Crochet Queen: Royal Ramblings

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 I was super busy yesterday wrapping up our three-month stay here in Ajijic: last manicure; eating one last time at a favorite restaurant, Tony's; picking up the mail one last time; boxing up some things to leave in the house; working on technical difficulties with PayPal and wrestling with YouTube! Life just doesn't slow down! I don't want it to! Well, maybe sometimes....I purposely didn't kill myself to blog last night because today is the launch of my new e-newsletter, "Talking Crochet" and I wanted to share the link with you! I am the newest editor and I write the newsletter once a month sharing it with another editor. This is the second edition of the newsletter that I have written and I don't know what happened last month; I didn't promote it. I was probably still so shocked that they approached me to be the Editor and so mesmerized by my new life in Ajijic, that I just plain forgot! If the link doesn't go directly ...

Monday, March 21, 2011 Most every region in Mexico, from Oaxaca to the Yucatan, has a rich history of folk art. Ajijic, where we have spent a very pleasant winter, is designated in guidebooks as an artist colony. It is true, there are numerous shops and boutiques where art is for sale. Foreigners with a bent toward the artistic seem to gravitate to this town and live out their later years fulfilling their desires to create art or explore their lifelong hobbies further. Indigenous artisans find their way to Ajijic to sell their wares at the weekly open-air market and along the lakefront of Lake Chapala which attaracts many visitors. Today, I want to compile photos of the colorful artisans and their art. I may have mentioned some of them in passing over the last 10 weeks, but here they are all in one place in their glorious color and creativity. Just everyday life: painting on a local house. Metal sculptures in the plaza for Three Kings Day Art on the walls at the Cultural Center ...

Monday, March 14, 2011 I've known for a long time that I just can get enough of color. I also know that I have a very hard time paring down or limiting colors. especially when it comes to crocheting a project or starting from scratch to design one! For 46 weeks now, I have been participating in a freeform crochet Crochet-Along: Freeform Fun & Fivolity . It is a special project on my designer Fan Page at Ravelry. You can see photos of all of our creations here:www.ravelry.com/groups/cro-kween designs I chose to do each of the weekly instructions in some shade of red. It is a study in red and dedicated to my mother and her favorite color. A year sounded like a long time for this project, but now it is hard to believe that it will be over in just 5 more weeks. We have a group of about 54 enthusiastic free-formers and very creative crocheters. It is amazing to see what they come up with each week with their own interpretations of the instructions. Most instructions have bee...

Monday, March 7, 2011 One year ago today, I started a "Designer Fan Page" on Ravelry: Cro-Kween Designs. Today we are having a virtual party all day, with games (first one in progress NOW), food, all kinds of Courtly craziness from the Kween's Minions and some surprises! The party will culminate in the Chat Room with the Kween starting at 3 pacific time. Join in if you can, with Royal questions or anything crochet-related for the Kween! What started with just a member or two (hummywinger being one of the first!) has grown to 426 as of today. We like parties here and every time we reach another 100 members, we celebrate and the Kween gives a prize! One of our first Crochet-Alongs (CAL)at Cro-Kween Designs has been a very successful Freeform Crochet CAL. We call it "Freeform Fun & Frivolity" and in the able hands of Twisted1 and Lupa we have definitely had fun and we have been challenged by the weekly insrtuctions which allows us to create a croc...