The Crochet Guild of America awaits your entries for the CGOA 2012 Crochet Design Competition. Our entry form is now live, ready for you to fill out, hit the submit button and then ship your design entry to the receiving location in time for the deadline, 6 June 2012. Thanks to the generous support and crochet love from our magnificent sponsors we have over $5000 in cash prizes to award. The competition is open to CGOA members only. For more details, see and download this information package.

Check out this post for a look at winning designs from past competitions.

Such an  uncharacteristic thing for me to get that out of the way first!  This makes two blog posts in a row where I have placed the lead, the most important bit of news, in the opening paragraph rather than burying it in a pile of inconsequential verbage. It’s like there should be a VIEW pull-down tab at the top of the page, with clickable choices for “normal cluttered view” and “cut to the chase view”. Can WordPress actually do that?  You think the FAQ section would have tips? Having the option of skipping the fluff might be useful if you’re pressed for time as I imagine there are other sites you need to be surfing.  Hey, aren’t there new cat videos that you haven’t seen yet? For that reason alone you might appreciate better efficiency here.

SO not gonna happen.  For those who might click the “normal cluttered view” we return now to catch up on the fluff.

In my role as producer of the CGOA 2012 Design Competition I have the responsibility of keeping the progression of events on schedule. This means I have to say, write and think “deadline”.  YIKES! You have no idea how conflicted I am about having to make the keystrokes to spell that dreaded word, much less presume to enforce the aforementioned date. Among my faults… well, fault is such a judgmental term, let’s call them my personality quirks…. is that I am forever late. Tardiness is nothing I plan or calculate; it just happens.  You can ask any of my employers which crochet designer has the worst on-time record for turning in design work. It’s gotten to the point where editors actually faint if materials arrive from me in time to meet their deadlines.  Overnight shipping is my way of life.

That doesn’t mean you should do as I do. True chronic tardiness is nothing to which one aspires. And there is no excuse for it, only the mitigating factor that creativity can neither be scheduled nor can it be rushed. Only partly in jest  have I suggested to editors that they NEVER tell me the real drop-dead deadline for any project. I’ve begged them to make up fake early dates just for me and then, perhaps, my designs would be done by the same time as everyone else’ stuff. But this is merely a mind game; lateness isn’t about not knowing or caring when things are due.

Tardiness bleeds over into my personal life as well.  My family and friends can count on my being at least a few minutes behind no matter what the occasion. I’d have to check with my mom, but, heck I think I was even born late. Well-meaning loved ones have never complained to my face, and yet often they gift me with time stuff, watches and clocks and calendars. I must have a staggering number of wristwatches, not a working battery among them, stuffed in a drawer somewhere. The thing is, lateness isn’t about not knowing what time or what day it is.

Put into perspective, tardiness doesn’t seem so awful. It doesn’t rank up there among the seven deadly sins of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony (my favorite!). What possibly makes tardiness worse than gluttony is that the former is a public sin and the latter is often a secret one. Mercifully, gluttony can be hidden.  You will never know, nor will it impact on anyone else if I inhale an entire box of Pop Tarts. My bathroom scale will undoubtedly know, but it isn’t talking.

However, when I am late turning in my design to a magazine it could throw off the smooth running of a chain of events, like cascading dominoes. It puts pressure on all those who in turn have to handle my work: editors, technical editors, art directors, illustrators, graphic designers, photographers and could eventually trickle down to the printers, publishers, shippers, distributors and retailers. OMG! Could it be that you got your magazine subscription issue in the mail a few days late because I procrastinated about writing the sizing for a garment pattern and missed the deadline?

Not to lay any guilt on you, dearest competition entrant, but that’s why I gently urge you to submit the form, prepare your design package and ship it to arrive by the aforementioned date, 6 June 2012.  Don’t make me type the D word again, please.

For those not involved in the design competition, it would still be a wonderful thing if you’d visit our sponsors’ sites and let them know that you know that they love and support crochet as much as you do.

• AllFreeCrochet.com and FaveCrafts.com, offering diverse crochet e-newsletters, e-books and patterns
• Gwen Blakley-Kinsler, founder of CGOA
• Boye and the Crochet Dude collection of crochet tools and accessories
• Crochet Liberation Front, setting picot free since 2007
• DesigningVashti, the destination for boutique crochet patterns and a wealth of crochet information
• Interweave Crochet
• Red Heart Yarns
• Tahki Stacy Charles Yarn Company, distributors of Tahki, S. Charles Collezione, Filatura di Crosa, and Loop-d-Loop by Teva Durham yarns, books and patterns
• Tulip Company, manufacturers of Etimo cushion grip crochet hooks and other fine tools
• WEBS, America’s Yarn Store
• Vogue Knitting Crochet

Hope to see your designs and best of luck!