Category: In my Crochet Studio

I blog straight from my crochet studio most days per week. Why not? I’m here all the time! Behind the scenes stuff: intriguing crochet swatches, yarn tests, stitch experiments, designs in progress. Professional crochet concerns: quality design tools, photo styling, stash management, staying creatively inspired & organized. Crochet Inspirations Newsletter overflow.

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Crochet Conference Prep, the Aftermath

Lacy Tunisian crochet swatches crocheted together to form a Mexican 'papel picado' style bunting. It's hung in the car during our road trip to the CGOA conference.
I crocheted together lacy Tunisian Lotus swatches in the car. It reminds me of Mexican “papel picado”. Worked out well for teaching! View full size.

 

This past June and July I blogged fifty days of crochet conference prep. I returned home from the conference on July 17. Today is August 18. What happened between then and now?

This is the first day that I could imagine sitting down to compose a blog post and enjoy it. That’s a full month of recovery from having a booth while also teaching several new crochet topics.

Here’s how the past 30 days went:

  • I needed an immediate inventory of what I came home with, so the first thing I did was unpack a gazillion boxes of booth and teaching stuff.
  • After counting everything, I put away what I could. This left me with five big heaps to sort and pack up carefully for future events. It took two weeks to work through these heaps step by step.
  • It also took about two weeks to completely unpack suitcases and get through all the laundry only because I felt like such a zombie.
  • Filled lots of orders that continued to come in every day from my website. (I love this about conferences: so many visitors to my website!)
  • Discussed new color #20 of Lotus yarn with our mill.
  • Slept and slept. Slept some more.
  • Sat still happily without my mind racing. No adrenaline rushes, worries, or multitasking. Enjoyed what others were posting about their conference experiences.
  • It took days to go through all of my emails.
  • It took a full four weeks to settle all incoming and outgoing booth and teaching monies. (This would surprise me except that it took longer last year.)
  • Thoughts: “I could maybe blog this. Or, tomorrow.” “What do I want to crochet next. No idea.” “What about next year? Not sure.”

Crochet Conference Prep Results

How it was better than last year’s:

I was careful to keep a more accurate and readable list of starting inventory. This way, after returning home, it was easy to compare with the ending inventory (and trust the numbers!). I had to force myself to be disciplined about this. While packing up the merchandise to ship up to the show, I could see when my starting amounts got fuzzier last year.

This year we shipped by UPS to a nearby UPS store, not to the event or show management company. It worked great this time: fast, cheap, and convenient.

Thanks to a tip from Doris who used to transport and manage the entire CGOA Design Contest, I purchased some giant clear blue zippered storage cubes. These are perfect for loading up every inch of a car with soft items (yarns and crocheted items).

Last year I felt like a zombie for months. A 2015 creative slump lasted for so long that I started to fear I was done with crochet designing altogether. This year I took endurance-building tonic herbs and vitamins for the weeks before and after the event. Maybe they worked! The creative slump only lasted 3 weeks this time. (Last year I also had jet lag.)

I like the pattern info tags I created at the last minute for the three shawls that George Shaheen of 10 Hours or Less designed in my Lotus yarn.

The “papel picado”-style swatch buntings (pictured above) that I crocheted on the way to Charleston worked out really well for me in classes because I could group them by technique and theme. I’m going to do this with more Lotus swatches.

*Blogging those fifty days of prep kept me focused on the present next step while also accountable to an observer (my blogging self). Plus it leaves me with tips for my future self.

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Pineapple Lace and the CGOA Conference

Doris Chan's pineapple lace jacket and wrap design shown here in 3 sizes and Lotus colors.

Pineapples are the theme for this year’s crochet conference (2016). CGOA’s Hall of Fame Award winner happens to be a pineapple lace queen!

You know these are freshly crocheted because the colors are the new ones we just received from the mill. Even my husband is amazed. (Not shown: Lavender Ice. That’s for another day.)

If you’ll be attending the conference this month, come by our booth #203 (on the right after you enter the market). Lots of pineapple lace to see and try on!

Pictured: Three sizes of Curaçao —a wrap with jacket option—in Carbonite (dark grey), Emerald Deep, and Dark Roast colors of Lotus.

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New Lotus Yarn Colors Arrived (finally)

NEW: Orange Luxe, Carbonite, Lustrous Tan, Lavender Ice, Emerald Deep

Five New Lotus Yarn Colors are Here!

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:

  1. 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.
  2. The name conveys the spirit of the exact color. Like our “Bamboo Green”: it is not minty 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.
  3. 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
  • Orange Riche or Persimmon or Tangerine
2018 update: The color names Doris and I settled on are: Lavender Ice, Emerald Deep, Lustrous Tan, Carbonite, and Orange Luxe. (Links go to projects that show off these colors in good lighting or with contrasting colors.)
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CGOA Award Event Plans

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.

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.

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My Ideal Crochet Conference Clothes

Sleeveless fine black knit top outlined with big pink crystals!
Updated August 7, 2020.

Pictured above: two views of my favorite top, dating from 2006-2008. I wore it to the evening banquets until I wore it out! On the left I’m modeling the Giant Roses Wrap and Smart Set With Swing skirt for Crochet! magazine, January 2007 issue. On the right is the Spun Sugar Cocoon in the 2006 book New Ideas for Today’s Crochet by Jean Leinhauser & Rita Weiss [link goes to my project page for it in Ravelry].

Conference Clothes to Pack

I’ve re-committed to the Z-CoiL® shoes so now I can focus on the conference clothes. At home in Florida I wear jeans and light-colored t-shirts (with or without Z-Coils). For the past 25 crochet conferences I’ve packed almost no jeans or t-shirts.

Lots of crochet conference attendees wear their most comfortable jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers and that’s great! That’s the easiest packing of all. (People do tend to dress up for the Saturday night banquet.)

Please don’t let what I’m about to say worry you if you’re a first-timer and you want to wear t-shirts and jeans! My choices are based on how I want to wear my crochet designs, and on all the professional, organizational, and event roles I play. (Designer, teacher, presenter, model, director, officer, etc.) So, ideally my conference clothes meet several needs at once.

Tops That Work

A comfortable and flattering black top with colorful embroidery served me well
Wore this top to many events too; it’s a Chico’s
“Travelers” fabric so it always looked and felt great.

For these reasons the tops I pack are mostly plain stretchy black (or other neutral color), with different sleeve lengths and neckline styles. You can see many of them in the photos further down.

The best conference tops work great under a striking crochet vest, wrap, or cardigan and:

  • are made of a breathable material that travels well
  • look stylish enough
  • work for both daytime and evening
  • don’t hold on to shedding yarn fibers!
A close up of the top on my mannequin. On display: Lotus Color Chips.

These tops are perfect for modeling and I pack extras for attendees who didn’t plan to model on banquet night. Other neutral colors can work too, like charcoal, navy, tan. I had a favorite conference top in charcoal. Still trying to find its replacement.

It’s surprising how hard it is for me to find simple classic conference clothes like these in neutral colors other than black. I think people don’t want to look at a lot of black all the time in crochet classes.

Nowadays for teaching I look for softly colored breezy tunics to wear.

Tops for Crochet Activism

Conference clothes to make this vest pop from a distance as crochet activism!
Minuet: designed to make crochet
very visible at a knit-centric event.

When I want the maximum spotlight on a crocheted garment, I wear it over black. There’s just no better background and frame for crochet textures and colors. It really makes the crochet pop from a distance, such as a fashion runway.

Crochet activists know that we need in-your-face crochet magnificence that pops even across a city-block-long convention center walkway. Why?

Non-CGOA yarn industry events have long been knit-centric. You betcha I’ve brought all the inkiest-black clothing to wear under high-contrast crochet. I’ve watched people lock eyes on it a block away. I blogged more about the Crochet-In and other crochet activism we’ve done out of exasperation with the sidelining.

The Bottom Half

Good decisions about conference clothes depend on the level of air conditioning in the hotel, and in conference center rooms. It can fluctuate dramatically from room to room and by time of day. Crocheted shawls won’t keep my ankles from freezing.

Pants: I look for the same qualities as in tops. Additionally, I love a wide waistband that sits a bit below my waist. A long boot cut in a structured fabric looks best with the Z-Coils. I have a clear picture of what works the best for me, but sometimes I have to shop too much to find it.

Skirts and dresses can work for evenings. (Few look good with Z-Coils for daytime). A pair of semi-sheer black pantyhose/tights has often come in handy when I’m asked to model a skirt or dress for the banquet fashion show. For example, I wore them under the crocheted pants I’m modeling, below. In yesterday’s post I’m wearing them with high heels to model Urmie’s kick-pleat skirt.

Five Kinds of Belts?

Not all at one conference! The photos below span many years. I’m normally not a belt wearer, but…I wear a lot of things at conferences that I rarely wear at home.

5 views of belts I wear with my conference clothes
That wrapped tie belt (4th from left) is my crocheted Barbed Wire Belt in silver glitter Jelly Yarn! (Here it is in black.)
That’s the Weightless Tunisian Wrap on the far left. Then our own Lotus yarn in Grenadine that Doris crocheted into a Lotus Bolero and fitted pants. On the far right I’m toting Quencher and the free V-Stitch Cocoon Shrug.

Not everything goes with the shoes. Too bad! I won’t compromise there, despite my stylish friend Annie’s consternation. If ever there were a time when Z-CoiL® shoes are indispensable, this epic conference is it—the teaching (15 hours over 3.5 days), the show booth, and of course helping the Hall of Fame committee celebrate the wonderfulness that is Doris J. Chan!

Some years I get lucky with these brands: White House/Black Market, Ann Taylor, Chico’s. I found almost nothing I can use the other day, though—only capri pants, lovely skirts, and prints. I’m all ears if you have other brand suggestions for me.

By the way, I’ve also resumed editing and refining the class handouts now that my houseguest has left. We had a fantastic week rollerskating, tracking night blooming cereus, and visiting the mermaids of Weeki Wachee.