Crochet Queen: Royal Ramblings

December 2019 It will be 25 years since I started the Crochet Guild of America and the ongoing battle to bring awareness, to anyone who will listen, of the intricacies and delights of crochet. It's been an on-gong challenge to break the stereotypes surrounding crochet. Yes, some of us are "old ladies in rocking chairs making doilies;" but hey, today crochet is at an all-time high in popularity with the twenty to forty-year-old generations. It has been a marketing challenge to wear, exhibit and promote crochet at every opportunity. Always proud when we pull off a major PR coup, I am even more delighted when I innocently discover "someone else," not connected to CGOA, is out there helping us!

There is a thread connecting us all as humans. A loop of crochet has me intertwined to many in different and satisfying ways. I am all about crochet. It lays on the coffee table in the living room and drips from the arm of the couch ~ works in progress abound. To-Do projects fill a basket and UFOs wait on my desk.  As the introduction of my blog says, "My life and my crochet are inextricably linked." It is uncanny how I can often weave a connection between mylife experiences and how my crochet is a part of it. First off, I so firmly believe in the value of crochet as a therapeutic tool and healthy activity. I learned to crochet 46 years ago and I had been married to Alan for forty eight and a half years when he died on July 1, 2016. We were together when I learned to crochet while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras, Central America. I learned from the aides who worked with me in the clinic I started in our small village. Although Alan is no longer with me ph...

February 25, 2014 Time softens some of the loss and settles the mind. It has been a whirlwind since my dad died on February 11. We left returned home to Chicago that day having shared our love for dad in his last hours. Shortly after on February 15, we left for our long-planned vacation to Anna Maria Island, FL with the blessings of my brother to go ahead with our plans knowing that his memorial was planned for March 1. Now that I am back home and settled in from traveling, I turn my thoughts to my dad, Martin Blakley. He was a quiet and humble man who had a subtle sense of humor. Kind, caring and helpful, he had so many friends who loved and depended on him. Having served in the US Army during World War II, my dad's Division landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy on that fateful D-Day. Yes, he survived but he saw many, many of his comrades perish that day and never wanted to talk about it much. I am so proud of him and his bravery and can only imagine what it was like to g...

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 Feeding Alice - A Love Story by Shelly Schachter My blog has always been about family, life and the intermingling of crochet into my everyday functioning. For my brother-in-law, Shelly, life is about food; and more importantly, life is about showing his love for his wife with creativity in the kitchen.  This full-color, self-published book is a feast for the eyes and a smorgasbord of taste-tempting recipes. The life Shelly and Alice have created in picturesque Carmel Valley, California has evolved over many years. The fantasy-like setting and the colorful, seemingly perfect meals that are pictured did not happen magically. Much dirt under the fingernails, sweat on the brow, and experimentation in the kitchen brought this book to fruition. Shelly is a house-husband who manages the home fires while Alice assumes her high-pressure executive duties. He works the soil caressed by the California sun; he prunes and harvests; he plays in the kitchen. B...