Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Teaching Crochet

Good Morning All,

For the past 10 years or so, every Monday morning, I have been teaching a crochet class at The Yarn Box in Pawling, NY. We are so lucky to have a shop like this in such a small town. Marie Stewart, the owner, has always tried to provide crochet classes and workshops along with the knitting ones.

Most of the student's who join the class, know a little crochet, or at least learned to make tons of chains as a child. Yesterday, I had a student who did not even know how to hold a hook, had never learned to crochet or knit as a child, and was really having a difficult time making her fingers work.

As the class went on, I worried that she might just give up. I was encouraging, urged her to keep trying, that it would happen. By the end of the class she was
making a single crochet, not perfect, but doing it. It is an amazing thing to watch, that moment the light comes on, and the smile appears. Before she left, she
bought some yarn, was checking out all the books, thinking of her first project.
Her story is just beginning but I think she is "hooked"!

I love teaching.

Have a great day,

Margaret

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Busy Weekend

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Good Morning Everyone,

I had a really busy, fun weekend, taught my regular Monday Crochet class, and had a play day yesterday, so here it is Wednesday, before I am blogging.

On Saturday, I went into New York City to attend The Big Apple Knitters Luncheon. What a great day. There were over 100 members attending, held in a lovely restaurant, lots of prizes for everyone.




































































































































Two lucky winners received copies of my books,
KNIT OR CROCHET-HAVE IT YOUR WAY and
KNITS FOR MEN

The highlight of the day was the guest speaker, Linda Cortright, editor/publisher of Wild Fibers Magazine wildfibersmagazine.com
Linda, a world traveler and expert in the field of fibers, was a wonderful speaker.
In addition to her vast knowledge of natural fibers, her adventures in gaining this knowledge, and her journey to starting the magazine, made for an entertaining talk.

On Sunday, still a little tired from my day in NYC, I hosted the September meeting of the Happily Hooked on Crochet chapter of CGOA. We had so much fun, lots of laughs, food, learning and prizes. I had a mini workshop on teaching them a crochet technique that was new to a lot them, and even with all the talking and laughing, everyone "got" it! One of our members, Hilda, had a very special birthday, so we celebrated with a cake for her. Happy Birthday Hilda.

My friend Dee crochetwithdee.com,
(my computer guru) stayed after everyone left to help me with some computer stuff. Unfortunately, by then I was so brain dead, could not find my list of
"things for Dee" and forgot the most important thing that I wanted her to help me with - learning to put captions on my blog photos. So, once again, my photos are not captioned, but I think that they are self explanatory. The first group of pictures are of the meeting at my house, second group from the BAKG luncheon. Sorry that some of the
photos are very fuzzy. I did not realize that my setting had somehow moved from auto, and many of the photos that I took were not at all usuable.

Have a great day!

Margaret



Thursday, September 10, 2009

COMPLETE PHOTO GUIDE TO CROCHET


Hi Everyone,

I'm really excited today, I finally finished my second book of the back to back books that I have been working on. The first one, THE COMPLETE PHOTO GUIDE TO CROCHET, is all tech edited etc, and will be out by years end. It is already available for pre-sale on amazon. You can see a larger photo and read about it here
http://bit.ly/3BNNt

The second one, which started out just fine gave me a little trouble at the end. Gremlins at work caused a little grief, but at 5:00 pm this evening, I finished the last of the instructions. The final package reached the publisher today, so I can relax for a little bit and enjoy my weekend.

On Saturday, I am going into NYC to attend the Big Apple Knitters Luncheon. This will be the first time that I have been able to attend this, so I am really looking forward to it.

On Sunday, I am hosting the Happily Hooked on Crochet guild meeting at my house, so a busy, fun weekend ahead.

In between all this going on, I also finished another sweater for publication, that got shipped off this morning.

I'll have lots to blog about next week, and hopefully the time to do it :-)

Enjoy your evening,

Margaret

Thursday, September 3, 2009

HAPPILY HOOKED ON CROCHET CHAPTER AUGUST MEETING















Good Morning Everyone,

Finally finished the last project for the second new book.
Doing back to back books is really a challenge. I still have
some of the text to finish, but for the most part its done!

A few weeks ago, we had the August meeting of the Happily
Hooked on Crochet chapter of CGOA, and it was such a fun
meeting. I took lots of pictures, but have not had a chance to
blog until now.

Linda and Tom Diak were our featured guests, and in addition to
Tom's wonderful hooks and needles and their beautiful fleeces, Linda
gave us a tutorial on how to make a needle felted handle for steel
crochet hooks. I was reluctant to try, because I did not want to
hurt my hands, had too much work to finish, but under Linda's
direction, I did learn, and not one stab :-) to my fingers.

We had so many beautiful show and tell projects, I hope that I
get them all identified properly.

First photo is Linda and Tom beginning their presentation, second is Linda showing us how to begin the process of making our hook cover. More chemo caps made by Diane G (champion chemo cap maker) Rosalie H and Anna M. Diane
made items from my books and I was thrilled to see how lovely they turned out.
Diane Gil made this beautiful blanket and Anna M, working on my jacket, which
was featured on the cover of CROCHET! Looking great Anna. Celeste is so proud of her first Hairpin Lace project and rightly so, great job Celeste, its beautiful. Last, but by no means least, Irene completed a magnificent afghan for a gift. The picture does not do it justice as it is a work of art.

One of these days, I may have the time to learn to manage this new blog format. Ever since I had to change from my old blog, I feel lost in this new one. Need help, every one too busy.

Have a great day all

Margaret