Brand new crochet magazine launched this week

One of my crafty friends, Catherine Peacher, from just up the road from me in Kingwood, Texas has just launched her magazine Crochet Unites, with the Spring Edition available this week. Hurray and congratulations to Catherine!

 

I met Catherine totally by chance via Craig's List, the US equivalent of the UK's Gumtree. Close to two years ago I was randomly looking at Craig's List. I've never advertised or bought anything there and have only visited the site a handful of times since moving to Texas. But for some serendipitous reason I searched for "crochet" and found Catherine seeking a partner to start a crochet business. Of course, I had to call!

We met at a Starbucks half way between our homes and became firm friends. How could we not with our shared love of all things crochet?! I didn't become Catherine's partner because after deep reflection I felt that I couldn't devote the time to building a second business from scratch as I had with TG Research, my primary business but we stayed in touch. I helped Catherine out when I could mainly with encouragement and brainstorming ideas! 

It's absolutely fantastic to see her magazine launched. Catherine has some great content in there. I wrote an article too: The Amazing Health Benefits of Crochet. It's available in digital or print format or both! I'd highly encourage you to buy yourself a copy! Here is the link on Magcloud: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1071707?__r=607820

My new volunteering role

This week I am feeling really excited about starting a new volunteering role at local charity The Community Cloth. This charity has been on my radar for quite some time after seeing a neighbor's daughter in the cutest crochet poncho imaginable made by these ladies. The catalyst to making contact was seeing press coverage of the plight of Syrian refugees in Europe in recent weeks. I asked myself "what can I do personally that will make a difference?" I spoke with their program manager this week about how I could help their Artisan Team and I'm giving my input on pattern ideas already.

About The Community Cloth

The Community Cloth is a microenterprise initiative empowering refugee women in Houston. It targets economic, educational and social goals through the provision of seed grants, training, and peer support, and by expanding market opportunities for refugee women artisans. It supports them in creating and selling handmade, indigenous arts and crafts such as woven bags, knitted scarves, household items and more. Through producing and selling their wares, the women have an opportunity to express their culture and heritage, learn new skills that will assist them in transitioning to life in the US, and obtain much-needed supplemental income. All of the proceeds go directly to the artisans and the program.  Most of the women involved to date are mothers; some are widows or are the only working member of their families. Purchases of The Community Cloth products help refugee women provide for the basic needs of their families as they work to establish new lives in Houston.

The joy of crafting with others

There is something wonderful about crafting with others, getting out of your house and enjoying the fellowship of other gentle yarny folk. My first experience of this was back in Bristol in the UK in the winter of 2011. My local pub, the Victoria, a short stroll from my house, hosted a first Sunday of the month "Knit and Natter". The kids, younger then, were in bed and my husband happily watching Top Gear. There were eight of us knitting and I realized at that first meeting that I had been crafting in a silo up until then. We sat in the railway tunnel part of the pub (maybe it actually was a disused railway tunnel) - from a silo to a tunnel - and I enjoyed a pint of cider as you do in the West Country while we chattered about nothing in particular while our fingers were busy. Bliss.

And then shortly after moving to Houston in the spring of 2012 I signed my kids up to swimming lessons and was delighted to discover a fellow knitter doing her stuff in public with children occupied at the same time as mine. And so an impromptu group began of four of us knitting together and it was the BEST part of my week. But after a year or so the children's activities changed and our happy yarny meet ups ended.

Fulfilling the thirty hours of teaching crochet for my two certificates led to more communal crafting. For several months I carried my hooks and yarn everywhere looking for willing guinea pigs among my friends. Pictured above several victims learning while camping at a Texas State Park! Asking the yarn store owner if I could teach on her comfy sofa led to my current job running their Friday knitting and crochet workshop.

My master teacher asked me during my assessment if I was crafting with a group (the workshop doesn't count) and encouraged me to find one. Well now I have Yarn People at my public library each week (following my original knitting swim mom), a fortnightly craft group at church which has just started and my own monthly Yak and Yarn meet up at a local café which I started after attending a day long craft retreat in January this year. That's probably more than sufficient. 

 

 

Laphans for Yak and Yarn

Our Yak and Yarn group which only began in March this year has been having so much fun making lapghans together for local charity Angela House as our first joint project. And if my calculations are correct we are putting together number 14 currently. Yay!

I have been taking photos of each one before delivery to the ladies but I lost photos clearing my cellphone so I am missing some. I thought they were on the cloud but alas no. I lost photos of the two quilts made of fantastic African material by one of our talented Y&Y members. Technology can be a tad annoying at times!

Anyway, here are the photos I managed to salvage of early lapghans and the most recent beauties we have made. We made single crochet 5 inch squares using a cardboard template and for the majority of the lapghans added an edging of single crochet and single crochet joined the squares together.

 

Craftivism lecture by Betsy Greer

I attended a lecture by Betsy Greer, the "Godmother of Craftivism", last month at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Betsy gave a slide show with an explanation of craftivism followed by a number of diverse global examples, large and small, and then gave suggestions of how to find a way that we could practice craftivism too. Here is Betsy's super website if you haven't already been there.

I first found out about craftivism, the movement that Betsy started 12 years ago, in Houston's main public library downtown picking up her book of the same title on the "new and notable in 700s" display stand. Since reading the book I have recommended and bought it for several friends. I have paid attention to other crafters with #craftivism in their tweets, subscribed to her newsletter, contributed to the manifesto and reflected on how I could make a difference through my love of craft. 

Her lecture was on the final day of the Crafting a Continuum show which contained many thought-provoking exhibits. My absolute favorite was by Mark Newport (http://www.marknewportartist.com/) a knitted superhero costume that questions gender roles and masculinity in contemporary culture. I was delighted to see his work featured on the show flyer and found an immensely amusing video on YouTube of Mark knitting dressed in one of his hand-made suits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX8MxiV3zqE

Pumpkins for Fall

Teaching Friday afternoons at my local yarn store now. Making what else...pumpkin samples for the yarn store...with some of their fine yarn. It is Fall after all! 

The pumpkin coaster pattern came from Crochet by Monet's blog. The shape of the pumpkin is very pleasing to me! http://crochetbymonet.blogspot.com/2012/09/crochet-pumpkin-coasters-pattern.html

I modified the pattern to make teeny pumpkins for a garland. Used a size 4.5mm hook and omitted round 3. I also used a magic ring instead of the chain 5 to start for both pumpkins.

Yarn is the very luxurious Cascade Yarns Venezia Worsted 70% Merino Wool 30% Silk. Decadent pumpkins!