Search Results for: cgoa

Posted on by — Leave a comment

CGOA’s Lotus Yarn Pattern (Last Day Free!)

My swatch in Crystal Blue DesigningVashti Lotus yarn, and sketches of scarf and yarn amount options

Happy NatCroMo! (National Crochet Month)

Designer Andee Graves featured our Lotus yarn with her new Shining Day Wrap crochet pattern. She’s one of CGOA’s 2018 board members. At her blog she explains,

“There will be 3 other patterns available free for CGOA members only, each only for 1 week. Be sure you’ve renewed your membership or joined CGOA before you miss out!”

Today is the last day you can get this pattern for free.

Why? It’s part of the 2018 CGOA NatCroMo celebration and this one is free for everyone—CGOA members and nonmembers.

Shining Day is crocheted in a lacy stitch pattern that is flowing wonderfully off my [pink] hook. I think it flows so much because you crochet into chain spaces at an easy gauge.

A Flowing Foundation Row

This wide lacy rectangle is worked from the center out on both sides of the foundation row. You’ll have matching ends, each with a pretty picot border.

For a design like this, you wouldn’t want the foundation chains to look noticeable or feel tighter than the rest of its flowing lace. No problem! Andee uses a great type of foundation row. It’s not only stretchy, it has a nice texture that blends in.

About Yarn Amounts

Andee used four 100g. balls of Lotus to get a wrap that is 16.25″ X 68.5″. Four balls is 1,024 yds (4 X 256 yds).

The Cone Idea

Some folks have wisely been ordering Lotus Z-Bombes, which are value-priced one-pound cones. One pound of Lotus is a bit over 1,100 yds, or about 4.5 balls. (I always allow a Z-Bombe to go a bit over a pound after subtracting the weight of the cardboard. I write the exact unique weight of each Z-Bombe on its tag.)

The Lotus Snacks Idea

A floral six-pack: Orange Luxe, Grenadine, Pink Sugar, Peachy SHeen, Rose Red, Lala Yellow.
One of several springtime color combos!

In my recent newsletter issue #90, I mentioned a multicolored Shining Day using a six-pack of Lotus Snacks. I think spring fever made me do it. I kept picturing a riot of floral colors like I do every spring.

Unfortunately I miscalculated the yarn amount for that in the newsletter. The mini Snacks are one-third the size of a regular Lotus ball: 85 yds per 33 g. Not one-half.

CORRECTION: A Six Pack O’ Snacks totals 512 yds, not the 768 yds I stated in the newsletter.

My 512-yd. Shining Day

Andee Graves aka Mamas2Hands produced a lovely PDF to match her pretty lace wrap design.
Page one of Andee’s pattern. Isn’t it pretty? 

See my drawings above in that photo of my light blue swatch? That’s me figuring out that a two-ball (same as six Snacks) Shining Day would come out to 12″ X 51″ (or a bit longer).

My swatch is 11.5″ wide. I needed 46 foundation stitches to do 4 stitch pattern repeats.

Andee’s Shining Day pattern is definitely worth paying for if you miss the free version. It includes stitch charts and a photo-tutorial on making the picots.

Join the CGOA MEGA CAL group in Facebook!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

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.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Custom CGOA Conference Calendar

Screenshot of my public conference calendar (orange) and private conference cal (purple) is on the right. Print window is opened to the left and I’ve selected “Landscape”.
At left is my public conference calendar (orange). My private conference cal (purple) is on the right. The print window is open on the left and I’ve selected “Landscape”. As we get closer to July 13, I may find more items to schedule. 

 

This year I created a public, sync-able CGOA Conference calendar. Anyone can add it to their own calendar if they’re using Google Calendar, or an application that supports the iCal format (iCal link is at the end of this post).

For years I’ve used a private version of this. It’s so handy! Besides using it on a mobile calendar app, I print it out and depend on it heavily at the conference. It comes home with important notes written all over it. (In case you don’t know, the CGOA conferences are as important for professional crocheters as for hobbyists.)

You Can “Subscribe” to it

Conference attendees can easily merge this calendar with their own calendar. If you use Google Calendar, look on the left for “Other Calendars”. Search “CGOA Conference” or use the link in this post (above). Check the box next to it to add its events to your own calendar. Any new items I add to the calendar will automatically update on your app if you “subscribe” to this calendar.

Print your CGOA Conference calendar like I do

I’m using Google Calendar. First make sure you’re in the month of July 2016. Then:

  1. If your calendar is not in a weekly format already, click “Week” along the top. Click “Wed.” to start the week at July 13.
  2. Then click the “5 Days” tab along the top so that the 5 days starts with Wed the 13th.
  3. Click the “More” tab in the top right and select “Print”. Once the print window opens up, find the drop down menu for Orientation and choose Landscape. Then click “Print” at the bottom. (see my screenshot).

iCal link

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/gi85adpe6u2tngfd6kg4qgo08s%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Posted on by — Leave a comment

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.

Posted on by — 1 Comment

How to Get CGOA Conference Updates

  • Purple oval with stitch symbols of pineapple lace and words 2016 CGOA CONFERENCE - CHARLESTON SC
    Collect them all! This limited edition pin commemorates the 2016 event and is available for purchase at the event.
  • Teaching badge for the July 2018 CGOA Chain Link Conference in Portland OR.
    2018 “City of Roses” theme for Portland, Oregon location.
  • 2020 CGOA theme: bold purple text with gold and green with a festive fleur de lys & scroll
    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.

 

Maire-Treanor-Manchester-NH.jpgMaire Treanor, a crochet teacher CGOA has brought over from Ireland to teach at 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!
Pineapple drawing with "TKGA+CGOA 2016 CONFERENCES"; in 2016 the knitting and crochet guilds held a joint conference.
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.)

Yahoo Groups for CGOA Conference Talk

Sometimes I find out about formal and informal conference happenings in these two Yahoo groups: [CGOA_Membership] and [CGOA-TKGA-Buddygroup].

Good Conference News Sources for Everyone

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:

  1. 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.
  2. I’d check in periodically at the conference area of CGOA’s website.
  3. I’d “like” CGOA’s Facebook page and get notifications when the page updates.
  4. 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.]