebisu area of Tokyo!

We went to Yoyogi Park one morning, where we saw the Cherry Blossoms (Sakura) in full bloom! They were gorgeous!!!

We saw a really unique escalator in Tokyo, too. It was surrounded by mirrors that gave a “prism” look to everything around it! It was really cool! This is the photo that our son took:

And our son took us to the largest Starbucks in the world in Tokyo! It’s 4 floors high and opened in February, 2019! It’s a “Starbucks Reserve Roastery”. This one is 32,000 square feet (that’s 2,000 square feet larger than the one they opened in December, 2017 in Shanghai, China)! It’s HUGE!!! If you’d like to read more about this new Starbucks in Tokyo, check out this article by CNN last February.

We even went to the Costco store in Tokyo! That was a lot of fun! My husband and I each bought a shirt/top as a souvenir and some Kit Kats to give to our family and friends. The Tokyo Costco had a different menu in their food court. They had hamburgers, so we decided to split a double hamburger for dinner that night. It was very good!

We ate at all kinds of restaurants, as well as picking up things to eat at the corner 7-11 or Family Mart quickly and inexpensively. Tokyo has convenience stores in almost every block, which makes it “convenient” to grab something to eat when you’re hungry! We even ate sushi with our son one day for lunch! It was really good and fresh, made right in front of us!

Japan was a very clean place. The subways and trains were convenient, clean and not that crowded (even in rush hour). Yes, you feel like a sardine, but somehow it wasn’t that bad (maybe because we’ve already navigated the subway systems in Beijing and London!).

We felt that the people in Japan were friendly and helpful. We even asked a stranger for help when we needed to catch the correct bus to get somewhere.

There were English signs everywhere in Japan, so it wasn’t as hard to navigate as in China, where there aren’t as many English signs.

One of the big differences in Japan was the size of the hotel rooms. They have very small hotel rooms, probably so they can fit more rooms into each hotel. In the US, we’re used to hotel rooms with plenty of room. But in Japan, they’re quite a bit smaller than here. But that’s okay because we don’t travel to stay in the hotel rooms. We travel to see the sights! We just need a clean place to sleep, shower and change clothes. Below are a few pictures of the 2 hotel rooms where we stayed.

This was the very small room where we stayed in Kyoto. The bed was pretty small and was only accessible from one side and the foot of the bed. The bathroom seemed like a bathroom you’d find in a travel trailer or motor home. You had to step up into it! That was very different. It was a clean room and served its purpose for the price we wanted to spend (around $80/night), so it was fine.

This was the room where we stayed in Tokyo. It was close to a subway/train station and had lots of places to eat nearby (I think all of Tokyo has places to eat nearby!). It was clean and a little larger than the hotel room in Kyoto. It even had a small washer/dryer combo in the room so we could do a load of laundry. And the bed was accessible from both sides with small nightstands on each side. What luxury!

Oh, I almost forgot! A lot of places in Japan have “heated” toilet seats! Need I say more?

We loved our trip to Japan and would go back in a heartbeat! What lovely memories we made and beautiful sights we saw!

Where is your favorite place to travel? What do you like to see when you’re traveling?

I hope you’re able to travel (if you have that desire) and enjoy life with the ones you love!

Until next time!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

April 8, 2019

Crochet Highlights of Japan Trip

I’ve always wanted to travel to Japan and last month, that dream came true! I LOVE Japanese crochet patterns and I wanted to visit the country where all this crochet loveliness originated! Since our youngest son was working in Japan for the first 3 months of this year, my husband and I seized the opportunity to travel there while he was still in the country. He’s back now (and we’re back, too), so it’s time I shared about the great crochet fun I had there (I’ll write another blog post about the other fun we had there being tourists and seeing some of their beautiful country)!

The highlight of the trip for me was visiting the Nihon Vogue Publishing Corporation main office, their Vogue Academy and their Keito Yarn Shop, all in Tokyo! I arranged for this tour several months ago through email with Mr. Toshiharu Tsuda, who works for them. He set up a fabulous tour of their 3 facilities! I had an absolutely wonderful time, especially at their corporate office and their Vogue Academy.

At the corporate office, which has 4 floors, I met several people: Mr. Toshiharu Tsuda, who I had been emailing for several months, Mr. Kenichi Funyu, who is an Adobe Illustrator extraordinaire and an editor at Nihon Vogue, Ms. Akiko Taniyama, who is the chief editor of Keitodama and Mr. Nobuaki Seto, the president of Nihon Vogue Corp! I felt like royalty there! They showed me all around their corporate office, including their Keitodama editing area. They brought out samples from the newest issue of Keitodama magazine (Vol. 181), too! They treated my husband and I to lunch in their cafeteria. Mr. Seto, the president, even showed us his office, along with several keepsakes he has; one made from his father’s ties! And he showed us their conference room with a bookshelf that runs from corner to corner along one long wall, filled with every issue of books and magazines that Nihon Vogue has published since the beginning of the company over 60 years ago (in 1954)! Wow! I was in crochet (and knit) heaven!

My husband and I with the Nihon Vogue staff

Books and magazines in Nihon Vogue editing department

Nihon Vogue bookshelf wall with every issue they’ve published!

After touring the corporate office and having lunch there, Mr. Toshiharu Tsuda took my husband and I to their Vogue Academy. This is where their certified instructors teach all kinds of crafts, such as crochet, knitting, porcelain painting, embroidery, quilting, sewing and lots more (even cooking classes)! They have 8 locations in Japan with 1,350 courses and 18,000 students! Wow! Now that’s serious teaching! The Tokyo location, which we visited, has 13 classrooms. Mr. Hiroki Hashimoto gave us the tour at Vogue Academy. He showed us every class that was in session and we could see what the students were making in each classroom. It was so much fun, especially in the 2 crochet/knitting classes! The students had finished or were working on garments in both classes. I was amazed at their skills and their projects!

The Tokyo Vogue Academy even has a store there with yarns, books, and lots of tools/supplies that students can purchase. I showed Mr. Hashimoto my 2 favorite Nihon Vogue books from their store and he was so nice to give me those 2 books!

After the Vogue Academy tour, Mr. Toshiharu Tsuda took us to the Keito Yarn shop. It was a somewhat small shop, but it was laid out very nicely. They had yarns from all over the world, making it hard to decide what I wanted to buy there! I bought 2 balls of Lana Gatto Nuovo Jaipur, a 100% combed cotton yarn, which is made in Croatia and 1 skein of Hasegawa, a silk/mohair blend, which is made in Japan! I look forward to knitting and/or crocheting with both of these yarns!

All in all, that day was magical for me! I LOVED meeting the Nihon Vogue employees, who were all very friendly and kind. I LOVED seeing their office, academy and yarn shop! I was surrounded with yummy goodness everywhere I turned! Their corporate office has a main lobby with tables covered in crocheted doilies and centerpieces! The entrance to their corporate office has a spinning wheel, which is part of their logo! And everywhere I turned, there were beautiful, inspirational things to see, from quilts on the walls to published books and magazines! That is a day I will never forget for the rest of my life!!!

Crochet centerpiece in Nihon Vogue lobby

In addition to the Nihon Vogue tour, I also visited 2 craft stores and a 100 Yen store while we were in Tokyo, where I purchased yarns and crochet books! At the Yuzawaya store in Kamata (3 floors high), I bought a Disney crochet book for 1,111 yen and 3 skeins/hanks of cotton and cotton/acrylic yarn, both made in China. At the Okadaya store in Sinjuku (6 floors high), I bought 2 Nihon Vogue crochet books for 1,200 yen and 1,100 yen. At the 100 Yen store (called “Can Do”), I bought 4 skeins of cotton yarn made in China for 100 yen each! The exchange rate is currently around .009 yen to 1 dollar, so 1,000 yen is about $9.00. So as you can see, the yarn and books were quite reasonably priced!

Japan crochet books and yarn I got/bought

If you love to knit and/or crochet, Japan can be a wonderful place to purchase yarn/thread/supplies and books/magazines!

If you’d like to read about the rest of our trip to Japan, subscribe to my blog to get an email when a new blog post comes out.

Until next time! Happy crocheting!

Susan

October 18, 2018

Lots of Exciting News!

I have some exciting news for you today! Two weeks ago, I went to Berne, Indiana to film 2 new crochet videos for Annie’s! I can’t tell you yet what the topics of the 2 videos are, but I can tell you that they should be ready for release around the end of November or beginning of December! Yahoo!!! I’m super excited about both of these videos and I hope you’ll enjoy taking a look at them in a month or two! After they’re released, I’ll share a link to the videos and blog about both of them. But consider this “fair warning” that my new videos will be available very soon!

Here are some photos of me before and after makeup/hairstyle at the Annie’s studio:

There’s not as drastic of a change in my looks for these 2 videos as there was over 6 years ago for my other 2 Annie’s crochet videos (see the previous blog post with makeup photos here). I think the makeup artist did a very nice job! What do you think?

Before the videos, I spent many weeks working on my fingernails and cuticles to get them ready for the videos (you really don’t want to watch me demonstrating with my “regular” nails and cuticles!). Here’s what they looked like for the videos:

My fingernails never look this nice on a regular basis (without lots of hard work) because I live in a dry climate (Arizona), I do a lot with my hands and I tend to pick at my cuticles! This is how they usually look:

As you can see, my fingers are starting to get a little twisted due to age and the fact that arthritis runs in my family. But as long as they keep working so I can still crochet, knit, do bobbin lace and tatting, I’m a happy camper!

I have some other very exciting news to share with you today, too! I’m a Grandma again! My middle son and daughter-in-law had baby #2 the day after I flew to Indiana to film the videos (I had to wait “patiently” until I returned home to see him, which was very hard)! I’d like to introduce you to my grandson, Ryker:

Here’s my 2 grandchildren, Rubekah and Ryker wearing the crochet football hats that I made them:

And here are the 3 of us enjoying some “Grandma” time together:

I’ve been pretty quiet here on my blog and on social media in general for several reasons: 1) it took lots of time to prepare for the 2 videos, 2) I’ve gone on 3 business trips and one personal/anniversary trip this year, 3) I’ve been crocheting for my new grandson and 4) I’ve been enjoying my 2 grandchildren!

If you’d like to see some of the other projects I’ve made for my new grandson (and 2 year old granddaughter), check out my projects page on Ravelry here. I’ve crocheted a lot of baby booties and baby hats (some of the booties went to my husband’s best friend’s oldest daughter, who is due to have her first child/son in a few months)! Baby booties and hats are both great projects for new babies because they’re quick, they don’t take much yarn and they look great! I had a little trouble with my gauge and with the finished sizes, but that’s okay. I can always donate the booties or hats that came out too small to my local pregnancy center or my local hospital (for preemies). I had a good time crocheting each project and sometimes that’s more important than the finished project (the enjoyment we get from the creative process and the relaxation that crocheting provides!).

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at what I’ve been up to lately. I look forward to sharing more of my crochet news with you very soon!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

June 6, 2018June 5, 2018

The Ireland Portion of our Anniversary Trip

This blog post is a continuation of yesterday’s blog post about our 40th Anniversary trip to England and Ireland. If you haven’t read yesterday’s post, please check it out here!

After seeing some of London, we went to Ireland for a week. We saw the Cliffs of Moher on a good weather day! Wow! What a sight that was! The cliffs are very high and beautiful!

We toured a tower castle called Dysert O’Dea in County Clare. There’s a circular staircase in one corner of the castle that takes you to each floor and room of the castle. That was fascinating!

One of the highlights of Ireland for me was visiting the remains of the Ballyheigue Castle that is in my family ancestry! The castle was built in 1295 by Timothy de Cantelupe and held by his descendants, a line of Barons de Ballyheigue, until 1690. Many of my ancestors were born in Ireland and some of them emigrated to Canada in the 1840’s, around the time of the potato famine. What a thrill it was to be there where my ancestors lived many generations ago!

What’s a trip to Ireland without seeing the Ring of Kerry? There were so many pretty views there! I got to hold a lamb for the first time in my 60 years of life! What a thrill that was! The lamb was so soft!

I also visited a lace shop in Kenmare called the Kenmare Lace & Design Centre. It was on the 2nd floor near the Heritage Centre. I met Nora Finnegan there, the lady who runs the Lace Centre. She showed me how Kenmare Lace is made. And I bought a few souvenirs from the Lace Centre, too! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take photos inside. But take my word for it, the lace was exquisite! Kenmare lace is a needle lace and the quality of the pieces there was amazing!!!

My husband and I toured the Muckross House, a Victorian house built from 1839 to 1843 in Killarney National Park, and walked through the gardens. We also had lunch at their cafeteria. The house and gardens were gorgeous! I LOVE old houses and various types of architecture! The most fascinating story about the house is that the owners, Mr and Mrs Herbert, spent a lot of money to fix up the house and gardens for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1861. The queen only stayed 2 nights in the house! The expense almost bankrupted the Herberts!

There was a wool shop in County Kerry called Kerry Woollen Mills. I stopped in there and brought home a few souvenirs from that shop! The shop had lots of beautiful finished knit items to buy, but I just bought a hank of wool yarn and a cute sheep!

Another old house that we toured was the Fota House. That was an amazing house with gorgeous architectural details inside! The gardens were amazing, too! We had our own tour guide, Brian, who showed us many fascinating things in the house! What a fun tour that was!!!

We stayed at Air BnB’s in Ennis, Killarney, Cork, Waterford and Wexford. The BnB in Killarney was exceptional! The host, Adah, was so sweet and helpful! She even put an anniversary card and a box of chocolates in our room! Now that’s a great host!

Most of the Bed and Breakfasts met our expectations and most included breakfast, which was wonderful!

All in all, it was a fabulous trip! The weather in Ireland was sunny 4 out of 7 days! I guess that’s about average for there. If Arizona got that much rain, I bet we’d have as much green as Ireland! But then Arizona wouldn’t be a desert, would it?

Driving on the other side of the road was quite different! My husband drove and I was the co-pilot! Besides being the navigator using Google maps on my hubby’s phone, I got to say things like “you’re getting too close to the curb” or “there’s a rock wall coming up”! Sometimes I just felt like closing my eyes because it’s a little scary on that side of the car, especially when it’s your first time driving (or being the passenger) on the left-hand side of the road! But all in all, my hubby drove great and we survived the other side of the road! By the way, if you didn’t already know, some of the roads in Ireland are only wide enough for 1 car, not 2! Those are the really “thrilling” roads!!!

There are fields of sheep everywhere in Ireland and England! Some of the sheep are even colored so if they get out of the field, they can be identified by their color(s) and returned to the proper field.

We had such a good time in both England and Ireland. It was a trip we’ll remember with fond memories for many years! I’m so glad that we took the time and spent the money to go on this 40th Anniversary trip! Both countries are beautiful and have so much history to them! And it was wonderful to see both countries where some of my ancestors lived!

Until next time.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

June 5, 2018

What a Fun Vacation!!!

It’s been over a month since I’ve written a blog post and for good reason. From April 29 through May 17, my husband and I took a 40th anniversary trip to England and Ireland! Where does the time go? It seems like it was yesterday when we got married! Now it’s 40 years later!!!

Wow! What a trip we had! In today’s and tomorrow’s blog posts, I’d like to share the highlights of the trip with you (England today and Ireland tomorrow). Here are the highlights of the England portion of our trip:

At the beginning of our trip, we spent 3 days in London and saw some fabulous sights! We went up to the top of the Shard, which overlooks London. The sights were gorgeous from 70 stories up! Here are a few photos of us at the top:

We also toured Westminster Abbey and took a river boat cruise along the Thames.

Tower Bridge in London as seen from Thames River boat cruise

I was able to squeeze in a trip to a London yarn shop called Loop. What a nice place to see lots of gorgeous yarn and crochet thread! Some crochet thread by Scheepjes spoke to me in the shop, so I came home with 10 balls of thread! I look forward to designing something with these gorgeous colors after I’m all done with the 3 crochet contracts I’m working on right now!

Crochet thread from Loop London yarn shop

We saw a lot more than this in London, but for the sake of this blog post not being WAY too long, I’ll stop with these places.

We went to Ireland after London, then back to the southwest part of England, known as Devon and Cornwall. We rented a car during this portion of our England vacation (we didn’t dare drive in London, but took lots of public transportation there, which was fabulous).

One of the highlights of this part of the trip was visiting Port Isaac, where the British show, Doc Martin, is filmed. If you haven’t seen Doc Martin, you’re in for a treat! It’s a wonderful show that we’ve enjoyed for quite a while now. We could almost envision Martin and Louisa there! Port Isaac was a really nice, beautiful place! Here are a few photos from Port Isaac:

We toured an old house in England called Cotehele House & Gardens. It was a fabulous tour! This house had tour guides in each room to tell about the specific rooms!

We went to the All Hallows Museum in Honiton to see some Honiton Lace. Wow! The lace there was AMAZING! They had large drawers with huge pieces of lace that were exquisite! Each large piece took thousands of hours of work!!! Now that’s dedication to a craft! Lace making, and Honiton Lace in particular, was a cottage industry in the Devon area in the 16th and 17th centuries. Making lace provided an income for many families for several hundred years. Unfortunately, the invention of machine made lace made hand made lace virtually obsolete.

Since I learned to do bobbin lace this past January, I bought some souvenirs at the museum to help further my bobbin lace knowledge and skills!

The England portion of our trip was so much fun, just as the Ireland portion was also lots of fun! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post about Ireland!

Happy crocheting,

Susan

July 26, 2013

CGOA Conference Afterglow

Five days after returning home, I’m still basking in the afterglow of last week’s CGOA Conference (aka: the Knit and Crochet Show) in Indianapolis, Indiana! It was 5 days of fun, fun and more fun! I taught 6 classes there: Mosaic Crochet, Crochet Pattern Writing, Beginning Bruges Lace, Intermediate Bruges Lace, Wiggly Crochet and Reading/Understanding Crochet Patterns. The times of my classes were: Wednesday night from 6-9PM, Thursday from 9AM-5PM with a 2 hour lunch, Friday from 9AM-noon, Friday from 2-5PM, Saturday from 2-5PM and Sunday from 9AM-noon. It was a busy schedule, but I endured and actually had enough energy to teach each class. I had between 5 and 16 students in each class, which is ideal for me (and for them). Every student was a joy to have. They were all eager to learn what I had to teach them during the class. And I believe that they all enjoyed the class(es) they took, which is always a plus! I took 2 photos in the Beginning Bruges Lace class (I tend to forget to take photos when I’m busy teaching). Here are the ladies on the left-hand side of the room and the ladies on the right-hand side of the room:

Ladies on left-hand side of room in Beginning Bruges Lace class

Ladies on right-hand side of room in Beginning Bruges Lace class

Don’t they look focused on their work?

Also at the conference, I did my first book signing (in the Annie’s booth) on Thursday night, during the Shopping Floor Preview. I should have a photo of that soon (hopefully). It was a lot of fun and I will probably do it again at the CGOA Conference in Charlotte, NC in October of this year. I signed my new “Jewelry to Crochet” book, published by Annie’s, that I blogged about on June 30^th. The folks from Annie’s were giving copies of my new book away during the book signing. I met many nice ladies (and a few men, too) at the book signing.

We had our CGOA Members Meeting on Thursday night before the Shopping Floor Preview. Since I’m a CGOA Board member (I’m the Secretary), I was seated at the front tables with the other Board members. Here’s a photo of Jane Rimmer (the CGOA Treasurer) and me there:

Jane Rimmer and me at the CGOA Member Meeting

Jane and I are also the 2 Co-Chairs of the CGOA Masters Committee. We make the policies for the Masters program, make corrections to the program, as needed, and answer questions from the Masters portfolio reviewers (I’m a portfolio reviewer, too). Six out of the ten portfolio reviewers were in attendance at the conference. We all met and had lunch together on Thursday. Here we all are:

CGOA Masters reviewers at conference in Indi

From left to right are Phyllis Nabakowski, Beth Hall, Jane Rimmer, Kathryn White, me (Susan Lowman), Linda Dean and Patti Giorgi. We have 2 levels of portfolio reviewers (junior and senior) and each portfolio is reviewed by 2 reviewers (one from each level). To find out more about the CGOA Masters program, check out the CGOA website here: www.crochet.org.

On Wednesday, Jane Rimmer and I went to the TKGA (The Knitting Guild of America) Masters Day, which was an all-day event. We took this day to find out how TKGA runs their Masters Day so we can put on a CGOA Masters Day at the CGOA Conference next year. It was time well-spent! We learned a lot and will be starting to prepare for our very first CGOA Masters Day soon.

On Friday night, we had our Fashion Show and Dinner. The food was excellent and the fashion show was great, as usual. I laid low and didn’t have to model this time, so I enjoyed the show. Here are a few photos from the fashion show:

Shari modeling her Ebb & Flow shawl design

Also at the Fashion Show Dinner, I met Donna Stinson and Terri Geck from Coats & Clark. Here’s a photo of the 3 Coats ladies at the dinner:

From left to right are: Donna Stinson, Terri Geck and Bobbie Matela (who I met years ago and enjoy seeing each year at the conference).

I spent some time with several friends at the conference, too. Here are some of my friends and me with big grins on our faces:

This is Shari White, who is my first mentee in CGOA and my roommate at most conferences.

This is Kathy (Kathryn) White, who I met at the CGOA Conference in 2011 in Greensboro, NC. Kathy lives 2-3 hours away from me, in Arizona, but it took going to the conference in NC to meet her!!!

This is Marcella Clayton, who I met in the Crochet Pattern Writing class I taught on Thursday. Marcella showed me her design in class and I encouraged her to show it to an editor at the Meet & Greet on Saturday morning. Needless to say, Marcella sold her first crochet design that morning! Go Marcella!!!

At the CGOA Conference last year in Manchester, I encouraged another new designer, Patricia Ritchie, to show her designs to the editors at the Meet & Greet, too. This is the first published design by Patricia Ritchie:

Petite Spring Hat from Crochet World magazine, April 2013, designed by Patricia Ritchie

Candle cover - a "thank you" gift from Patricia Ritchie — Candle cover – a “thank you” gift from Patricia Ritchie

Isn’t it gorgeous? Patricia is so sweet and her design is fabulous!!! She gave me a little “thank you” gift in one of my classes this year. That was very nice and totally unexpected! Here is the candle cover that Pat made and gave me last week:

On Saturday morning, we had the Board meeting at 7AM (I’m sure glad I’m a morning person!). It went well and we got a lot accomplished. I can’t tell you what we discussed because it’s still a “secret”! But all will be revealed in time.

On Saturday night, we had the first ever “CGOA Fun Night”! It was great!!! Amy Shelton, of Crochetville, was the emcee. We had “Show and Tell” throughout the room. We also played “Let’s Make You Squeal”, where Amy called out an item’s name and the first person who had that item in their crochet bag (or purse) squealed with delight to win a prize. There were lots of prizes given out that night, as well as prizes at the Member Meeting and the Fashion Show Dinner (we love prizes in CGOA!).

We also love all the goodie bags filled with fiber goodness that are donated by many sponsors of the CGOA Conference. A big “thank you” to Lion Brand, Red Heart and Annie’s for the fabulous goodie bags! We really appreciate your support of the CGOA Conference!

On Sunday afternoon, the conference was over (boo hoo!). But I made lots of fabulous new memories of fun times with lots of wonderful people. I always feel so energized after a CGOA Conference!

If you’ve ever thought about attending a CGOA Conference, you really should. It’s almost a week of fiber-loving events spent with like-minded people. We speak the “language” of crochet all week! Everyone is so friendly and encouraging of each other. If you can’t make it to a CGOA Conference, I hope you at least have friends who you get together with regularly to crochet together and encourage each other with your crochet projects.

Happy crocheting,

Susan

February 1, 2013February 1, 2013

My Trip to Berne, IN

Last month, I had the pleasure of traveling to Berne, IN for a secret project. I can’t tell you what the project was yet, but stay tuned for the big news to be announced in 3 – 4 weeks! Unfortunately, I can’t confirm or deny any ideas of what I was doing in Berne, so please don’t ask!!! Just be patient and wait for the big news when it comes! Like I said, it’s a “secret”!!!

If you’ve never heard of Berne, IN, you can learn more about this quaint little town on their Chamber of Commerce website. Apparently, the population is only about 4,400! That’s a lot smaller than my town of 39,000 and a far cry from the big metropolitan cities across the US. Since I’d never seen any Amish people in real life (besides on TV), I was fascinated when they drove by in their horse and buggies! I got a decent photo of one of them for you to see.

Here’s a photo of Main Street with the famous clock tower in Berne in the background:

I stayed at the Black Bear Inn & Suites in Berne on U.S. 27. It was a nice place to stay with comfortable rooms. I had a Jacuzzi suite, but I didn’t know how to work the Jacuzzi, so I just had a warm bath one night instead of a Jacuzzi bath! If you know me, you understand my “challenges” with anything electronic or with buttons that I can’t read without my reading glasses!!! I still have a “stupid” phone and I’m quite happy with it, thank you very much! Here are a few photos of the Black Bear Inn, along with the buggy they have outside by their sign:

I had some time to do a little sightseeing one afternoon, so I browsed in some of the shops on Main Street. I went into the Engine House Quilt Shop and talked with Carol, the employee there that day. She showed me some really nice rayon embroidery thread by EdMar Co. I bought 5 skeins of Frost, which is a 3 ply thread with 16 yards per skein. I’m going to use this gorgeous thread, which has a beautiful sheen, for crocheting a new design or two. If you’d like to learn more about EdMar rayon thread, which is used for Brazilian embroidery, please visit their website. These are the embroidery threads I bought for designing:

Aren’t they pretty?

I had a great time in Berne and met some fantastic people there. I also had the pleasure of touring the Annie’s offices while I was in Berne. If you’re somehow not familiar with Annie’s, please take a look at the Annie’s website. They produce/publish patterns and kits for many different crafts, including crochet, knitting, paper crafts and more! I saw and talked to Carol Alexander, the editor of Crochet World and Crochet magazines, who I’ve met at many CGOA Conferences over the years and took a picture of her cubicle in the office. Here is her cubicle:

Carol Alexander's cubicle at Annie's — Carol Alexander’s cubicle at Annie’s

I met Brenda Gallmeyer, who I had contacted in 2011 about some tech editing I did for Annie’s (then called DRG). I also met some other people, but I don’t remember all of their names (that happens as we get older, doesn’t it!). Here are a few photos outside of the Annie’s office:

Front door of the Annie's office — Front door of the Annie’s office

Me by the Annie's Sign — Me by the Annie’s Sign on a windy day!

I met 2 photographers at the Annie’s office and one of them gave me a tour of the photography studio with all their props, lights and cameras! That was really nice! Since my husband and I are learning to photograph my crochet designs for self-publication, it was really interesting to see. I even learned how they store and use some of their props. I was told that they use 2 sheets of painted wood behind the props for a colored wall. To hide the line where the boards meet, they just remove it from the photo with Photoshop! It’s too bad we don’t have room in our house for lots of wonderful photo props. I would love to have a photo studio like theirs!!! Here are some pictures of their photo studio:

Camera & Lights at Annie's Photo Studio — Camera & Lights at Annie’s Photo Studio

Photography Props at Annie's Photo Studio — Photography Props at Annie’s Photo Studio

More Photo Props at Annie's Photo Studio — More Photo Props at Annie’s Photo Studio

All in all, it was a very nice trip and the weather wasn’t bad, either. It got up to the 50’s one day while I was there, which is warmer than it was back home in Prescott, AZ (I really expected the weather to be worse than it was in Berne, so I was pleasantly surprised)! There was light rain one day, but the rest of the time it was dry. I was in Berne for 3 full days, with 2 additional days for traveling. I got a few crochet projects made on the airline flights on the way there and back, too. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and would love to return there again someday!

Happy crocheting,

Susan