Crochet Queen: Royal Ramblings

For those of you who were not able to hear Suzann Thompson’s inspiring presentation at Evening of Excellence at the CGOA conference in Portland last July, I have an exciting update about her exhibit's sucess! Suzann Thompson, Fiber Artis t

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 Today I  honor the very first chapter of CGOA: The Northern IL Chapter . Our current logo This year, along with CGOA, we will be celebrating a twentieth anniversary: that of our chapter! Thanks to Dana Kahan Benjamin, who I met while planning the first Chain Link conference, we had a meet-up for what was to become the first CGOA chapter in June 1994 at the Mt. Prospect, IL library. Dana insisted that we make an effort to meet other crocheters before the conference which would take place in August that same summer. She made the arrangements with the library and announced it in the paper. Together we taught the participants an introduction to free form crochet. We were quite pleased that seventeen enthusiastic crocheters showed up. We charged $3.00 to pay for the library room and refreshments; and that day The Northern IL group was formed. Many of our chapter members have gone on to hold volunteer positions with the national organization, CGOA: ...

Tuesday, March 20, 2012,, Today is primary election day and I hope everyone is off to the polls, like me, to exercise your rights! March is also National Crochet Month. Started in 1998 by the Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) , it was first designated as "National Crochet Week" and was meant as a time for all of us crocheters to celebrate our love of the craft and treat ourselves to some special crochet activity, tool or just "me-time" to do what we love to do! The Craft Yarn Council and their various retailers were already celebrating National Craft Month in March, but we didn't believe that crochet was getting the attention it deserved. So, we hitched on to the them in March and celebrated crochet as an organization. At the Time Pam Oddi was the CGOA President and also the webmaster. As our organization grew and we wielded more influence, we expanded the celebration to a whole month. Shortly thereafter, organizations like the Craft Yarn Council jumped ...