Our 3rd stop on this blog tour is with the very talented Ellen Gormley of Go Crochet. Ellen has been blogging for many years and always has something wonderful to share with her readers! She’s a very talented designer and one of the experts on the Knit and Crochet Now show.
Ellen Gormley (right) and Susan Lowman (left)
In 2010, Ellen took my Beginning Bruges Lace class at the CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. She really took to Bruges Lace and started designing in it almost immediately. Last year, she had a booklet published by Annie’s called “Learn Bruges Lace”! Here’s a photo of Ellen and me in that class:
And here’s a photo of Ellen’s Bruges Lace booklet:
Learn Bruges Lace front cover
If you missed my blog post about Ellen’s booklet, you can read it here. Bruges Lace is a lot of fun. I’m not sure which I like better: Bruges Lace or Wiggly Crochet!!! They’re both wonderful crochet techniques!
Last year at the CGOA Conference in Reno, I had some of my wiggly crochet projects on display in the Designer Showcase that the extremely talented Doris Chan spent many hours organizing! Thanks so much, Doris!!! Many crochet designers participated in the Designer Showcase and it was a huge success!!! Here’s a photo of my Wiggly Fish Rug on display there:
Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug
I self-published this pattern last year. It’s available as a PDF download right here on my website (under “Patterns”), on Ravelry, and on Craftsy.
If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, please download my “FREE” May Flowers Hot Pad & Coaster pattern on the Coats & Clark website. That way, you can give this crochet technique a try before purchasing any wiggly crochet patterns to see if you like it. After giving it a try, you might be “hooked” on wiggly crochet (pun intended!) like I am! And if you’d like to make some Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths, you can purchase my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet on the Annie’s website as a hard copy in the mail or as an instant PDF download for $8.95.
So head on over to Ellen’s blog today to read what she has to say about wiggly crochet and crochet in general!
If you missed the first stop of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths blog tour on Feb. 13th, you can still read what Brett Bara wrote on her Facebook page that day. Brett is a super talented lady who wears many hats (and her cat, Fifi, is adorable!!!). You can read her blog and see photos of what she’s up to (and Fifi) on her website. Brett is currently the host of the Knit and Crochet Now show on PBS. Brett was the first editor of Crochet Today magazine for many years. I tech edited for Crochet Today for several years before I met Brett at a CGOA Conference in Manchester, NH. She’s just as nice in person as she looks in her photos!!! Brett is putting on a full day of craft classes called the Brooklyn Craft Camp on Saturday, March 16th in Brooklyn (where else?). I wish I lived closer so I could attend!!! Here’s a photo of Brett, in case you haven’t gotten acquainted with her yet:
Brett Bara
Today’s stop on the Blog Tour is with Kathryn White. Kathy is a very talented crochet designer who has won numerous awards in the CGOA Design Contest in the last 2 years. She’s also a really good friend of mine. We met at the CGOA Conference in Greensboro, NC in Sept. 2011. We quickly became friends and learned that we lived only 130 miles apart! We see each other every month when Kathy drives up here to attend the monthly crochet group that I’ve attended for many years. You can read more about Kathryn White on her blog, her website and her Facebook page. Kathy is a very accomplished thread crochet designer in the crochet world. She’s a great source of inspiration for me! Here’s a photo of Kathy (on the left), the famous Rita Weiss (in the middle) and me (on the right) at the fashion show/dinner at the CGOA Conference last year in Reno, NV:
Kathryn White, Rita Weiss and Susan Lowman
Kathy’s newest booklet of crochet designs is Beautiful Bullions. This is a wonderful booklet of fabulous designs! Kathy never fails to impress me with her designing abilities!!! Here’s the cover of that booklet:
Beautiful Bullions booklet cover
Click here to see and/or order this booklet from Annie’s.
And if you haven’t yet entered to win a free, autographed copy of my Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, you still have time. Just leave a comment on my blog post from Jan. 27 or Feb. 9 to be entered. There aren’t too many entries yet, so your chances of winning are great!!!
To celebrate the publication of my “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” booklet, I’m going to have the first of many giveaways on my blog. At the end of the blog tour for this booklet, one lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” in the mail. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this blog post (or the blog post from January 27th on my “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths” booklet, where you’ll find more information about the patterns inside). Good luck!!!
Front cover of Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths
I’ve finalized the blog tour dates of this booklet with my crochet friends. Here they are in the order in which they’ll appear:
Please visit these blogs to read more about my Wiggly Crochet booklet and what each of these very creative people think of it! You’ll also see some fantastic designs and ideas on each of these websites and blogs from some very talented ladies!
As many of you probably already know, Brett Bara is very crafty. She was the editor of Crochet Today magazine for many years and is the host of Knit and Crochet Now, along with other crafty endeavors!
Kathryn White is an extremely talented, award winning thread designer. Her designs are fabulous!!! And she’s a very good friend, too.
Ellen Gormley is a force to be reckoned with in the crochet world! She has many published crochet designs and is a crochet expert on the Knit and Crochet Now show.
Andee Graves is an up and coming crochet designer. She’s gotten a great start on her designing career. She just had her first crochet booklet published by Leisure Arts called “Texting Mitts”. Check it out on her blog or on my blog post for her blog tour (on Feb. 10th)!
Kara Lyon has an awesome talent for designing amigurumi figures. You’ve got to see her designs! I love them!!!
I hope you enjoy this blog tour and getting to know these very talented ladies!
I’m very excited to announce the publication of my newest crochet booklet, “Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths”, published by Annie’s! Here are photos of the front cover and the other 3 dishcloths that aren’t shown on the front cover:
Front cover of Wiggly Crochet DishclothsFour Squares dishcloth
Concentric Squares dishcloth
Diagonals dishcloth
This booklet includes photos, instructions and charts for 6 different wiggly crochet dishcloth projects. These dishcloths are made in an array of beautiful colors of Omega Sinfonia yarn, which is a light worsted weight cotton yarn. Each project measures from 10 ½” x 11” to 12” square, the perfect size for dishcloths. These dishcloths are fun to stitch and make fantastic gifts! If you’d like to order a copy of this booklet, you can find it on the Annie’s website.
If you aren’t familiar with Wiggly Crochet, let me tell you how it’s done. Wiggly Crochet is made in 2 steps. The first step is to crochet the foundation mesh. This mesh looks a lot like the open mesh of filet crochet, made with double crochets and chain-2 spaces. Here’s a photo of a Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh:
Wiggly Crochet foundation mesh
The next step is to crochet the “wiggles” onto the top of the foundation mesh, which makes these wiggles stick up and gives the wiggly crochet piece dimension and thickness, which is not found in most other crochet techniques. The wiggles are usually made up of double crochets worked on top of the foundation mesh: around the post of the double crochets and in the chain-2 spaces (not IN the chains themselves, but in the spaces created by the 2 chains). You work the specified number of double crochet in/around each post/chain-space, making a 90 degree turn each time to fill the appropriate areas with the wiggles. It’s the act of turning 90 degrees that makes these stitches wiggle and stick up instead of lying flat! Here’s a photo (taken from the top) of the first round of wiggles worked on a wiggly crochet foundation mesh:
Wiggles shown from top
Here’s a photo of those same wiggles (taken from the side), so you can see how dimensional they are:
Wiggles shown from side“Hot Stuff for the Holidays” booklet
Isn’t that cool? I love this technique so much that I’ve previously had 2 crochet booklets published on it. The first one was “Hot Stuff for the Holidays”, published by Jeanette Crews Designs in 2003. There are patterns and charts for 6 “holiday-themed” hot pads and coasters in this one (for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, July 4th, Halloween and Christmas). This booklet is extremely hard to find, so if you find one for sale online (and it’s not too expensive), you might consider snatching it up! These designs are worked with size 10 cotton crochet thread (for all of us “threadies”!). Here’s a photo of the front cover of that booklet:
“Wiggly Crochet Rugs” booklet
The 2nd wiggly crochet booklet was “Wiggly Crochet Rugs”, published by Annie’s Attic (now just called “Annie’s”) in 2009. This booklet has 5 wiggly crochet rugs in it, complete with instructions and full-color charts. These rugs are made with yarn: the foundation mesh is made with sport weight yarn and the wiggles are made with worsted weight yarn. This booklet might be easier to find, since it was published just 4 years ago. Here’s a photo of that cover:
I’ve also designed some other wiggly crochet projects, which were published by Annie’s (mostly in Crochet World magazine from June 2008 to Feb. 2010). If you’d like to see all of them, please visit my Ravelry designer page. Oh, I almost forgot! I have a FREE wiggly crochet pattern, available on the Red Heart website. You can try this technique for free and see how you like it! Isn’t that great?
If you’re more of a “hands on” type of learner and would like to learn to do wiggly crochet, I’ll be teaching a Wiggly Crochet class at the CGOA Conference this year in Indianapolis. The class schedule hasn’t been made yet, but this class should be scheduled between July 17 and 21 (either from 9AM-12Noon or 2-5PM). To read about this CGOA Conference, please visit the CGOA website (look under the “events” tab on the left-hand side of the page). I would be thrilled to meet you and teach you how to do wiggly crochet in my class!
To celebrate the publication of my new Wiggly Crochet Dishcloths booklet, I’m doing a Blog Tour in February with several of my crochet friends/designers. Each person will blog (or post on Facebook) about this new booklet and possibly give away a copy to a lucky entrant. Please visit each of these blog posts to find out more about my new booklet, as well as reading the blogs of these extremely talented individuals!
The blog participants are as follows (dates to be announced next month):
At the end of the blog tour, I’ll be giving away an autographed copy of this new booklet to a lucky winner (US residents only please). To enter the contest, just leave a comment on this blog post telling me which of these dishcloth patterns is your favorite. It’s that simple! A winner will be chosen at random from all of the comments at the end of the blog tour. Good luck to you all!
If you’ve never tried wiggly crochet, you don’t know what you’re missing! If you have tried it and are looking for more wiggly crochet patterns, we have a few of them here at The Crochet Architect. Here they are for your viewing and crocheting pleasure:
Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster
Our Wiggly Flower Hot Pad & Coaster Set is the perfect pattern for learning to do wiggly crochet. The small size of the coaster is a quick project and the hot pad is a natural progression for increasing your wiggly crochet skills. The cotton crochet thread that is used makes them ideal for soaking up the moisture from any glass or pitcher in humid weather!
Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set
This Wiggly Crochet Playing Cards Set includes a centerpiece and 4 coasters: one for each of the suits of playing cards. This set is unique and would make a great gift for that special person!
Wiggly Crochet Fish Rug
When you’ve learned to do wiggly crochet and want to take your skills to the next level, this Wiggly Fish Rug is just the thing! It’s great in any fish-, seashell-, ocean- or tropical-themed bathroom. The texture of the wiggly crochet makes this rug “squishy” to walk on, too!
I hope you’ll give wiggly crochet a try and come to love it as much as I do!
