CGOA Reno: I’m at WHAT convention?

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So this is not the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada????  It’s four hundred miles away in Reno, I’m at a Crochet Guild of America conference, and this is September, not August 2012. But a little space and time shift didn’t bother me any.

Photo courtesy of Vashti Braha

And there’s the perfect argument for Star Fleet having a mandatory retirement age! That’s me, dashing about getting a few things we needed for the CGOA Fashion Show (lint roller in hand!), standing still only momentarily at the Crochet Design Showcase, an experimental booth I launched at the Reno conference. More about the conference in a bit.  As for the dress, it is only faintly recognizable as the Rockin Red Dress, my design published in the current Fall 2012 issue of Interweave Crochet.  In the magazine it is styled this way:

Photo courtesy of Interweave Crochet

Crochet the dress a couple of inches shorter, wear it with black boots, a T-shirt collar and a spiffy replica of Lt. Uhura’s insignia from the Star Trek 2009 reboot film, and, it reverts back to the original inspiration for the design:

Well, yes.  Zoe Saldana’ Uhura is much younger, curvier and hotter than me. And her uniform dress is scandalously short and fitted. But you get the idea.  Even we geeky fan girls can play dress up once in a while.

One to beam up!

Of Evil Orchids… and a Crochet Scarves Winner

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I suspect many readers today are more interested in the latter than the former, so I will begin by announcing the winner of a copy of Sharon Silverman‘s new book, Crochet Scarves.  Congratulations to grannymax!  I’ll shoot you an e-mail and we can sort out the details.  I know Max will enjoy the book, as will everyone else who gets their hands on it.  Thanks for playing along and best of luck when the next carrot is offered! Here are some of the coming contributors to the Crochet Scarves blog tour, with more TBA:

StyledbyKristin.com (Kristin Omdahl) on 7/24; Modeknit.com (Annie Modesitt) on 7/27; GoCrochet.com (Ellen Gormley) on 7/30; CrochetbyFaye.com (Robyn Chachula) on 8/3; Handsindelight.com on 8/10; Crochetville.org on 8/13; Crochetconcupiscence.com on 8/23

If that’s all you need to know, then you may be excused.

Now, about the orchids. Plants can’t be evil, can they?  They aren’t sentient and don’t move, so if you leave them alone they leave you alone, know what I’m saying?  Not that you can’t be injured or killed by plants.  Heck, I’ve been stung by nettles, pricked by thorns, stickered by bushes and poisoned by ivy and oak (luckily never poisoned by mushrooms).  My bad for not giving all of those plants a wide berth.

It’s also your bad if you go hacking through an impenetrable  jungle or wander off the trail into the deep forest at night. We didn’t need The Blair Witch Project to show us that getting lost in the woods after dark is truly scary.  And even though it’s not the plants in the woods that are evil, still it’s a good idea to heed the warning: Don’t go in the woods at night.  Just don’t.  What if there are R.O.U.S. lurking?

Pop culture, science fiction and fantasy are rife with examples of plants that are out to get you (which assure and reassure me that I am not the only one who has these thoughts), from the ridiculously silly Killer Tomatoes to the mildly disturbing Krynoid pods in Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom.  Hey, the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz didn’t spook me as much as the abusive trees. As a kid I thought twice before picking apples, or any fruit for that matter.

In the first season Star Trek episode This Side of Paradise, normally logical, stoic Spock gets shot in the face by a cloud of spores from an alien flower and under the influence turns into a stoned idiot. Yikes, somehow a gang of these flowers gets transported to the Enterprise, everyone is infected, and the entire crew mutinies and abandons ship. Dammit, Jim, I’m a crocheter not a botanist, but those plants are from the dark side. You do realize there are plant spores in the air all around us, like from mold and fungi, inhaled in every breath, and we hardly give them a second thought, but spores should not be taken lightly.

There are real-world carnivorous plants that creep me out.  It’s a short hop from an actual Venus Fly Trap to the ginormous, ravenous Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. And how about Pitcher plants? They are scary-sneaky, attracting insects with nectar bait, luring them to their drowning deaths in a pool of digestive enzymes.  Sweet, huh?

I look at certain shoots and tendrils that seek anything that can help support the plant, how they seem to reach out, grab and wrap around whatever they touch.  Even the fastest-growing of them only extend inches a day, so a person could easily get out of the way. But what if you’re incapacitated somehow, or asleep? How about the maze, the final challenge in the Triwizard Tournament from Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire? Yes, admittedly that was an enchanted maze, but still it was majorly creepy and didn’t your heart skip a few beats when the shrubbery snaked out and attacked Cedric Digory?

Roots are the freakiest bits, sickly pale fibrous things that slowly, inexorably spread, invade, entangle, engulf and even penetrate anything in the way, even rock.  Since most plants keep their roots hidden from sight, either under the soil or shielded by leaves, we are not constantly reminded of their grotesqueness.  But last year I met a plant whose roots scared the crap out of me. I was visiting Vashti Braha in subtropical Florida, so I knew there’d be stuff not seen here in Pennsylvania.  During a walk around her block she showed me my first strangler fig.  Just the name makes me uneasy.  I love trees; Ents are favorite characters of mine from Lord of the Rings. It made me cry to see what was happening to so many trees in Vashti’s neighborhood; slow, horrible, crushing death by strangler fig.  I still have nightmares.

I got that uneasy feeling about a plant one other time. It was the day I was Sharon Silverman’s guest at Longwood Gardens early last spring.  Although we are practically neighbors, Sharon and I had never met before that day and I was delighted to share an afternoon at one of her happy places. The day was blustery, and although we did a bit of walking around the grounds, we spent much of our visit in the conservatory viewing the Orchid Extravaganza.  The exhibit was pretty amazing, breathtaking actually, and we had a wonderful time getting to know each other over lunch. I didn’t think to capture the moments in photos, but Sharon did take a few shots. Since she was wielding the camera there isn’t a picture of her or the both of us, but here’s me.

And here’s a shot Sharon took of some pretty orchids.

There was an orchid hanging from a tree in a dim corner and I swear I got shivers just looking at it.  Unlike the delicate or gaily colored ones we had admired, this one was dangerous; lurid purple and blood, with vomit shaded accents. It was the tropical kind with aerial roots, a freaky wormy ball of roots that with very little imagination could turn into a wriggling, writhing mass that might slither over and hunt you for food if you got too close.  Sharon had a good chuckle over my comments about the scary orchids. But notice she didn’t take any pictures of them. And I never turned my back on them, not once. 🙂

Of “Crochet Scarves”, Carrots and Sticks

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In keeping with my previously established, more disciplined approach to newsy important posting (as opposed to the manner in which I present the more imaginative, inconsequential posts), I am telling  you up front that today you have an opportunity to win a copy of my friend Sharon Silverman‘s incredible new book, Crochet Scarves: Fabulous Fashions – Various Techniques (Stackpole Books, 2012).  I guess that’s your carrot.  🙂

It occurs to me that the efficacy of the whole carrot (the reward) and stick (the threat) thing completely depends upon your species, your point of view and inclinations.  If you’re a pony, then OK. Consider my dog.  To him, carrots are not edible (this is the little brat who often behaves as though dog food isn’t edible, either.)  Put a carrot in his dish and he’d probably sniff it, scratch all around the dish for a few minutes, push the carrot out of the dish, toss it around the floor for another few minutes before beginning to whine. But present him with a stick… WOWSERS, a stick! He’ll chase that stick until he collapses in panting exhaustion. So to him the carrot is the threat; the stick the reward. Speaking as a person who doesn’t care much for carrots, I’d be much more motivated if you dangled chocolate cake instead. And if the stick can be used to hold crochet stitches, then that’s going to be more intriguing than threatening.  It would have to be something totally horrible, like, say pattern sizing, to be a true threat.  If offered the chocolate cake or the pattern sizing, you could get me to pull the cart, no question. See what I mean?

So for the sake of a better figure of speech, I should really let you fill in your own choice. Sharon’s new book, Crochet Scarves is [your reward here]. Turns out Sharon Silverman and I are practically neighbors.  We finally met face to face last spring over some evil orchids.  But that’s another story.

The concept of this book is quite brilliant.  In Sharon’s hands, the lowly scarf becomes the canvas for the exploration of various crochet techniques, ranging from mitered squares to lace and colorwork, broomstick crochet and (what I consider to be her specialty) Tunisian crochet. Each of the 21 scarf projects is accompanied by an achingly complete tutorial, including step-by-step images of hands, hook and yarn, stitch symbol diagrams and close-up shots of the fabric.  No matter what sort of learner you are, Sharon’s got you covered.  Not only do her lessons prepare you to make the scarf designs in the book; this is stuff that will boost your confidence when working on other people’s designs (including mine!).

While Sharon’s scarves are the perfect teaching tools for techniques, they are also majorly wonderful opportunities to experiment with different yarns.  Many of the projects require just one skein of fabulous yarn, or one skein of each color. I have two favorite designs.  Cactus Lace alternates broomstick with rows of double crochet to great effect.

Electric Lime is an awesome way to make variegated yarn look good in crochet.  It is done in Tunisian net (also called Tunisian full stitch) that allows the color changes to overlap, like bargello. Clever.

My blog today is merely the first stop on the tour for Crochet Scarves, a month-long celebration.  Check Sharon’s website and Facebook page for the latest links and book giveaways.

Now the exciting part. Please leave a comment below to enter a drawing to win a copy of Crochet Scarves compliments of Sharon Silverman and Stackpole Books. You don’t have to write anything fancy.  Sucking up to either me or Sharon won’t improve  your chances because a number will be chosen at random.  Yeah, right.  Deadline for comments is midnight Eastern Time, 21 July, Saturday night.  I’ll be back on Monday to announce the winner and award the carrot.  Or chocolate cake.  Whatever. 🙂

Personal Crochet Awards: What happens at Chain Link….

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… doesn’t necessarily stay at Chain Link, especially when many, many thanks and much recognition must be given for brilliant teamwork. The Crochet Guild of America is a volunteer organization and the success of our conferences depends on selfless dedication on the part of the committee members and our Board of Directors liaisons to the committees. I can’t say we worked tirelessly.  I certainly was exhausted and more than a little grumpy by the close of the event.  Still am.

In retrospect, I did not express very well at the time the gratitude and affection I feel for all those who pitched in to make the three events I helped produce so awesome and fun: the Design Competition, the Dance Party, the Fashion Show.  I hope to make up for that here.  Also, in the spirit of carefully considered disclosure, I’ve decided to spill about some of the stuff you missed if you weren’t there in Manchester, NH for the 2012 Chain Link Conference.

“Design Trek: The Next Generation”: this award goes to the heirs apparent to this huge event, my co-chairs for the 2012 Design Competition committee, Andee Graves and Shari White, and special thanks to Janet Bates without whom we might still be there packing up boob dummies.

“So You Think You Can Design…”: I’ve previously been on the judging panel for this event so I know it’s one of the most difficult places to be. For their keen eyes, immaculate taste, cooperative and congenial manner, efficiency, and take-no-prisoners attitude, I salute the three kahunas, our judges for 2012, Cari Clement, Melissa Leapman and Carla Scott.

“Show Me the Money”: No other crochet event offers more cash awards. Our winning designers took home $5,600 in prizes and it couldn’t have happened without the generous support of our sponsors. I bow down before them. If you have a chance, please let them know that you know that they are friends of crochet and CGOA.

The $1000 Grand Prize sponsor, Vogue Knitting Crochet

The Magnificent Seven, who each contributed $600 category sponsorships:

AllFreeCrochet.com and FaveCrafts.com; Boye and the Crochet Dude brand; Interweave Crochet; Red Heart; Tahki Stacy Charles; Tulip Company; WEBS;

And special prize grants from the Crochet Liberation Front, Designing Vashti, and Gwen Blakley Kinsler.

“Dodecahedra-what-me-worry?”: For their serenity and easy competence at all things technical, I give full marks to the two savvy kids I call Team Geek, KJ Hay and Bradley Schmerl.

“Papa-papa-razzi Award”: For her awesome photography of everything that went down the runway at the Fashion Show, and for entrusting us with the precious results, a million thousand thanks to Bonnie Barker.

“Mod[el] Squad”: Thanks to the ringers who allowed themselves to be drafted, strutted their stuff and squeezed into the teeny tiny design and fashion show garments that nobody else could hope to wear, including teen sensations Patrice Scott, Katy Temple, and Becky Barker and the exquisite Carlotta Craig, the coolest mom on the block Haley Zimmerman, and to Missy Boo, too. Also, to the unsung heroines behind the curtain at the fashion show who made everything run like Drano, I thank Diane Moyer and Pat (forgive me I can’t remember her last name). 🙂

“Moves Like Jagger Award”: Jack Blumenthal

“Best Y.M.C.A from a Chair”: Carol Moore

“Best Chicken Dance”: Tammy Hildebrand.  I don’t know why I bother to single her out every year.  Tam always brings it on; nobody even comes close to her enthusiasm and technique.

“Redneck Woman Appreciation Award”: Here’s to all my sisters out there keeping it country, and a big Hell Yeah back atcha!

“Oh What a Terrible Tangled Web”: What started out as a monumental ball winding catastrophe turned into a love fest due to the grace and forgiveness of Yvette Jiggetts and the diligence of the Un-Knotters Erwin Goodwin et al. This is Chain Link camaraderie and caring at its finest.

“More Me Than Me”: It was an honor and a thrill to see so many crocheters wearing their garments made from Doris Chan patterns.  I shoulda taken more pictures.  Meaning I took NO pictures.  But all of my friends please let me know if you’ve posted any and I’ll share. I must mention one intrepid fan who wore a different DC every day and must surely own more samples of my designs than I do.  Linda (aka LadyGryphon on Ravelry.com) showed me at least six of her stunning creations and doubtless had packed more in her suitcase. I suspect if I designed underwear and shoes, there would have been even more. 🙂

“Knowing When to Stop Swatching May Be the Smartest Thing That Any CGOA Instructor Can Learn”: I do not exaggerate when I report that one person provided at least ten pounds of crochet swatches as classroom demo materials.  I only know this to be true because I helped ship, handle and schlep them around. Yes, she totally geeks out with her techniques, but this is a good thing, huh? To Vashti Braha, congratulations on your four sold-out, well-received classes this Chain Link, but enough with the swatches already!  Vashti is on the teaching schedule in Reno, but trust me, I will not be lugging swatches unless there is wine and chocolate cake at the end of it.

“Best Chocolate Cake”: You had to know this was coming.  I sampled at least a half-dozen different ones in Manchester, from the sweet little thing offered with the Mexican Buffet at the venue hotel’s J.D.’s Tavern to the dessert at our Saturday night CGOA Dinner to the elegant cognac-infused French confection from Finesse Pastries a few blocks down on Elm Street. The absolute best chocolate cake among those available to me was the Chocolate Decadence from Baked Downtown Cafe. I actually inhaled two huge slices during the conference.  But as I always insist, “Calories consumed at Chain Link do not count”.

“Best Performance as a Crochet Newbie”: Cast in the role of clueless freshman crochet designer in the new format for Professional Development Day, K-Mac, Kimberly McAlindin, deserves an Academy Award for her portrayal.  If you don’t mind ROFL, then sign up for PDDay in Reno in September when there’ll be another K-Mac attack.

Registration is now open for the second CGOA Conference for 2012 in Reno, Nevada, 12-16 September.  Be there…. or be scratching your head wondering what the frack is this all about when I post those awards!

People’s Choice Award 2012

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The People’s Choice Award of $100, sponsored by the Crochet Liberation Front, is the final prize in the Crochet Guild Of America 2012 Design Competition.  Voted by conference attendees and visitors to the Competition Exhibit in Manchester, NH last week, and winner by an overwhelming margin, is the Pineapple Rose Delight, designed by Carol Booth.

This wondrous design was also the winner of $200 Second Prize in the Thread Crochet category, sponsored by AllFreeCrochet.com and FaveCrafts.com. Here’s what Carol had to say about her entry:

“Thread crochet christening outfit, made with #30 6-cord vintage Cartier-Bresson thread and a #10 steel hook. I crocheted a variety of different pineapple motifs, roses and Swarvoski crystal beads together to create this dress, with picot arch stitches. A lot of fun to create, just letting my fingers do the work!”

I figured out how to show everybody my images of all the entries without having to re-upload them.  Please excuse the amateur photography.  Please follow the link to my Flickr photo set and enjoy a slideshow of the photos!

CGOA 2012 Design Competition Entries

Oh, and while I’m at it, you can also see all the stuff that we sent down the runway in the CGOA Fashion Show, Saturday night, 30 June, following our dinner event. That show ended with a Parade of Winners from the Design Competition, so you can see what those garments are like on models.  Well, sort of models. Just us CGOA members and family.

2012 CGOA Fashion Show Manchester

Here’s the answer to all the questions concerning the yarns and patterns for these crochet designs.  The Design Competition does not require patterns or yarn information for entries.  For this event it’s all about the creativity of CGOA members and not about publishing.  Many of the designers are gifted amateurs who have no intention of writing patterns, sorry.  Some of the entries may eventually be published, but that may take a while and depends on the desires and skills of the entrants to make that happen.

On the other hand, many of the Fashion Show garments are currently published and are available either in magazines, on-line from the designers or companies who submitted the pieces, or soon to be published.

And may I correct the mistaken impression that these are all my designs.  NOT.  The images for these slideshows were uploaded by me, but the crochet was designed by competition and/or fashion show participants.  Please view the individual photo descriptions for information about the designers.