…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).
Updated August 7, 2020. First posted June 20, 2016.
Having attended twenty-five crochet conferences in twelve years as of 2016, I’ve found that a lot depends on my weird, favorite conference shoes. Tomorrow’s post will be about the clothes, which are partly determined by the shoes.
Left: Mary Jane Z-Coils (best picture I have of them). I remember being on my feet all day; this was the Buffalo Chain Link. Middle: painful high heels that I reserve for the banquet fashion shows. Here, I’m modeling member Urmie Seenarine’s kick-pleated skirt. Right: Sleek boots. Pretty comfortable but a commitment! They’re big and heavy in luggage.
I get asked about my choice of shoes a lot. (In the future I can just refer people to this post.) I wear one ultra-comfortable pair of Z-Coils all day, and maybe fancy heels or sandals for evening. This year I’ll have a new pair of Z-Coils, the “Z-Breeze” with an enclosed heel. (That link goes to the Z-Breeze style without a cover on the heel coil. Below is how the covered heel option looks.)
I can go all out and wear sensationally uncomfortable shoes for only two hours at a time. I love fabulous-looking shoes, but I stop having fun after about two hours of wearing them if they’re uncomfortable.
Another way to say this is, I have an insane amount of fun at these conferences when I wear Z-Coils most of the time. I’m on my feet most of every day. Shoes make or break events like these.
What is this Z-Coil Sorcery?
After a month or two of wearing my first pair (the non-conference gray clog style shown below), my lower back strengthened. The shoe’s coiled heel took over the job of shock absorber. It was a revelation that my lower back had been my “shock absorber” whenever I walked on tiles and pavement, or lifted heavy things. (For other people it might be their knees, ankles, or thighs.) I could lift almost double the weight than I could before, without problems.
I wore my 1st pair, the casual gray suede clogs, around the house and fell in love. Then wore the black leather Mary Janes at conferences until they wore out. Now to do the same with the Z-Breeze (bottom).
It turns out that I have good upper body strength. It was my lower back that was limiting it.
Some people only find out about Z-Coils when they develop walking difficulties. In my case, I met a local knitter who first wore them while recovering from a knee operation. Hers looked like thick white sneakers.
She loved them so much that she continued to wear them long after. I liked how weirdly futuristic the heel looked. When I tried on a pair I was hooked! This was about ten years ago.
[Need I do a disclaimer that I’m not a doctor? Not only am I not a doctor, my lower back has never been examined by one. And while I’m disclaiming, I’m also not a representative of the Z-Coil co. and they’re not rewarding me for blogging this.]
At crochet conferences I can stand on my feet all day every day while teaching or in my market booth, and carry stuff back and forth from my hotel room to the far end of a convention center.
I can also opt to wear painful-but-pretty dress shoes in the evening, and not feel like I’m paying a price for it the next day. The Z-Coils fix that.
Long Flights
Living where I do, I’ve had to take planes to 98% of all conferences I’ve attended. I never take long flights without Z-Coils. These conference shoes come through for me even before I arrive at the event. I don’t start the conference already exhausted from carrying luggage and dashing through airports to change planes at weird hours.
By the second and third days of a conference, other people’s legs and backs are tired. They look around constantly for somewhere to sit. It’s thanks to Z-Coils that I’m looking around for a place to go dancing instead! (Doris is rolling her eyes right about now.)
[I’m adding this link to Pia Thadani’s blog post about her first time attending this conference last year. Her pointers and photos convey everything very well.]
These are significant benefits, right? Now magnify them when I don’t get enough sleep. What if I have to sleep in the airport and switch planes at 5 am? My Z-Coils “have my back”—literally. It’s such a relief to rely on their strength when travel mishaps occur.
Two Big Drawbacks
One is that I don’t feel hot in them (as in sexy). Skirts are out of the question with Z-Coils for me. Some women can make it work, but I’d always feel self conscious.
The other drawback is that Z-Coil shoes are expensive (+/- $250.) Mine have been lasting me ten years, though! Plus you can replace some parts yourself.
It’s not a big drawback when I think it through, I just get sticker shock. It’s a bargain, actually. I’m telling myself this as I prepare to buy a new pair of the best conference shoes ever.
Want to see some stitch patterns change when the yarn color changes?
The two-color Tunisian crochet swatches are for my class handout (yes, still working on them!). I needed to clearly distinguish the forward row from the return row, so I color-coded them. I didn’t expect to like them so much! The one-yarn versions are below their two-color swatches.
Top row: two-color swatches. Bottom row: their one-yarn versions.
(Note that the one on the bottom left is a slightly different stitch pattern from the one above it. I was thinking they were the same until after I created this graphic and I don’t have a better substitute. The difference is, in the top left photo, there is an extra chain stitch in the red return row after every blue stitch. That spaces the blue stitches apart more than the stitches are in the one below it.)
Isn’t it fun to see how just alternating colors in a simple stitch pattern can give it a fresh look?
Sometimes a swatch needs to convey more than words when space is a premium (such as in a class handout). Color-coding really helps.
Progress Update
on my crochet conference readiness: only ONE class handout left to send to the tech editor! That’s FOUR down, one to go. My goal is the end of this week. Then you’ll start seeing blog posts of other topics like new Lotus yarn colors, or Charleston.
One of my goals has been to create a “keyhole” (steeked) crochet scarf for my July Steeking Tunisianclass. A keyhole scarf is just one of many reasons to steek.
Instead of crocheting a new one from scratch, I thought of this sequined pink rectangle. It has always been dear to my heart, even though it’s just a bit too small. (The only reason it’s too small is that I was trying to conserve the expensive yarn! I didn’t know then that this Tunisian net stitch uses less yarn than usual.)
Not only does adding a “keyhole” (a steeked slit) make it easy to wear now, it can be styled so many ways.
-:——————–:-
This is Day 18 out of the 50 conference prep days I have until the big event. I can cross this project off my list! I’ve been wanting to turn my pink Mesmer into a steeked crochet scarf for months.
Today is also the day that Tropical Storm Colin arrived, and I’m happy to report that it has gone easy on us (so far). The worst seems to be behind us and it has been no big deal. My son did have to miss school today—we couldn’t get to the mainland. The flooding is minor compared to what it could be, and the wind and rain have been milder than predicted. No power outages so far; no need to move the car to higher land.
Today I present three very different crochet textures in the SAME. EXACT. YARN. View image full size.
These projects span about seven years. The particular hand dyed yarn is Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock.
The 2016 design on the right was such a different experience of this yarn that it felt like a new purchase from the yarn shop. I had crocheted a whole shawl with the same yarn, though, seven years ago.
I thought it was just me. When I showed the two projects in a Stitch Games class yesterday, others were also noticeably surprised that it’s the same yarn.
Hope you’ve had a great weekend! If you don’t see a new blog post from me tomorrow, it will only be because we lost power due to the tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico. It hits sometime tonight or in the early morning.
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