>Blurry Crochet

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>I kinda gushed on MaryBeth Temple’s Getting Loopy podcast from the market preview on Thursday night (which you may hear at your leisure in archive). Obviously at the 2008 CGOA National Conference in Manchester last week one expected to see crochet. But it has never been like this. We had stellar crochet. Grand prize winning crochet. Kick-butt crochet. Slap-me-into-next-week-if-I’ve -ever-seen-anything-so-outrageously-gorgeous crochet. And I fondled it all.

The conference was a non-stop photo op and I would love to show you pictures but I am the worst photographer you will ever meet. I have this shakycam thing going on. Once you’ve let me ruin enough special events with blurry photos, you’ll understand why I am no longer allowed to touch cameras. I must rely on the kindness of strangers and friends to hit me with their best shots. So here’s my favorite so far. Well, it’s the ONLY one I’ve gotten so far.
The Musketeer posse, from left to right that’s Diane Moyer, me, Marty “the Crochet Doctor” Miller, Tammy Hildebrand (more about her later), and Vashti “Madame Secretary and Sexy Nurse” Braha at Professional Development Day. We all would have looked much better if it had not been our misfortune to pose in front of that Pepto pink wallpaper!

Vashti, privy to much inside information that we CGOA plebes never hear, has posted in a most comprehensive way about what made this year’s event so fresh and different. Drew “Italian Jacket” Emborsky has the best wrap-up of Professional Development Day on his Crochet Dude blog. Dee Stanziano has just put up a slideshow of 52 images from the show. From these and other sources I’m finding out all the stuff I missed even though I was there.

Here’s the thing. If you were more than six inches away from me and I was using my prescription RayBans for hair management instead of looking through them, then I didn’t actually see you. Not legally blind. Just incredibly blurry, like my photography. I know for sure that Marci and Kelly from the Elegant Ewe (thanks for hosting my book signings! wonderful as ever) were modeling their Galena and Jewel tops. I couldn’t help noticing two fabulous Lacy Dusters on Nancy (?) and Haley (?) I will totally die if I got their names wrong. (see previous post).

From the runway during the Saturday night fashion show I spotted Karen Drouin in her stunning Blue Curacao and Diane in her dramatic “flamenco” All Shawl, Pam Shore in her evening All Shawl, too. But there was a group of friends at a table W-A-A-A-Y toward the back of the hall who twirled in their All Shawls. Not a clue as to who you are. I know you were there because Dee took a picture. Please speak up so that I may mention you.

This brings me to the one crocheted garment that made my heart stop it was so cool. I had the extreme pleasure of modeling this teeny tiny dress, winner of third prize in the garment division of the first ever CGOA Design Contest, designed by the aforementioned Tammy. I swiped… uh… I mean I asked Dee’s permission to re-post this photo (that OK with you, Dee?). I wish I didn’t have my stupid hand on my hip at that moment because you can hardly see the incredible pineapples under there. I spent most of the time I was wearing this sexy little number trying to figure out how the hell she constructed it. No worries, Tammy. But it might be a good thing if you wrote up that pattern soon.

I never got a chance to thank the people behind the scene at the fashion show who made us look good and tried to make us shut up. Jacque Kurman and Melanie “The Bod” Mays were fabulous as the Mistress of the Curtain and the Wrangler of Models, respectively. There were other helpful ladies backstage but I didn’t have on my RayBans and don’t know who you are. Me sorry.

Hey, don’t be shy about entering and modeling your own crochet (or knit) stuff in these shows, really. It’s possibly even more fun in back than out front. And the audience is mighty generous with approval and applause. Unlike some of us who can’t say no, you will not have to wear anything that is too revealing unless you want to.

Just make sure of a few things before you climb the stairs and onto the runway: 1) have the correct underwear, that goes without saying, 2) hold your head high and keep smiling for all you are worth no matter what happens, even if you stumble or maybe had to rush onstage with the garment inside out, and 3) NEVER follow kids or guys.

PS. The happy group at the back of the room… that was the Fishnet Crocheters of New England chapter. I just found out from Lyn Robinson (who among other jobs writes book reviews for the CGOA, heck, she reviewed mine! Ya think I’d have remembered her. see previous post) that her group chose the All Shawl project as a way to bond through crochet. COOL!

>Senior Moments on Parade

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>Lately I’ve been tempted to offer that sorry-a** excuse for not being able to remember stuff. You know… groan …. Senior Moment. But that’s not always strictly the case when I am unable to pull language, facts and memories out of my brain. It has to do with capacity.

I have reached maximum occupancy. If I want to upload more information into the storage device then I have to kick data outta there. I was at CGOA Chain Link in Manchester for eight days/seven nights and I met (and re-met!) a great many wonderful people in the course of the event. In order for me to record for today and recall at some conference in the future all those faces, names, amusing and/or embarrassing incidents, I’d be forced to forget other faces, names, amusing and/or embarrassing incidents already floating around in my head.

Case in point. A friendly and incredibly familiar face approached me to sign her book. Tripledogdangit if I could not remember her name even though I had not only met her several times before, but am an honorary member of her CGOA Guild Chapter and have twice done demos at chapter meetings. I tried to sneak a sideways look at her name badge so I could avoid the utter shame of having to ask. YIKES! She wasn’t wearing her badge, at least not where I could see it.

In hindsight I can now rationalize having forgotten her name because I had just met a dozen new faces and had to make room. But at the time I had only one option. I smiled very sweetly in my best puppy-dog way, book flap open and Ultrafine point Sharpie poised, and asked how she spelled her name. Just so I got it spelled correctly. Yeah, right. That has to be the lamest thing to say, but what was I to do? Occasionally that’s a superior ploy because some people have unusual names or spellings. HA! Imagine my chagrin when she reminds me that she is Grace. Simply Grace. Remember? HHCC Grace? Terrific Grace? All the refreshments you can eat at her chapter meetings Grace? DUH!

The totally horrifying part is that you don’t get to choose which information goes or stays. I do not understand why I still remember all the lyrics to one of my favorite recordings, “Our Day Will Come” by Ruby and the Romantics, AND I remember that the single was number one on the charts in the spring of 1963. But I couldn’t for the life of me call up that name. I’d gladly have relinquished any currently stored knowledge about meerkats or kumquats or Lamborghinis, just to have experienced the satisfaction of remembering lovely Grace.

There might be a way to de-fragment or re-shuffle the drive to squeeze out a bit more space. It might involve wine. If I figure out the process in time for the CGOA Regional in Portland I’ll let you know. If I remember.

>CHRYSANTHEMUM TEA SKIRT

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>Dang it! I forgot to jump on here and post this pattern extra while I was at CGOA Chain Link in Manchester. Yeah, right. I was having too much fun, as you can see from the image in Dee’s blog post from Thursday night. Gotta say, the wine flowed like… well… WINE. And we all got rather silly. But according to RULE #17: What happens in Manchester, stays in Manchester. Except all the bits that got sneakily preserved in photography.

Anyway, you’ll see that I am wearing this skirt. It’s the perfect wine-imbibing ensemble. Stretchy and comfortable. 😀

In order to crochet this skirt you must already have the pattern for the Chrysanthemum Tea Shawl, one of the designs from my book Amazing Crochet Lace. The instructions here will refer to specific rounds and pages from the book.

To reconfigure the shawl as a skirt, it is a simple matter of leaving out the mesh center and beginning the lace stitch on a large foundation ring. To get a better, modified circle shape to the skirt I also threw in extra rounds for length and finished the bottom with a less ruffled edge than I applied to the shawl. Being vertically challenged, I finished my skirt at 21”, but it is easy enough to adjust for your perfect length.

SKILL LEVEL Easy
SIZE S (M, L, XL, 2XL); length 21”; finished circumference: waistband 30 (33, 37, 41, 44)”, high hip 32 (36, 40, 44, 48)”, low hip 48 (54, 62, 70, 76)”, bottom 80 (90, 100, 110, 120)”
Skirt is seriously stretchy
MATERIALS
Tahki Cotton Classic; 100% mercerized cotton; 1.75 oz (50 g)/108 yd (100 m)
6 (7, 8, 8, 9) hanks in #3003 Natural
I used 9 oz for the sample skirt; feel free to substitute approx 600 (675, 750, 825, 900) yd of any sturdy DK weight yarn of your choice; more yarn required for longer skirt
Size I-9 (5.5 mm) crochet hook
Yarn needle
GAUGE
13 Fsc= 4”
In Lace pattern, Rnd 3 one repeat= 4”, Rnd 10 one repeat= 6”, last rnd one repeat= 10”
5 rnds dc= 3 1/2” (blocked)
Don’t be alarmed if the skirt seems very short right off your hook. The lace should grow and lengthen when blocked.
STITCHES
Same as Shawl, pg 24 except the BASE CH/SC is now called Fsc. When I wrote my books there was not yet a standardized name for this stitch. Today there is general agreement that it should be called Fsc (foundation single crochet). So I’m going along on this.
INSTRUCTIONS
Skirt is made with RS always facing, with some rounds the same as Shawl (page 25).
Fsc 96 (108, 120, 132, 144), sl st in beg sc to form a ring, careful not to twist stitches; begin work across “sc” side of foundation.
RND 1: Ch 1, sc in first sc, [ch 5, sk next 3 sc, sc in next sc] 23 (26, 29, 32, 35) times, ch 2, dc in beg sc for last ch-sp –24 (27, 30, 33, 36) ch-sp
RND 2: Ch 3 (counts as dc), 3 dc in beg ch-sp, *7 dc in next ch-5 sp, 4 dc in next ch-5 sp, ch 2, 4 dc in next ch-5 sp*; repeat from * to * 7 (8, 9, 10 11) times, except omit last 4 dc, instead end with sl st in top of beg ch – 8 (9, 10, 11, 12) lace repeats
RND 3: Ch 3, sk first dc, dc in each of next 3 dc, *ch 4, sk next 3 dc, V in next dc, ch 4, sk next 3 dc, dc in each of next 4 dc, ch 2, dc in each of next 4 dc*; repeat from * to * around, except omit last 4 dc, instead end with sl st in top of beg ch.
RND 4-5: Same as Shawl Rnd 11 for 8 (9, 10, 11, 12) lace repeats
RND 6-7: Same as Shawl Rnd 12
RND 8-9: Same as Shawl Rnd 13 (or repeat for length desired before creating the lower flare)
RND 10-20: Same as Shawl Rnds 14-24 – 80 (90, 100, 110, 120) ch-3 sp
RND 21: Ch 1, sc in beg ch-sp, *[tr3tog, ch 3, tr3tog, ch 3, tr3tog] in next ch-sp (at tip of leaf), sc in next ch-sp, [ch 5, sc in next ch-sp] 3 times*; repeat from * to * around, except omit last ch 5 and sc, instead end with ch 2, dc in beg sc.
RND 22: Same as Shawl Rnd 26 – 80 (90, 100, 110, 120) ch-5 sp
RND 23: Ch 1, [2 sc, ch 3, 2 sc] in each ch-5 sp around, sl st in beg sc, fasten off.
WAISTBAND
RS facing, join with sl st in any ch of foundation.
RND 1: Ch 1, sc in each ch of foundation, sl st in beg sc – 96 (108, 120, 132, 144) sc
RND 2: Ch 4 (counts as dc, ch 1), sk same sc, sk next sc, [dc3tog in next sc, ch 1, sk next sc, dc in next sc, ch 1, sk next sc] around, end with sl st in 3rd ch of beg ch.
RND 3: Ch 1, 2 sc in each ch-1 sp around, end with sl st in beg sc, fasten off.
Weave ends, block skirt before threading following string through spaces in waistband, going behind the dc3tog clusters and in front of the dc.
STRING
Ch 2, sc in 2nd ch from hook, [ch 1, without turning, insert hook from top to bottom through front loop of sc just made, sc], repeat for desired length of string, approx waist measurement plus 24”, fasten off. Weave ends, tie knot in each end of string.

Wine not included.

>PATTERN EXTRAS: Chrysanthemum Tea Skirt

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>Occasionally there are lace patterns that I am compelled to revisit. I can’t help not wanting to let go of a good thing, know what I’m saying? If you don’t recognize this stitch, it is the leafy part of the Chrysanthemum Tea Shawl, the design on the cover of my first book, Amazing Crochet Lace. I had always thought it would make a cute skirt. With a few minor adjustments, I did this in a couple of days, using a natural shade of Tahki Cotton Classic.


The redesign practically crocheted itself. But the patterning will take me a while in order to extrapolate a few more sizes. I hope to knock this out before I leave for 2008 CGOA Chain Link in Manchester next week. If you want to check back in a few days, you may find that I have auto-post the pattern extra details while I am away from my desk. Stay tuned!

>Song of Summer

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>I did not deliberately refrain from writing about the inspirations for some of the names I chose for designs in my books. I simply ran out of space. What, ME, write too much? But I should not have worried about the severity of the editing because many readers have made the connections on their own without my interference.

From Amazing Crochet Lace, the chapter called Under the Boardwalk was my nod to summer; the design names are taken from song titles. If you want, go back and leaf through that chapter while reading the following piece and you’ll have a sense of where I was hoping to take you.

UNDER THE BOARDWALK
The battery-powered transistor radio changed the way young Americans listened to music. Without the encumbrance of tubes and the tether of an electric plug, the radio shrank to portable dimensions and could go anywhere, including inside a stuffed animal. The first transistor radio I owned was imbedded in a flop-eared hound. It seems stupid now, but this was a very big thing at the dawn of the 60’s, the radio dog.

I was enchanted by the pop music coming from deep within my radio dog. My mother says I could sing many of the hits of the day, often at inappropriate moments, even though neither she nor I understood the lyrics. One such song, played over and over on the air, was a folk song about a guy who kills a girl and gets hanged, “Tom Dooley” by the Kingston Trio. What was up with THAT? The hits on my radio were so different from the Patti Page, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Johnny Mathis records my folks had. (Incidentally, I was never told this, but I learned from my mother not long after my dad died that I had been named after Doris Day… by him.) Not that my mom didn’t appreciate rock and roll. After all, she adored Elvis, too. But I began to hear a beat that separated my music from their music.

These were to be my last carefree summers. Too soon I would be tall enough to see over the counter at the laundry, capable enough to make change at the cash register, old enough to help at my family’s business weekends and school vacations. It wasn’t grim, hard or forced labor in any way; just a half-day and not every day. It was often fun, and besides it made me feel so grown up and I loved being with my dad.

Here’s a photo from September 1964 of my dad and my little brother. Sadly there are no pictures of me and my dad behind the counter because my mom was afraid to touch the camera, so if there were any photo ops it was either Dad or me behind the lens.

I learned a lot about work and life standing next to him at that counter, but the thing that made my dad the proudest and amazed everyone the most was the way I learned to make change. Our NCR cash register was modern at the time, but it resembled a huge adding machine more than the computerized techno registers today, some of which don’t even accept cash! This one simply printed the prices you typed in, opened the cash drawer with a happy little ringing sound, and kept a running total of the day’s receipts. If my customer didn’t have the exact amount to pay, I had to figure out what coins and bills to give back as change. At this task I was a whiz, leading my father to believe, erroneously, that I might find future success in business.

I also learned a few things from the customers, not always nice things. All these years I have been nursing the sting of certain insults, real and imagined, that I suffered in the presence of certain customers. I will now vent.

— Never pull my sticky-outy pigtails or pinch my chubby cheeks. It’s not my fault that you find them cute.

— Do not assume that I don’t understand English just because I work in a Chinese laundry and my parents speak broken English. Resist the urge to speak in your own version of broken English. “No tickee, no starchee” is as much gibberish to me as it is to you.

— Rid yourselves of the habit of talking louder, in the belief that increased volume fosters increased understanding. I am Chinese-American, not deaf.

— Realize that it is useless to distract or confuse me while I am making change. My dad taught me to lay your bills on top of the cash register in plain sight while I scoop out the change. That way, when you try to claim you gave me a twenty, I can show you (most politely) that it was a ten.

And the single most important thing I learned about business… the customer is always right. Occasionally you have to finesse the customer into believing what you know is right is the same as what they think is right.

My dad kept a radio in the back of the store that he could listen to while he pressed shirts. Funny thing, though, his radio only got baseball games. During those summers in the 60’s I had to wait until I got home to hear my music. By then Beatlemania was sweeping the nation and I bought into the whole deal. If you weren’t there you can’t know how fresh, appealing and sing-along-able those Beatles tunes were to a kid. The Beach Boys, the Supremes and Petula Clark were other favorites. But there was one song that captured the essence of summer and that was the Drifters’ 1964 hit “Under the Boardwalk”.

Mind you, I’d never been on a boardwalk, much less under one. My partner, John, loves to tell the tales of how he spent every summer of his childhood at the Jersey shore. Long before it turned into a trashy mecca for gamblers, the boardwalk in Atlantic City was a vacation destination for families fleeing the heat and humidity of Philadelphia streets. John speaks often of the gangs of kids he used to hang with, playing football on the beach, combing the beach for, not shells, but discarded soda bottles to return for pocket money. John actually witnessed the Diving Horse at the Steel Pier, enjoyed the pinball, games and rides at the Million Dollar Pier and cavorted in the ocean surf. To this day he needs only the merest whiff of salt air to be awash with memories of his childhood summers.

Now that I’ve experienced boardwalks for myself, I’ve decided I don’t like them. They are hot and crowded. Sand gets everywhere, in everything. The ocean has all manner of stuff, non-human stuff, floating, crawling and swimming around in it. The only aspect of the boardwalk I did like was the food. I’d go there in a heartbeat and endure any amount of sand in my shoes for the saltwater taffy and the funnel cake. You can get either of those treats away from the boardwalk, but it’s never the same.

Funny how that happens. How all the longing and romance of a summer song from my childhood can be, forty years later, distilled into the three-minute act of eating a funnel cake while strolling the boards, the ocean breeze kicking up sand and powdered sugar, the cacophony from the mob of gulls circling overhead warning me that one cheeky gull is ready to swoop down and snatch the treat from my fingers if I don’t hurry up and finish.