>BACKSTORY: Coco Bay Wrap

Posted on June 19, 2008 by dorischancrochet

> A few months ago I was given the pleasant task of designing a crocheted wrap with the new yarn NaturallyCaron.com Spa. I was asked to incorporate three different stitch patterns. Piece of cake. The other requirement was to use three different shades of Spa. Not so cakey.

For I do not possess an innate color sense. I’m more of a one color at a time girl, much more likely to choose a single, solid or subtly shaded yarn for garment samples and my own crocheted clothing. There’s a good reason for this. Not that I am colorblind. I can see colors perfectly normally. I really love colors in my own unsophisticated way. Ask my friends to name the person who walked around at TNNA with mismatched high-top Converse All Stars because I couldn’t decide which I liked better, the pink or the yellow, so I wore one of each. Clearly, the art and science of successfully and tastefully combining colors completely eludes me.

With trepidation and visions of horrible doom I opened the box of yarn that landed on my doorstep. To my relief I discovered that my fears this time were unfounded. All the shades of NaturallyCaron.com Spa can “go with” each other, so mixing them is pretty much foolproof (and thus Doris-proof).

What I came up with is the ultimate expression of my beloved All Shawl configuration (see previous post). Coco Bay is a lovely, lightweight wrap and perfect layer for warm seasons or climates. The Spa yarn turned out to be a dream to crochet. It’s a soft, lightweight blend of microdenier (super-fine) acrylic and bamboo with a special construction utilizing a ZSZ twist. HUH? Check out Cari Clement’s blog for the technical explanation. All I know is that this yarn offers great stitch definition and drape and I had no trouble with it splitting when crocheted with a large enough hook.

One tip: to help your gorgeous stitchwork really pop and bring out the fluid drape of your wrap, please block it.

>What I’m wearing today: ALL SHAWL

Posted on June 17, 2008 by dorischancrochet

> My best buddy is my son, a handi-capable young adult with cerebral palsy. He collects hats, music CD’s and movie/TV DVD’s. (I envy him his complete seven season set of Magnum P.I.) In his group home situation he rarely gets to go to the movies in a real theater. So I’ve been trying to keep my promise to take him as often as possible.

This past weekend we shared the excitement of seeing the new Indiana Jones film. WHOO HOO! Harrison Ford may be well into his 60’s but he’s still got it! My son’s favorite movie snack is Raisinets; he can go through the box before the opening trailers are done. But he can’t manage to rip open the top of the box himself. This I do for him gladly because I take a payment of one Raisinet!

We prefer to go to matinees, the earlier the better. Coping with crowds is not our thing. So at 10:50 on a Saturday morning this theater is nearly empty. It was 92 degrees and steamy outside. Inside, the AC was cranking full tilt. With no bodies around to heat up the room it was frigid through the entire showing, even with Harrison Ford on the screen. So I was glad I brought along this comfy shawl. I used it variously around my neck, across my arms in short sleeves and over my legs in the skort.

I’ve crocheted this shawl many times over the years, long, short, lace edged and fringed, in various weights and gauges. This design, now with the name All Shawl, is so functional, quick to crochet and easy to adapt that I decided to share the pattern with all my blog readers, Ravelry friends and fiberazzi everywhere. You are invited to receive the All Shawl as a free download from Ravelry to help me celebrate my birthday. Bear in mind that this is my first self-publishing venture and all may not be perfect. But that’s the beauty of this venue. I can keep editing the pattern as we go.

Here’s a thought for anyone who finishes up a personal All Shawl and is planning to attend the Saturday night Fashion Show at the Summer Knit and Crochet Show (CGOA Chain Link) in Manchester, NH next month. Please bring or if you want, wear your shawl to the event that night. Pay attention during the Fashion Show. You’ll know exactly when to stand up, smile and twirl.

>BACKSTORY: Chrysanthemum Tea Shawl

Posted on June 14, 2008 by dorischancrochet

>This is the design from which sprang the concept for the book Amazing Crochet Lace. Although I had been making exploded crochet thingies for a while, I couldn’t just steal a published doily design, bump up the gauge and call it my own round shawl. No-no. So I borrowed bits of doilies that worked particularly well and cobbled them together for the Chrysanthemum Tea Shawl, shown on the cover of Amazing Crochet Lace. For yourself you can experiment with exploding any doily patterns you like.

The center part worked best in a super-open mesh stitch. This creates less fabric and bulk around the neck, where the shawl is folded and likely to bunch up when worn. The middle leaves, emanating like spokes from the open mesh center, have enough of a solid outline to offer contrast; something on which the eye can focus and the brain can interpret as petals. The groups of clusters and the last round of single crochet combine for a pretty finish. In addition, those heavier stitches give the outside edge some weight and contribute to the general swingy-ness of the shawl.

I am showing you the prototype, crocheted in stuff I had languishing in the stash: white acrylic baby yarn present in a great enough quantity. The same cannot be said of much of my eclectic yarn collection (a little bit of everything, a great deal of none). No matter how loosely I worked, the fiber was so resilient and “bouncy” that the blocked shawl kept snapping back. I could not get the piece to un-ruffle and hold the intended size without killing the acrylic. As is, it would have worked well enough as a frilly shoulderette at 36” diameter, but I wanted something less girly that covered more than one shoulder without having to CRUSH and BURN!

Enter Classic Elite Premier. I LOVE this stuff. Honestly, this Pima Cotton/Tencel blend is so softly spun that it does shred after some normal wear and abuse. But that’s the trade off for this stunningly beautiful sheen, drape and silky hand. I promise your project will hold up long enough to elicit plenty of oooos and aaaahs.

Made in a yarn that would not only hold shape at the exploded gauge, but also thrive there, the design sample took shape. I was very pleased that it was chosen for the book cover. So many crocheters are drawn to this design, as fascinated as I am by the interplay of stitches and open space, and consequently so many Chrysanthemum Tea Shawls are showing up on bodies and in displays. It’s gotten so I can spot one coming from across a crowded room and it’s always a delightful surprise to see what yarns and colors are being used.

>TAGGED, huh?

Posted on June 11, 2008 by dorischancrochet

WOWSERS! I’ve been tagged with a meme, whatever that means. As I suspected… it hurts! My eternal thanks to that rogue Kim for the initiation. My apologies for being so slow on the uptake. At the time the tagging was done I was welcoming my first house guest since we moved here three years ago. I had to shift a good deal of my yarn stash to make adequate space on the floor of my spare room for her to crash. I’m sure you can relate. I was also up to my little squinty eye-balls packing for TNNA and have been non compos mentis since then.

What was I doing ten years ago?

I was a part-time radio disc jockey at a station in South Jersey doing a nostalgia format (pop standards, big band, oldies) about to go into “retirement” as the station was being sold to a Spanish language broadcasting company.

Five things on my non-work to do list today:

Unpack from TNNA. That counts for at least three things, trust me.

Laundry

Bathe Cookie in anticipation of vet visit for acupuncture in the morning. This is a surprisingly big deal when you consider he is just a Chihuahua (see image above).

Snacks I enjoy (these change seasonally, but for now in no particular order):

Pop Tarts

fresh lychee fruits hand carried by a best friend all the way from her backyard tree in Florida to Columbus

Chocolate Chex cereal

Armenian string cheese on Honey Ritz crackers

Things I would do if I was a billionaire:

Pay off the mortgage

Get a real pony or alternately an alpaca (and the acreage required by the beast)

Have enough Qiviut for a really big project

that all pretty much blows the billion

Places I have lived (some of them):

Pearl River, NY

Spring Valley, NY

Ithaca, NY (Cornell University)

Englewood, NJ

Flemington, NJ

Wilmington, DE

Jobs I have had (some of them):

Counter girl in a Chinese laundry

Singer in a C&W bar band

Card Cataloguer at Cornell U law library (back when such things were hand-typed, have I dated self?)

Studio/Field Operations for ABC Radio Network (glorified button pusher)

Commercial copy writer

Radio Announcer/Disc Jockey/commercial voice-over

Crochet designer, author

and according to my alleged friends, Rock Star (hee-hee)

People I want to know more about:

This request should be made to people of my acquaintance who maintain blogs or websites and have not previously been tagged, huh? Tough call, considering I am new here myself and majorly clueless. Well, I’d be happy to make Vashti squirm. And I always enjoy what Dee has to say.

>TNNA: In Retrospect

Posted on June 11, 2008 by dorischancrochet

>For me fiber events fall into two categories. Either it is a jolly holiday filled with tastings of yarns, chocolate, wine and juicy gossip, punctuated by deep, soul-baring PJ party chats with good buds or good buds-to-be. Or it is a test of endurance and intestinal fortitude on an Olympian scale.

I will say only that TNNA Columbus 2008 was a schizoid brew of both. Rule Number 19: What happens in Columbus stays in Columbus. No exceptions.

Sadly, I was not allowed to wear my happy lucky red China Doll top (see previous post) for the Knitting Daily TV segment shoot on Saturday. But the veto had less to do with the top and all to do with the booth backdrop behind the set. We shot in front of a deep burgundy/maroon colored curtain. Doll was out due to not enough contrast.

Plan B turned out to be the outfit I had worn all day Friday, a combination of white T-shirt and motif tank approved by segment producer Jamie Guthals. Sort of like this, except ignore the camo shorts!

What the frack. I don’t know about you but I don’t enjoy wearing a shirt two days in a row. OK, OK… I’ve been known to sleep in a T-shirt I wore all day. But then the rule is you have to change it the next day. NO exceptions. Anyway, I was in no mood to be washing a top in my hotel sink overnight so it would be acceptably fresh for camera. And who thought to pack two of the same shirts. Really. Like there wasn’t already enough junk in that suitcase. So I had to go to half Plan B and half Plan C. Hey, it worked out fine and the producers were satisfied.

Neither plan anticipated the wacked-out mess that was my hair on that afternoon. Something about the water at the hotel or the suffocating heat of the day was coaxing my hair into a huge salt and pepper rat’s nest. I was obliged to pull it back with a cheapo plastic banana clip I had in my bag. So much for glamour.

Unfortunately/lucky for me no photography is allowed on the convention floor. So no photographic evidence of the event exists. You’ll just have to wait for the segment to air later this fall and imagine the behind the scene hysteria.

The shoot went incredibly well thanks to the team, in particular the aforementioned Jamie, the show producer Kathie, and grand high exhalted kahuna Marilyn Murphy. I felt prepared although there were targs doing the macarena in my stomach. I was almost sorry when it was over. Yeah right. The moment the camera stopped I got the bums rush off the set to make way for the next segment, so I had no chance to meet or thank the rest of the team and crew. Hey guys, consider yourselves thanked! Well, maybe not that sound guy who made me snake the lapel mic up the inside of my T-shirt. I coulda done without that. Just kidding, cutie.

Many thanks to Debbie Skinner and Stacy Charles of Tahki Stacy Charles, my segment sponsor, for providing yarns, prep work and moral support.

One last reflection on the shoot. It’s about my segment host, Kim Werker, editor of Interweave Crochet. Although it may sound annoyingly worshipful and possibly swooning, I must say if I again find myself cast adrift in a crochet life-raft with the camera rolling, I’d want Kim in the bow seat. If you ever have the privilege of working with Kim here are two tips. Avoid at all costs doing anything that earns you the Werker PENETRATING STARE. If she throws that at you, you are doomed. But on the other hand, if you receive the beam of the Werker Wag (the totally adorable way Kim has of lifting or waggling her eyebrows), all is well and Life is Good. Very good indeed. You might even be asked back.