I’ve been meaning to publish this pot holder pattern for several years, but everyday life has been getting in the way! That’s not a great excuse, but I’m going to run with it!
I first learned to do the Polish Stars crochet technique many years ago. I can’t remember if I took a class or learned it through a pattern. The original way to work the Polish Stars technique was a little jumbled (in my opinion), so I made a little adjustment to the technique, making it easier to do!
I’ve seen a few videos on this technique. In one of them, the stars are woven incorrectly, making the end result look pretty bad! So I decided I’d better add more information and a weaving diagram to the instructions in this pattern to make it easier to learn the technique and execute it correctly. I plan to make crochet videos in the near future (God willing) to help others with their crochet skills and knowledge. This is one of the techniques I’ll cover in those videos.
If you’ve never done the Polish Stars technique, let me tell you a little about it. Basically, you crochet rows of stitches with 2 solid contrasting colors, alternating the color on every row (I’ve used extended double crochets in this pot holder, which I explain how to make in the pattern: they’re between the height of a dc and a tr). Within those rows of stitches, you work chain loops per the instructions. When the instructions say to weave the loops, you do that, then you crochet the last row of the pattern, which secures the chain loops in place.
Pot Holder front before weaving chain loops
Polish Stars close up
Like I said, I’ve included a weaving diagram in this pattern, which shows how each chain loop is woven into the appropriate adjacent chain loop. There are also detailed written instructions for weaving the chain loops.
Since I LOVE symbol crochet charts, I included one of those for the front of the pot holder, for those who also enjoy working from a symbol crochet chart.
Polish Stars Pot Holder front
I included 2 layers in this pot holder design. The front has the stars and the back has stripes to mimic the colors of the rows worked on the front. However, there are no chain loops on the back. The purpose for the back piece is to make the pot holder thicker and eliminate holes that fingers can go through. With 2 layers of cotton yarn, the pot holder is safe to use in the oven (no fingers will go through to touch hot casserole dishes, cookie trays, etc).
Polish Stars Pot Holder back
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at my Polish Stars Pot Holder pattern and that you feel more confident to give this crochet technique a try very soon! If you’d like to give this a try and make a unique pot holder, check out the pattern here.
It’s been 3 weeks since I returned home from the CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. This year is the 25th Anniversary of CGOA! Wow! I’ve been a member since 2002, so I’ve been with CGOA for 17 of their 25 years. Happy Birthday, CGOA!
As always, I had a great time at the conference. I saw lots of friends, made new ones and was surrounded by everything crochet! This year, I taught 5 classes: Shuttle Tatting, Invisible Repairs, Irish Crochet, Intermediate Filet Crochet and Symbol Crochet. I had rooms full of wonderful students, each eager to learn what I was teaching. I even had a blind student in 2 of my classes! She was a treat to meet and teach (and what an inspiration to me!). Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of the students in my classes. But I still have a few photos to share with you from the conference.
Here are photos of some of my friends:
Carlotta Craig and me at the Banquet/Fashion Show
Bonnie Barker and Carlotta Craig at the Banquet/Fashion Show
Kristin Lynn and me after the Banquet
Carolyn Calderon, Pia Thadani and me with our tatting shuttles the day after the conference
I stayed an extra day after the conference for some sightseeing! My roommate, Shari White, and I went to the Currier Museum of Art that day. It was a very nice museum with lots of beautiful exhibits. They even had a special exhibit about guitars. My favorite guitar was one made from an armadillo shell! Here are some photos from the museum:
My roommate and me at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester
Guitar Exhibit sign
Armadillo guitar at Currier Museum of Art
On the way to the conference, I saw some other guitar items. At Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix, they had an exhibit about making guitars. Here’s a photo from that exhibit:
Guitar making exhibit at Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix
And at the airport in Nashville, where I had a layover on the way to Manchester, there was a Gibson Café. Here’s one of the tables that’s shaped like a guitar pick:
Guitar pick table in Nashville airport
My oldest son is really into music, so I tend to take notice of music-related items!
At the conference, there was the usual Design Competition, which I love! I didn’t have time to make anything for it this year, but I always enjoy seeing the entries from other designers. Here are a couple of my favorites:
Rockabilly Swing Dress by Nancy Nehring
This is the Rockabilly Swing Dress by Nancy Nehring. She won the Grand Prize for this dress! And here’s her daughter, Katie, modeling the dress for the fashion show:
Katie modeling her mom’s dress
These are some other garments in the Design Competition. The one at the bottom left is the Blue Willow Dress by Susan Walsh. She won First Place in the Fashion category for this design.
Garments in Design Competition
Here’s Susan modeling her dress for the Fashion Show:
Susan Walsh modeling her Blue Willow Dress
I LOVE this dress! And it looks fabulous on Susan!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the yarn bombing at the conference. One of the CGOA members, Jennifer Ryan, who lives in NH, put together the yarn bombing this year, both inside and outside the conference hotel (the Double Tree by Hilton). Here is one of her yarn bombing displays:
CGOA yarn bombing
Of course, there were pieces of crochet almost everywhere you turned at the hotel! I thought this one was really nice!
One of my favorite things to do at the conference is model in the fashion show. I’m not a professional model, but it’s a lot of fun! Here are a few things I modeled there:
me modeling Margaret’s cardigan
This is Margaret Hubert’s Pot Pourri cardigan. Isn’t it beautiful? It was very comfortable! I don’t know where this cardigan is published, though.
me modeling my Frosty Lace Cardigan
This is my Frosty Lace Cardigan (a thread crochet top) that I designed a few years ago. I lengthened it by about 3” in April or May of this year, after the trip that my husband and I took to Japan in March.
If you’d like to watch a video of the fashion show, check out this video on Facebook. And here are some photos, along with the line-up, of entries in the Fashion Show on the CGOA blog.
Another fun event at the conference was the Friday night sign-along, hosted by Bonnie Barker and Jennifer Ryan. It was so much fun! If you’d like to see a few videos from that night, check out Bonnie’s YouTube channel. Some of the song names were “Will You Crochet Friend, Crochet?”, “Ms. MacDonald Had a Bag of F-I-B-E-R”, “On Top of My Craft Bag” and “Ripping Out is Hard to Do”. It was so fun to sing these silly songs!!! Bonnie and Jennifer did a fabulous job that night, along with 2 of Jennifer’s daughters!
As you can see, the CGOA Conference was a ton of fun! It always is! I met some very nice new friends and enjoyed teaching all of my classes. I hope my students enjoyed my classes and learned everything they wanted to learn in them!
I wanted to let you know that Annie’s is having a 2-day sale on their online classes right now! Yes, you heard me right! For 2 days (Tuesday, July 2 and Wednesday, July 3), you can save 40% off the regular price of ALL their classes (not the DVDs, but the streaming classes). They have classes in crochet, knitting, quilting, sewing, needlework and more! You can even save on my Annie’s classes (Crochet ER: Fixing Damage & Mistakes and Learn Filet Crochet). Check out this link to find out more and get the special code to save big! Enjoy!
What? You haven’t heard of KnitCrate? Let me tell you all about them (or at least a little about them). KnitCrate is a company that ships out monthly knitting and crocheting boxes/crates which include both a knit and crochet pattern, along with 2 skeins/hanks of yarn to make either of the 2 designs.
This month, I’m the designer of both designs in KnitCrate’s Membership crate: 1 crochet and 1 knitting. This is the first time I’ve designed for KnitCrate and it was a great experience!
About a year ago, I was approached by KnitCrate to design something for their June 2019 crate. I love designing in both knit and crochet, so I agreed to design both patterns for June! Earlier this year, they sent me 4 hanks of yarn (2 of each color) for the knit and crochet designs. I had so much fun designing these 2 patterns for them! The yarn they sent me was squishy and very soft. It’s the same yarn that is included in the June 2019 KnitCrate membership crate. The yarn is called Vidalana Aloft DK, a chainette-plied yarn that’s made with 48% merino wool, 20% baby alpaca and 32% organic pima cotton. This yarn is lovely to work with! The 2 colors I used are Tiger Lily and Wee Violets. When I received this yarn, I knew I wanted to design my projects with lots of texture and some lace! So without further ado, here are some photos of each design, along with information about them and the designing process behind them.
Golden Afternoon Scarf
Golden Afternoon Scarf
First up is my crochet design called “Golden Afternoon”. This is a reversible scarf or cowl made with lots of post stitches and chains. I designed this stitch pattern myself to mimic one of the knitting stitch patterns that I used in the knit design.
Once I came up with the crochet stitch pattern, I realized that it looked really nice on the back, so I decided to take advantage of that and make the scarf reversible! I decided to make diagonal lines where the changes occur between the front and back of the stitch pattern. Then I calculated how long and wide I could make the scarf/cowl with the 548 yards total that was sent to me. I’m thrilled with the final result of this scarf! You can find this pattern for sale on Ravelry here.
Rows of Lavender Shawl
Rows of Lavender Shawl
The 2nd design is my knit design called “Rows of Lavender”, which I actually started designing first, but finished it last. This is a really soft crescent-shaped shawl that can be worn in a variety of ways. I used 2 stitch patterns in the body of the shawl and a coordinating border at the bottom. The shawl is started at the top, center with increases worked throughout to achieve the crescent shape. You can find this pattern for sale on Ravelry here.
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing these 2 new designs. For more information about KnitCrate, check out their website here. If you decide to purchase the June 2019 KnitCrate membership crate and make either of these 2 projects, I’d love to see your finished projects or answer any questions you may have about the patterns.
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:
Flowering Quince bonsai
We saw lots of beautiful views from the Tokyo Metropolitan Building observation deck and from the 38th or 39th 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!
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
Keitodama Vol 181 samples
Keitodama Vol 181 intermeshing swatches
Lunch with the Nihon Vogue staff
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!
Vogue Academy crochet students
Vogue Academy store display
Vogue Academy store yarns
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!
Keito yarn shop display
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
Spinning wheel in Nihon Vogue office
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!
Yuzawaya store front
Yuzawaya store inside
Yuzawaya store Disney display
Okadaya store front
Okadaya store inside
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.
I LOVE to teach crochet! And I LOVE to learn new crochet techniques! Don’t you?
I’m happy to announce that I’ll be teaching 5 classes at the CGOA Conference this July in Manchester, NH. Not all of my classes are crochet, though. I’ll be teaching shuttle tatting again this year, too!
First, I’ll tell you a little about the CGOA (Crochet Guild of America) Conference. This takes place every year (sometimes twice a year) in various cities across the US. It is open to CGOA members and non-members. There are dozens of classes taught by many talented teachers, some very well-known! We have a marketplace with vendors who sell everything from luscious yarn/thread to hooks, books and supplies. We also have a banquet and fashion show, as well as some fun events in the evenings. And I can’t forget about Professional Development Day (PDD) where established crochet professionals share what they know about running a successful crochet business. PDD takes place the day before classes begin, on Wednesday, July 10 from 9 am – 4 pm.
For all the scoop about the conference, visit the CGOA conference pages. Here is a list of the events going on at this year’s conference. Read this page to find out about all the classes being offered. And one last thing, CGOA has a design competition each year for CGOA members only. There are prizes in 6 categories ranging from $100 – $300, with a grand prize of $1,000! There have been some fabulous entries each year! It’s so much fun to see the entries at the conference and find it who wins in each category!
Okay. Now to list the classes I’m teaching and when each one is offered.
Thursday, July 11 from 9 am – 5 pm (with lunch from noon – 2 pm)
Tatting the Old-Fashioned Way
Tatting the Old-Fashioned Way class
Tatting is such a fascinating and delicate craft. I taught myself to tat over 20 years ago. I’ve learned more since then and I really enjoy teaching others so they’ll be successful in their tatting projects. In this class, my students will learn the basics of tatting and start tatting this beautiful necklace with buttons, beads or charms. This is the only 6 hour class I’m teaching at the conference this year. Yes, it takes that long to learn to tat and get your head wrapped around how to do it! But I’ll be there to teach my students and answer all their questions. If you’ve always admired tatting and want to learn to tat, sign up for this class early. I’ve limited this class size to only 20 students.
Friday, July 12 from 9 am – 12 pm (noon)
Invisible Repairs
Invisible Repairs class
I’ve taught my Invisible Repairs class at the conference for the past 2 years. This has been a popular class and I’m thrilled to be teaching it again this year! In this class, I teach my students how to repair their damaged crochet projects, no matter where the damage is located. There is homework for this class so we can all do the repairs to the same swatches in class. And I’ll be demonstrating how to do the repairs in class, as well. This technique also works great to invisibly seam the last row to the first row on crochet cowls!
Last year, I filmed a crochet video class for Annie’s on this same topic called “Crochet ER: Fixing Damage and Mistakes”! If you can’t make it to the conference and would like to learn to repair your crochet projects (or someone else’s crochet projects), check out my Annie’s video class.
Friday, July 12 from 2 pm – 5 pm
Intro to Irish Crochet
Intro to Irish Crochet class
I LOVE Irish Crochet and I really enjoy teaching this class to other Irish Crochet enthusiasts (who don’t know where to begin). In this class, I’ll be teaching how to make the Irish Crochet rose and leaf motifs. I’ll also teach how to make the background and the edging that you see in this photo. This is an introduction class, so we won’t get into more advanced Irish Crochet techniques. But once you know the basics of Irish Crochet, you can always learn more on your own or with books.
Saturday, July 13 from 9 am – 12 pm (noon)
Intermediate Filet Crochet
Intermediate Filet Crochet class
This is my Filet Crochet class for those who already know the basics of Filet Crochet (open mesh, closed mesh and lacets). In this intermediate class, you’ll learn to do increases, decreases, diagonals and a whole lot more! Once you learn these intermediate Filet Crochet skills, you’ll be ready to tackle that more complex Filet Crochet pattern you’ve had your eye on for so long!
If you don’t know the basics of Filet Crochet yet, and you’ve been wanting to learn to do Filet Crochet, check out my Annie’s class called “Learn Filet Crochet Using Thread and Yarn”. Then if you want to take your Filet Crochet to the next level, why not sign up for my intermediate class at the CGOA Conference (or before for the best rates)!
Saturday, July 13 from 2 pm – 5 pm
Simplifying Symbol Crochet
Simplifying Symbol Crochet class
This class is always a lot of fun to teach! I learned to read symbol crochet charts several decades ago through Magic Crochet and Decorative Crochet magazines. I love to make doilies and the patterns in these magazines were mostly written in crochet symbol charts. As a visual learner, I find these charts so much easier to follow than a lengthy written crochet pattern! And they look so similar to the finished project, too!
If you haven’t learned to read symbol crochet charts yet, this is your chance! You’ll learn all the basic crochet symbols and lots of more complex symbols, too. You’ll learn to follow a symbol crochet chart, both in rows and in rounds. And you’ll practice what you’ve learned making 2 small projects/swatches in class. Once you learn to read and follow symbol crochet charts, a whole new world of crochet patterns will open up to you! You’ll even be able to follow symbol crochet patterns in other languages including Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Ukranian!
If you’ve taken any of my classes in the past, you know how much I like to have nice, precise class handouts. I print them in color and bind them like a book to they’re a great keepsake to refer to later on after the conference. I charge $5-$8 for these handouts (depending on the quantity of photos/pages), which is what it costs me to print them at home, with the price of toner cartridges, nice paper, card stock and binding combs (to use with my binding machine). Here’s a look at my class handouts:
My Class Handouts
If you’re going to the CGOA Conference, class registration begins next Wednesday, March 13 at 12:00 pm (noon) Central time. Once again, here’s the CGOA website to find out more about the conference and CGOA in general. And if you have any questions about the conference, I’d be happy to answer them for you.
It’s that time of year again: the time we celebrate all things crochet with National Crochet Month (NatCroMo) during the month of March. Crochet is so good for our emotional health! It’s relaxing, it can be challenging (if we push ourselves and learn something new), it results in some great gifts for family and friends, plus it can bring like-minded people together to encourage each other and learn from each other. I’ve met so many friendly, encouraging people throughout the 40+ years I’ve been crocheting, especially in the past 16 years that I’ve been a Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) member. If you’ve never heard of CGOA, check out their website. You’ll be glad you did!
National Crochet Month seems to grow each year! This year, there will be designer blog tours, crochet-a-longs (CALs) and all kinds of crochet celebrations throughout the month of March. To help celebrate National Crochet Month, I’m offering a 25% discount on all of my patterns here on my website, along with in my Ravelry shop. Just use the code “NatCroMo2019” in either shop to enjoy the discount! The 25% discount is good on all of my crochet patterns and ebooks (plus my knitting patterns in my Ravelry shop). The discount is good from March 1-31, 2019 (Arizona time).
How do you celebrate National Crochet Month? Do you follow designer blog tours? Do you take part in crochet-a-longs? Do you learn a new crochet technique? Do you buy more yarn (who needs an excuse to buy more yarn, though)?
How many crochet projects do you make each year? I made dozens of crochet projects this past year and I learned a few new techniques (maybe not totally new, but new to me). In June of 2018, I learned to do Planned Pooling. If you’ve never heard of it, you can watch some videos by Marly Bird on Youtube. Planned Pooling is a very different technique. Most patterns are written for the moss stitch (sc, ch 1), but I used groups of 3 dc in my project. In planned pooling, it’s not the size/gauge of each stitch that’s important, it’s the number of stitches in each color and their placement that matters. Here’s a photo of the planned pooling afghan that I made in a month from 9 skeins of Caron Simply Soft yarn:
I also learned to do corner to corner crochet (aka: C2C). I tech edited a few C2C patterns years ago, but I never actually did this technique until January of this year! When I saw some photos of an adorable Grinch Scarf on Pinterest, I knew the time was right to learn this technique and make the scarf, since I LOVE the movie “The Grinch”! Here’s a photo of that scarf for you to see:
Last year, my 2nd grandchild was born in September. His name is Ryker. Here he is wearing one of the many hats that I crocheted for him:
Baby Ryker
I crocheted lots of baby booties for him, too! Here are a few of them:
I also crocheted a top from a Chinese crochet pattern from April – June of last year. I love following foreign crochet patterns (I don’t read the language, I just follow the symbol crochet charts). This one has a gorgeous pineapple yoke and hem. Here’s that top for you to see:
These are only some of the projects I crocheted (or knitted) last year. To see all of them and get some ideas for your next crochet project, check out my Ravelry projects page.
I hope you find many enjoyable ways to celebrate National Crochet Month! If you haven’t already downloaded my FREE crochet patterns, you can find them here. If you like what you see in these free patterns, you may choose to use the 25% discount on my other patterns for sale this month!
Do you have any beloved doilies with holes in them? Have you purchased some old crochet doilies or centerpieces at estate/garage sales only to find they have holes, cuts or burns in them? Do you know how to repair the damage so the repairs are invisible? Last September, a friend brought me one of her doilies to repair that had seen its better days! Because I’ve learned to repair crochet projects, I was eager to take on the challenge of repairing her doily. Here’s a photo of the doily with the holes in it:
Frances’ Doily before repair
I’m sure you can see the large hole at the right edge of the photo, but I found a small hole in the doily, too. So I set out to repair both holes.
Small hole in doily
Large hole in doily
Luckily, I had some crochet thread in my stash that was pretty close in size and color, so I was able to invisibly repair the doily last month. It took a few hours, but I think the time is worth the end result, don’t you?
Frances’ Doily after repair
Here’s a close up photo of the repaired large hole:
Large hole in doily repaired
I can hardly even find the hole any more! That’s because I used my “Invisible Repair” technique that I teach in my Annie’s online class called “Crochet ER: Fixing Damage & Mistakes”. I LOVE this technique!!!
If you’re interested in learning to fix damage and/or mistakes in your crochet projects, check out my class here. I’d love to hear your success stories of the repairs and/or fixes you’ve made!
By the way, Annie’s is having a 50% off sale on their online classes today (through 11:59 PM Eastern time). Here’s the link if you’re interested in purchasing any of their online classes, including my Crochet ER class, today.
It’s that time of year when we start wearing lots of accessories to help keep us warm (here in the Northern Hemisphere)! I sometimes wear a scarf or cowl inside my house to help keep my neck warm, which helps keep my whole body warm (my house isn’t that cold, but I often get cold)!
Scarfie, Cowlie & Hattie pattern
I’ve been working on new designs lately and I just finalized a pattern for a scarf, cowl and hat. This new pattern is called “Scarfie, Cowlie & Hattie”. I named this pattern after the yarn that I originally used to make a cowl and hat set for my daughter-in-law and a scarf and hat set for a friend of hers. I used Lion Brand Scarfie yarn for those projects, which took only 1 skein of yarn for each of the 2 projects (scarf and hat or cowl and hat). Because that yarn didn’t photograph as well as I’d hoped for the pattern photos (and because I wanted to test and fine-tune the pattern), I crocheted more of these accessories. Who doesn’t love wearing more accessories or giving them to others?
Scarfie made with Lion Brand Scarfie yarn
Cowlie made with Lion Brand Scarfie yarn
Red Hattie made with Lion Brand Scarfie yarn
Blue Hattie made with Lion Brand Scarfie yarn
My daughter-in-law’s friend wearing her scarf and hat
The pattern is written in both US and UK crochet terms, so you can choose which pattern to download based on which crochet terms you’re used to using. If you like this feature of having my patterns available in UK crochet terms, please let me know and I’ll update my other published crochet patterns to include UK crochet terms. I want my patterns to be as user-friendly as possible!
I’ve included written instructions and symbol crochet charts for each of the 3 projects in the pattern, which is available for $5.95 (that’s just shy of $2 per project!). For more information about this pattern, check it out on the pattern page.
