Do you love a good contest/competition? I certainly do! How about a crochet designing contest?
Well, it’s that time of the year for creative CGOA members to enter the CGOA Design Competition! The entry form is live on the CGOA website, so what are you waiting for? If you’ve been working on a design or two to enter, don’t put it off! The deadline to enter and ship your entry/entries to me is July 1, which is fast approaching!
The entries will be judged at the CGOA Conference in San Diego on Wednesday, July 22 and the winners will be announced on Friday night, July 24, during the CGOA “Excellence in Crochet Celebration”. All entries will be on display on the show floor during the Knit & Crochet Show on Friday and Saturday, July 24 and 25, from 10AM-6PM, at the Town & Country Resort and Convention Center in San Diego, CA.
Here are a few Design Competition entry photos from previous years:
2014 Design Competition grand prize winning entry by Dot Drake
Some Winning Entries in 2013 Design Competition
2013 CGOA Design Competition 3rd Prize winner for Artistic Expression by Deborah Bagley
Good luck to everyone who’s entering the competition this year! I look forward to seeing your fabulous designs!
Have you ever taken a trip to somewhere very far away (like on the other side of the world) and had major jetlag? Well, I think I’m finally over the jetlag and things are looking up (at least I can think mostly clear again!). Let me tell you about my trip and the fun that I enjoyed there!
My husband and I just returned last week from a 2 ½ week trip to China. That’s right, we were on the other side of the world! It’s so amazing to me that you can get in a plane on one side of the world and arrive 10-12 hours later on the other side of the world! That just blows my mind!!! We stayed with our 2 sons and daughter-in-law who are currently living in Beijing. We had so much fun there with all 3 kids (they’re actually young adults in their 20’s)! The food was amazing and the people were very friendly (at least all of our kids’ friends were). We went to the great wall (at the Badaling location) just outside Beijing and saw the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an. Both of these were amazing!!! Here are a few photos of those two places:
The Great Wall
The Great Wall
Terra Cotta Warriors close up
Terra Cotta Warriors
These 2 places were some of the highlights of our trip. But we went to see so many more places than just these two. We saw the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City, both in Beijing. We also went to the National Museum of China in Beijing, just across the street from Tiananmen Square. And we rode bicycles on top of the city wall in Xi’an, too! There were so many interesting things to see and do. We rode the subway in Beijing most days (sometimes like sardines at rush hour!). We took buses and trains, too (including a sleeper train from Beijing to Xi’an and back). We walked and walked and walked! My husband had an app on his smart phone that counted our steps. We walked between 10,000 and 17,000 steps most days!!! We really got our exercise! And speaking of exercise, our kids live on the 6th floor of a building in Beijing (with no elevator), so we walked up and down the 84 steps to get to their apartment every day (and sometimes twice a day!). The soles on my new shoes got a year’s worth of wear in just 16 days!!! But I’m not complaining. The trip was fabulous and we enjoyed the time we spent with our kids tremendously!!! We wouldn’t trade it for the world! We even learned to use a “squatty potty”! If you don’t know what that is, here’s a photo of a clean one at the Great Wall:
Squatty Potty
Believe me, they weren’t clean everywhere we went, especially at the train stations! If you’ve never used one before, it’s very interesting! They aren’t terribly comfortable and easy to use like our “western” toilets, but you get the job done and get out right away! And hopefully you don’t lose your balance while squatting (ask me how I know)!
Here are some of the “delicacies” that we saw in Beijing and Xi’an:
Scorpions on Sticks
Scorpions and Starfish on Sticks
Squid on a Stick
These are scorpions, starfish and squid on sticks! Some people actually eat these in China! Yuck!!!
Anyway, I did a few “fibery” fun things while there, too. First, I taught about a dozen Chinese women to crochet. My daughter-in-law helped set up the dates for me to teach the women while I was there. These women have been exploited in the past and are finding new ways to earn a living, like making jewelry to sell. It was a huge blessing to be able to teach them to crochet. They all loved it and 2 men there learned to crochet, as well (one of the men was very excited to crochet a necklace). I can’t show you photos of the women (for their own safety), but I can show you some of the projects they made during the 2 classes.
Chinese Jewelry Projects
Chinese Women’s Coasters
Chinese woman with her necklace and coaster
Man’s Necklace
I taught them to make some beginner projects. We made chain necklaces and single crochet spiral coasters. Some of them had crocheted before and some spoke English, so they could help each other and translate for those who didn’t speak English (I only know a small amount of Mandarin; just enough to be “dangerous”!). They all enjoyed learning to crochet and I thoroughly enjoyed teaching them. I’m so glad that I could play at least a little part in these young women’s lives.
I took a suitcase full of yarn and crochet hooks for them. Before I went, I asked my local knit & crochet group if anyone had some extra H, I or J crochet hooks for these women. The ladies in my group donated over 80 spare crochet hooks! Wow! I was blown away by their generosity! So I took all of the hooks, along with a few extras of my own, and left all of the hooks and yarn with the women in China! I pray that God will bless these women through this small act. Here’s a photo of the donated crochet hooks for China:
Crochet Hooks for China
The other fun “fibery” thing I did was buy some Chinese knit and crochet books (I can’t decide which one I love more: yarn or patterns!). One day while we were in Beijing, my husband, youngest son and I went to a Chinese book store that was many floors tall. After looking around for a long time, we found the knit and crochet section of the store! I felt like a kid in a candy shop!!! I bought 6 knit and crochet books that are fabulous (and cheap!). All 6 books cost only $39.50 total! They would have been more than double that price here in the US! Here’s a photo of the books I bought:
Chinese Knit and Crochet Books
No, they’re not written in English! But they have knit and crochet charts that I can read just fine (well, I’m still learning to read knitting charts, but I’ll learn more about those very soon). The projects inside these books are very nice. Here are just a few of my favorites:
There are so many beautiful garments and stitch patterns in these books. I know I’m going to get lots of designing inspiration from them!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into my trip to China! Until next time…, zàijiàn!
Do you enjoy decorating your house with crochet projects? Do you have any part of your house decorated in a seashell or beach theme? Here’s my newest published design in the June 2015 issue of Crochet World magazine:
Shell Motif Swag
This shell swag is quick to make and I think it’s a great decoration for any shell/beach-themed room! You can make just one motif and sew it onto a napkin or towel for a nice decoration, too.
Shell Motif Napkin
You can see all the projects in the June 2015 issue of Crochet World magazine here.
I really enjoy designing and crocheting small projects that are quick to finish and make nice decorations. Here are some other crochet swags that I’ve designed over the years:
Christmas Swag from Dec 2009 issue of Crochet World magazine
Egg Swag from April 2010 issue of Crochet World magazine
Halloween Swag from Oct 2009 issue of Crochet World magazine
Heart Swag from Feb 2010 issue of Crochet World magazine
Rattle Swag from April 2009 issue of Crochet World magazine
Star Swag from June 2008 issue of Crochet World magazine
Snowflake Garland from Nov/Dec 2011 issue of Crochet Today magazine
As you can tell, each of these projects is from a past issue of Crochet World magazine or Crochet Today magazine. I don’t own the copyright to any of these, so if you’d like to make one of them, you’ll have to check your personal crochet magazine library, search for a past issue of the magazine for sale online or ask a friend if they have that issue that you could borrow.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at some quick and fun crochet projects.
Are you looking for a crochet project that won’t break your bank? I have just the thing for you. Here’s my “Keepsake Lace Shawl” that was originally published in the May/June 2010 issue of Crochet Today magazine. The pattern is available for FREE through the Coats & Clark archives here:
Keepsake Lace Shawl
In the past 3 weeks, I’ve crocheted 2 of these shawls with just one skein of yarn each from Michaels! The yarn is called “Loops & Threads Woolike”. It is a light fingering weight yarn with 678 yards in the skein, made with 85% acrylic and 15% nylon fibers. And the best part is it retails for just $2.99! Yes, you heard me right. You’ll get 678 yards for just $2.99 (plus tax)!!! Now that’s a great deal for yarn!
Here is one of the shawls I crocheted last week. It’s for my Mom for Mother’s Day:
Mom’s Keepsake Lace Shawl front
Mom’s Keepsake Lace Shawl back
To read more about this shawl, you can see my Ravlery project page here. If you’re looking for a relatively quick, inexpensive shawl to crochet, you might want to consider this shawl and yarn!
The original pattern is for a 60″ long shawl. This shawl is about 42″ long with 9 pattern repeats across. I started with a foundation chain of 251 chains so I wouldn’t run out of yarn (I knew I wouldn’t have enough yarn to make it the full length and I didn’t want to go buy more yarn). I think the length is very nice! This color of yarn is called “beige” and the other shawl I made was with the color “mauve” (which is much more like burgundy).
I really like this yarn AND the amount of yards you get for only $2.99 (or less with a 40% off coupon)! If you don’t have a Michaels store near you, you can always order this yarn through their website here!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at this crochet shawl pattern and this wonderful yarn!
I’d like to share a new FREE pattern with you. It’s called “Lacy Granny Scarf”. The pattern is available on the Red Heart UK website here.
Lacy Granny Scarf
I designed this scarf about 4 months ago for Red Heart using their Red Heart “Precious” yarn, available in the UK. This yarn is a #1 weight yarn, made with 80% acrylic and 20% mohair fibers. I really enjoyed using this yarn and the scarf blocked up very nicely! As with any mohair yarn, you need to be careful with your stitches because ripping out can be a “challenge”!
The scarf measures 6″ wide x 60″ long and is made with 10 motifs, each measuring 6″ square. The motifs are joined as you go, so there is no sewing required. There is a simple single crochet edging worked around the joined motifs to give the edges some stability.
Since this pattern is published in the UK, some of the crochet terms are different in the pattern than the crochet terms we use here in the US. Here are the different terms used in this pattern:
UK “dc” = US “sc”
UK “tr” = US “dc”
UK “dtr” = US “tr”
It can sometimes be hard to wrap your head around the different crochet terms used in another country in a crochet pattern! I’ve rewritten patterns from the UK before with the US crochet terms in them to help myself remember which stitch to work when I’m making something from one of these patterns! And sometimes I draw a symbol crochet chart instead of using the written crochet pattern. I do whatever it takes to understand the pattern in order to make the project accurately!
If you love lacy crochet projects, I hope you’ll give this pretty Lacy Granny Scarf a try.
Last year, before Easter, I was reading some posts in some Ravelry groups about dyeing yarn with Easter egg dyes and Kool-Aid. So I thought I’d give it a try. What did I have to lose? Absolutely nothing! And I figured it would be a lot of fun, which it was! I’d like to tell you about my yarn dyeing experience, in hopes that you’ll give it a try, too.
Before starting, I read all the information I could get from library books, Ravelry groups and various websites, some of which were:
Everything I read said to purchase the Easter egg dyeing kits AFTER Easter, when they are discounted. I waited patiently for Easter to come, so I could visit my local stores and buy the kits for pennies on the dollar! But I had to make sure I didn’t wait too long because they might be all gone (either sold out or shipped back to clear the shelves for new merchandise). I went to the store the day after Easter to buy my first batch of dyes and I bought more on subsequent days, as well. I bought several different kinds of kits with different numbers of dye tablets in them from several different manufacturers. I didn’t need all the bells and whistles in the fancy kits, so I bought the more generic kits instead, which were also less expensive. The kits I bought the week after Easter were 50% off and the ones I bought the following week were 75% off, so it was well worth the wait!
Approximately 2 months after Easter, I was finally ready to begin my yarn dyeing experience! If you’d like to ready about how I dyed this yarn and learn how to dye yarn with Easter egg dyes, check out my tutorial here. Because of the length of this tutorial/story, I have made it into a PDF file to download and read at your convenience.
I designed a crocheted scarf and a knitted scarf with my newly dyed yarn last year, but I’m not quite ready to publish them yet. Since I’m a perfectionist, I hate to rush into publishing patterns that haven’t been checked thoroughly because it’s too easy for mistakes to creep in. And it’s not fair to you to find mistakes in my patterns, which leads to frustration (believe me, I know how frustrating it is to try to crochet something from a pattern with mistakes!). I’ll let you know when the 2 scarf patterns are available for purchase. The crochet and knit scarves are both done in the mosaic technique, which is a technique that I LOVE!!! I used a solid color of yarn along with the dyed yarn because I hate color pooling with multi-colored yarn! The solid color eliminated any possibility of color pooling and the scarves turned out great!
I hope you enjoy my new tutorial on dyeing yarn.
Have a blessed Easter with your family and friends.
Happy crocheting,
Susan
P.S. I’d like to apologize for not posting free crochet patterns on the last 5 days of March, like I had promised at the beginning of the month to celebrate National Crochet Month. I had a death in my family (my brother passed away at 59 years young from stage 4 brain cancer that was originally thought to be a benign tumor). But I hope you’ve enjoyed the 26 free crochet patterns that I was able to post during the month. There are some really talented crochet designers out there!
In honor of baseball’s Spring Training, today’s FREE crochet pattern is a baseball cap for babies!
Spring Training Cap
This Spring Training Cap pattern was designed by Linda Permann for the Mar/April 2012 issue of Crochet Today magazine. The pattern is available for FREE here.
Isn’t this baby adorable? Of course, this baseball cap would look great on any baby!
In keeping with the Easter theme, today’s FREE crochet pattern is an adorable duck!
Crochet Duck
This duck pattern includes a removable bonnet! How cute is that? And the facial expression on the duck is priceless!!! Jackie Laing from the website, Amidorable Crochet designed this cute duck. You can find the free pattern on her website here.
If you love bunnies, you’re going to love today’s FREE crochet pattern!
Spring Bunnies
This is the Spring Bunnies pattern by Stephanie Jessica Lau of the All About Ami website. You can find this FREE pattern here. I think this is the 3rd FREE crochet pattern of Jessica’s that I’ve shared this month! I really like Jessica’s designs! She has a great style of designing and her projects are so cute!
I hope you’ll enjoy this FREE crochet pattern and make a spring bunny for someone you love this week!
Since Easter is coming, I’ve got another FREE Easter crochet pattern for you today. These chicks would work up in very little time (at least for one of the chicks, not a dozen of them)!
Baby Chicks in Eggshells
This is the “Baby Chicks in Eggshells” pattern by Lani Herschensohn of the Red Hot Fibers website. You can find this adorable pattern here. This is what Lani wrote about the pattern:
“This pattern is a great way to make a game for young children. Mix up the baby chicks and the shells and the child learns to match their colors. It helps with their fine motor skills as they match up the correct chick with the eggshell.”
The pattern doesn’t say anything about stuffing the chicks, but I think I’d stuff them with some polyester fiberfill to help them keep their shape.
