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Ah, yes. Don’t we enjoy the spectacle of awards night! I mean, even though I had not seen one single film or performance that got Oscar-nominated, and honestly could not have cared less which would win, I still watched the Academy Awards show. It was partly… well, mostly… would you believe totally because I needed to see Hugh Jackman in a tux, without evil-looking steel shooting from his fingertips, sans wolfish sideburns.

But I also tune in to view, with morbid curiosity, the reactions of those who did not win. For it is the manner in which you handle defeat that you show your true face. Some years the production allows for enough cameras that there is a split screen shot of all the nominees’ faces just as the winner is announced. This year there was none of that, perhaps a blessing. What the heck. More screen time for Mr. Jackman.

The declaration “It is an honor just to be nominated” falls from every not-Oscar-ed star’s lips. And I used to think it sounded and felt hollow. Dangit, just once I’d like to hear, “I really wanted to win and so should have won and now I’m gonna have to drag my sorry butt to all these fracking post-parties and get supremely waffled on pity champagne.”

Compared to Oscar night, what happened earlier this evening during the live segment of the blogtalk radio show Getting Loopy wasn’t as big-time or as glamorous. But I could not have been more thrilled if I had been handed one of those gold statues. All who tuned in were witness to the presentation of the first annual Crochet Liberation Front Crochet Awards (Flamies). I was voted best designer in the category womens garments from a list of designers that read like a Who’s Who of the crochet firmament. I joined a Getting Loopy guest list that included movers and shakers in the industry and other celestial beings in the form of fellow designers I call friends.

This blog was actually on the ballot for best blog. Didn’t win, though. That Flamie went to the CrochetDude, the alter ego of Drew Emborsky. It’s all about the cat images, I tell myself.

It is an honor just to be nominated. Funny how those words coming from my lips right now aren’t sounding as trite or pitiful as I might have believed before tonight. I truly am honored and happy just to be on the short list because the Flamies are gifts of validation from an outrageous, majorly off-kilter, completely insane group of rabid, obsessive crochet freaks. And I say all that with love because I, too, am a member of the Crochet Liberation Front.

If you missed the ceremony you can always hear or download the segment from the Getting Loopy archive. If you’re curious about CLF please join us at www.Ravelry.com. And watch for my virtual award thingie to appear here soon.

>OK, I think I did this stream of consciousness thing backwards. What set off the entire chain of thought was a comment from a reader here a couple of weeks back. She asked if I could design children’s wear and I stated, flatly, no way.

I lied. Over a decade ago, before crochet, there was knitting. I knitted tons of baby things before I discovered that crochet was the better way to go. In fact, it was a pattern for a knitted baby set that started me on the way to my current crochet MO of top-down, seamlessness.

I still have the Winter 1996 issue of Knitters Magazine from whence came this gem. It is the Baby Delight on page 46, designed by Irene Kublius, a hat and sweater set that could be sized for a baby or a little kid, depending on your choice of yarn and gauge. Already that was a revelation to me. But the most appealing feature of this design was that it was…. wait for it…. top-down, one piece, no seaming,  from the teeny garter stitch collar right down to the cuffs. I knit literally dozens of these tiny sweaters in a range of yarns and gauges, learning along the way what happens to the proportions of the fabric when you do this. These were valuable lessons in garment non-construction that I would lean on in years to come when setting out to create my own designs.

By the time I had the skills and experience to really design cool stuff, my own chicks had flown the nest and for a long while there were no occasions for making baby things. I don’t think I’d know how to start. It’s a whole different process from designing women’s fashions. I sort of forgot how small real babies are, how big their heads are in proportion to their necks and bodies.

Which brings me to the point. A few years ago I actually did design a crocheted sweater set for a little girl, as yet unpublished. This is the original Melon-Color Baby, the design that was the answer to the reader’s comment that set me to thinking about the name that prompted me to write the previous blog post that is the backstory to this design. Does that make sense?

I didn’t have a kid handy to serve as a model, so I used a doll.

Which reminds me, once and only once and by accident, I designed doll stuff. While experimenting with gauge I extrapolated that a small human sized vest in worsted weight if crocheted in sportweight, fits a bear; in size 30 thread it fits Barbie. For the record, I did not personally crochet the thread version.  That was done, completely voluntarily, by my friend and other half of my brain, Karen Manthey.

 Why are you not surprised that I never went there again?