I love to promote crochet as many things: an art, hobby, learning tool, and practical medium. I do this with designs and classes. I try to write about what I don’t see others writing about crochet.
Now that the new yarn shipment is here I’ll make this a quick post and then go back to checking it all in. I weigh each cone and list it with its lot (a way to keep track of inventory, etc). I’ve learned it’s best to treat each raw cone from the mill as a unique item. Each has a different amount of yarn on it and is part of one particular lot.
I took the speediest photos I could. These five colors all fill gaps in our existing range. That’s a total of twenty Lotus yarn colors.
I’m pleasantly surprised by the rich and elegant look of the new colors. The orange could have been bright; instead it’s warm and rich. The emerald green is a full jewel tone. Even the neutrals are rich-looking and make my fingers itch to crochet them (it takes a lot for a neutral to hit that spot for me).
New Lotus Yarn Colors Need New Names. Hmm.
The ideal name for each color meets three priorities in this order:
The color name has a maximum of twelve characters so that it fits well within the space I’ve left for it on the ball band.
The name conveys the spirit of the exact color. Like our “Bamboo Green”: it is notminty just because it’s a light green; it’s more pistachio, and clean like a new spring shoot: bamboo. “Satin Grey” is exactly that. So is “Dark Roast”, and “Rose Red” (it’s not a hot fire red). A mental picture of the color can help correct whatever it looks like on someone’s monitor.
It’s nice when the color name refers to the signature sheen and drape that makes this yarn a keeper for us.
The final Lotus color names I’m considering:
Pale Violet or Lavender Ice or Smoky Lilac or Icy Amethyst
Emerald, Emerald, or Emerald
Soft Caramel or Mushroom Bisque or Cafe au Lait or Honey Taupe or something
Carbonite or Slate Patina or Graphite or Charcoal or Gunmetal Glint
I’ve mostly blogged lately about getting ready to teach and have a market booth at the big crochet conference next month. Here and there I’ve mentioned some special events I also plan for, such as the fashion show banquet and design contest. This year I’m making special preparations for the Hall of Fame event when my friend accepts the CGOA award.
The CGOA Hall of Fame recipient for 2016 is my close friend Doris Chan. We met at CGOA’s 2004 conference in Manchester NH. There could be no Lotus yarn if we’d never met.
For the past few days I’ve been tracking down which of Doris’ earliest designs I have. My mom has the most important one of all, and she’s in Iowa. Back in March 2004 I used a pattern by Doris called Celebration Shawl to crochet a Mother’s Day gift.
Celebration Shawl by Doris Chan, 2016 CGOA Hall of Fame award winner.
Doris and I met at the 2004 conference because I wore this shawl (her design), and created a bag to match.
Celebration Shawl pattern in the 2004 issue of Crochet! Magazine.
Hall of Fame CGOA award winner Doris Chan, how we met
I crocheted this replica of the Celebration Shawl stitch pattern with silver wire. That’s Doris’ wrist.
Back then I had no idea who designed the shawl I made. I just leafed through my issue of Crochet! magazine and thought it looked like fun to make. The yarn was soft, cheerful and warm. I knew my mom would enjoy wearing it in a dreary Iowa winter.
Doris didn’t know that her design had been published somewhere. When she saw the bag I made to go with it, that really threw her off. The bag wasn’t part of her pattern. I just crocheted it on the plane from the leftover yarn.
Of course she had to ask me about it, and the rest is history. The next year I crocheted her a silver wire bracelet that is a miniature replica of her shawl pattern. (Blue bugle beads kind of look like Fun Fur yarn, right?)
Twelve years later, Doris gets the Hall of Famer CGOA award! This will be a very special conference.
I wish every crochet garment pattern offered a schematic. It outlines the sections of a garment, like puzzle pieces. Schematics cut through illusions cast by fashion photography and lovely models. A single pattern schematic can distill a fancy design to its simplest essence. I created two Pinterest boards of things that inspire me to steek crochet: Steeks: Ideas and Wearable Simple Shapes.
Schematics also cut through language barriers. I can understand a non-English pattern if it includes a good schematic or two.
Steek where the pink bar is in these pattern schematics for simple-shapes garments.
Update! I wrote newsletter #80, Pattern Schematics for Insiders & Outsiders, three months after I wrote this blog post. Note that shop links in its right-hand column are outdated as of Sept. 2017.
A schematic is sensational to me when a garment that looks chic on a model, yet its schematic reveals that it’s made of simple shapes like rectangles. It’s exciting because every crocheter or knitter first learns how to make rectangles, right?
Sometimes all you need is a rectangle that drapes, or is clingy/stretchy (or all of these). Sometimes weightlessness brings it home, other times it’s a luxuriously weighty swing. The schematic tells you what’s what when you know what to look for.
Sometimes the key to chic is a well-placed seam on a simple shape. Sometimes it’s a special edging. And sometimes it’s the where and how of the steek. Steek crochet for the easy chic of it.
I love this conference prep blogging because it makes me aware of things that I’ve done for years, like collect pattern schematics.
…for the five classes I teach next month! This started months ago. It never stops, actually.
I have other new crochet ideas in progress for this year’s classes too. For Tunisian Eyelet Meshes I have a draping collapsible “Leanin’ Loopholes” wrap to finally start when the new Lotus colors arrive. Another project in motion for the Stitch Games class is an argyle (only a few rows done, no photos yet).
When CGOA puts out a call for class topic proposals in the fall, I send more than enough: all the topics that I’ve enjoyed teaching in the past, plus interesting variations on them, plus new ones. Designing new crochet examples starts the moment I find out which ones I’ll be teaching. (Not on purpose, it just happens.)
Meanwhile
Meanwhile I stand ready (with camera) to receive a giant new lot of Lotus yarn. Can’t wait to get my hands on the new colors. Doris has her designing cones already so I know UPS will be here any day. Once the yarn arrives–on giant cones–I get some of it turned into Z-Bombes (1-pounders). A lot of it will be “pull cakes” ASAP.
I also stand ready to design with it. I’ll need some new crochet for the road trip up to the conference, right? Doris got started immediately with a new design in emerald green. This reminds me that I also need to lock in the new color names for the ball bands and snip cards.
I’m on Day 35 of my 50 blogging days of crochet conference prep and I’m feeling behind! I still need to get some crochet patterns reformatted into print versions (for some of my classes and for kits in the market booth).
Collect them all! This limited edition pin commemorates the 2016 event and is available for purchase at the event.
2018 “City of Roses” theme for Portland, Oregon location.
2020 festive New Orleans theme. Looks like fun!
This post was first written in 2016 about the upcoming Chain Link Conference for that year (July 13-16, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina). I updated it September 4, 2019. Check the CGOA homepage to find out about all future conferences.
Maíre Treanor, a visiting CGOA teacher from Ireland in previous years.
The Crochet Guild of America (CGOA) hosts and boasts the longest run of annual crochet conferences in the USA. It’s pretty amazing what the CGOA has accomplished! Not only that, teachers have often been flown in from other countries for the event.
The event is called Chain Link. The first one was held in 1994. Sometimes there has been a single national-scale event; other times a regional Chain Link is held in addition to a national one. For a time, CGOA and TKGA (the national knitting guild) even held their events jointly.
Here’s what I do to stay current on last minute changes, meet-ups, and other late-breaking news as each year’s CGOA conference gets closer.
Great News Sources for CGOA Members
Chain Link, the Member Newsletter
If you’re already a CGOA member, look for the members’ Chain Link newsletter that is inserted in the center of your complimentary issue of Crochet!Magazine. Look especially for the autumn issue of the magazine; back in 2016 when I wrote this, mine arrived June 20, a month before the conference.
In fact, that’s what gave me the idea for this blog post. I noticed that whenever I’m getting ready for the big crochet conference of the year and a Crochet! issue arrives, I drop everything and turn first to the member newsletter.
The President’s Letter
The President’s Letter on page 1 of the newsletter always mentions special event preparations and highlights. This year (2016), Susan Sullivan talked about:
$5000+ design competition cash prizes
A photo booth, crochet lounge, and other event features
Yarn bombing in Charleston!
In 2016 the CGOA conference was held jointly with the TKGA (knitting guild) event.
I learned of the 2016 pineapple theme on page 6. I’m not sure if every conference has had its own theme, so this is fun to think about. For example, what if I get to the conference and everyone’s wearing some kind of pineapple lace thing but me? I don’t crochet lace pineapples very often. I think about crocheting a small one to pin to my conference badge. Or maybe gather a string of small ones into a flower shape?
Pictured below are the event themes for more recent Chain Link conferences. From 2017 on, CGOA’s conferences went back to being a stand alone event. (CGOA’s then-management company owned TKGA until 2017.)
If I were not yet a CGOA member, here’s how I’d stay well informed (and inspired!) in the month leading up to the big conference:
I’d check in periodically with the CGOA Ravelry Group. See especially the Charleston 2016 thread. It’s a great way to learn from crocheters who live in and around Charleston, and from CGOA members who have attended several conferences. Board members pop in to answer questions there. I’ve been finding out about restaurants and yarn shops to visit in Charleston and which classes people are thinking of taking.
I’d Search “#CGOA” (with the # hashtag) in Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I find interesting stuff this way. Try #crochetconference too. This is how I found out that some folks driving to the conference are going to yarn bomb their car with crochet. I’ll be driving up this time too. Fun to know that I might spot crochet on the freeway! Or be spotted!
[I would join before the CGOA conference happens because the conference classes cost less for members.]
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