Crochet Queen: Royal Ramblings

Recently I have been teaching a bright young woman friend how to crochet. She is a clleague at work so we have spurts of time when I can teach her a stitch or answer a her cro-quandries. She is learning quickly and very apt at understanding the concepts. On her own, she explored JoAnn Fabric and Crafts and found some yarns to make a special scarf for her mother. After her first lesson, mom requested the scarf, so the pressure was on! I talked to her about the differences between acrylic and natural fibers and also the price point differences. Her new exctiement about crochet and her carry-along project revealed to her that she also knew others who loved to crochet. She saw some other neat projects friends were doing and Two or three scarves later, I thought she was ready for her orientation to the Local Yarn Store. I chose "I'd Rather Be Knitting" in Long Grove, IL not because I have any allegiance to this store but because of its convenient location for us both to meet t...

The Northern IL Chapter of CGOA proudly presents its third annual "Crochet Buffet" Open to the public, we strive to bring attention to the wonder of crochet and to introduce our group to whoever might be interested in immersing themselves in our world of sharing and caring about our favorite craft. When I conceived the idea 4 years ago, all our chapter members were enthused about displaying their work and we had a great response from the community. Many of our members were just as amazed as the non-crocheters when they saw the "delicous" variety and beauty that crochet can be. Come and enjoy a "feast" of crochet techniques, ideas and displays! A free gift will be given to the first 30 guests! Rolling Medows Library, 2nd floor from 10 AM to 3 PM You'll be glad you came to see the "tempting" array we have prepared for you: fashion, accessories, beads, afghans, free form, thread, filet, granny squares, double end, Irish and more!

You're invited to shop at my new Etsy store. Go to www.etsy.com and search for Crochetkween1. Thant's me and you will find the whole line of patterns I designed for Himalaya Yarns, most use "Tibet" which is recycled silk made from saris. Reasonably priced at $4.00 per pattern, I hope you enjoy!

Many, many thanks to my wonderful Jubilee Crystal Celebration Committee, Dee Stanziano, BJ Licko Keel, and Sharon Devrol. Also much appreciation goes to Vashti Braha, our liaison from the board of CGOA. We pulled off a wonderful online contest to get a logo designed for our 15th anniversary festivities and for a commemorative pin that will be available at the conference in Buffalo in August. Big congratulations to the winner of the online voting by members of CGGO: Mary Servillo!! Mary designed a logo that is fabulous and conveys our excitement about the upcoming celebration; and she won a year's membership in CGOA, an autographed crocheted book plus, of course, a pin! May 19, 2009 Thanks to Dee Stanziano (crochetwithdee.com) for getting the 15th anniversary celebration blogs started all over the world. It is indeed the 15th year of CGOA and that is cause for celebration. June 4, 2009-WE'RE CELEBRATIONG WITH A LOGO DESIGN CONTEST! I am delighted to be working on the Jubilee C...

Last Thursday, March 26, I attended the gathering of the Midwest Folk and Fiberfest Art Fair at Barnes and Noble bookstore.I had been a few months ago and the crowd is growing. Everyone is so friendly and fiber-fanatic. Every imaginable needle art is represented and the group is so interested in what everyone else is doing. I am in the process of making a free-form crochet creation to celebrate National Crochet Month, playing along at NatCroMo on Ravelry. That's what I was working on. When I held it up to show, a knitter in the corner, exclaimed, "Them crocheters got better drugs than we do!" Oh, funny young man who just leanred to knit a hear ago! See my creation on my post about National Crochet Month. I offered to teach kids classes at the fair last year, but they didn't fly. While I was at the meeting, the organizer Carol approached me to submit crochet classes again this year, but for adults. She said she didn't have luck with any kids classes last year. It...

It is halfway through the month of March already and I have been celebrating the annual "National Crochet Month" that we started many years ago for the members of CGOA. I am enjoying a "Crochet-A-Long" with my Friends at Ravelry and the party group, NatCroMo. Each day our extremely creative Kaet sends us a little clue and we use that to create our free form piece. If it is anything like last year, it is just entirely amazing how crochet can turn out to look so wonderful, different and exciting at the hands of each individual following the same prompts!Here's what I have done so far.

I was humbled recently to be nominated along with four other wonderful women who have made huge contributions to the crochet world, Margaret Hubert, Candi Jensen and Carol Ventura, for the "Individual Lifetime Achievement" Award. Congratulations to Margaret Hubert who received the most votes! ..and as they say at the Academies,"It was an honor just to be nominated!" Conceived by Lauries Wheetler, the Crochet Liberation Front (CLF) is an on-line group which has a website, podcast and book. Here's what Laurie says about the group and if you want to join, go to www.ravelry.com ""We use hooks and are darned proud of it! If you are like me and are tired of the crochet apologists out there then raise a hook and cry freedom! (Knitters are welome as long as they are nice to us) Come on gents and ladies, join me, hold your hooks high! This is a place for we who can use anything (including duck tape and bandaids to spaghetti) to make anything (that’s right from ...