What on earth is that mess in the bottom of your project bag! Could that be several balls of yarn that have become entangled?
Ronni has a hint for us to keep that from happening. Check out this quick, albeit poor quality, video.
More Classes Now Available
Fiber Fantasy, April 14-16, 2022
The Albuquerque Fiber Arts Council hosts an event every two years known as the Fiber Arts Fiesta. The fiesta is home to the host guilds’ booths, vendors, artist exhibits, educational displays, guild sponsored classes, and a charity booth. The beneficiary of the 2022 fundraiser is the Roadrunner Foodbank.
Each Fiesta has a theme, and Fiesta 2022 is billed as Fiber Fantasy. The participating guilds were tasked with presenting an educational display pertaining to a color or color scheme. The New Mexico Crochet Guild’s presentation was on Complementary Color combinations. As part of the display, the guild created an art piece of freeform crochet called Fantasy Garden and ran a continuous slideshow. The videos were created by Anna Murphy and narrated by Ronni Sparks.
A brief explanation of the Complementary Color Scheme
After the fiesta is over, I’ll be sure to post a gallery of photos. It has been a lot of work to plan this, but it has been fun and exciting to work with such dedicated volunteers. The Fiber Arts Council’s dedication and committment to the fiber arts community is so inspiring to the 19 guilds it supports.
The crochet guild is hosting a series of mini-classes during the event called the Crochet Cafe. Each session runs 15-20 minutes and is designed to give students a taste of crochet’s different techniques. Classes range from making simple stitches to keeping your edges square to simple Tunisian and more. Check out the Crochet Cafe.
Craft Retreat
El Porvenir Christian Camp hosted a weekend retreat for crafty women. The 4-day event took place in the Santa Fe National Forest, in the back of beyond, where we were surrounded by towering conifers, ancient aspens, rambling creeks, and massive stone monuments to God’s power of creation. What better source of inspiration can you think of?
One of my contributions was to prepare a table for women to make earrings. I packaged over 150 little kits for them to make hot air balloons, ribbon Christmas trees, and tree ornament earrings.
This was my first time at this retreat, but I travelled with women who had attended previously. We had a spacious room with bunk beds, toilet/showers, and heat. The food was excellent, freshly prepared with daily homemade pastries or breads. We had evening devotionals where I led the worship music. My friend Carol donated a queen-sized quiilt for a raffle.
It was all-together a blessed weekend.
April in Paris Capelet pattern release
After much rewriting and testing, the April in Paris capelet pattern is finally available. I’ve listed it on Etsy since I’m not set up to sell on this blog. Many thanks to Melissa for her help in finalizing the pattern. This lovely yarn is hand dyed from The Little Weasel shop in Paris.
This yarn is Malabrigo “Sock”, and it has a lot more stretch to it than the Little Weasel yarn. I had to modify the neckline, but you don’t see that in this photo. I suggest when looking for yarn, choose one that is not very stretchy for best results. The Malabrigo was luscious to work with but didn’t give the same results. I did write in the modifications that I came up with for the neckline. I’m currently working on one in cotton, and I will post the results here. I suspect it will be very stretchy. Might have to go down a hook size.
Follow up videos and instructions for Fiber Arts Fanatics
The following videos accompany the presentation to the GSNMT for the Fleece to Fashion program. Terms and instructions follow the videos
They are:
Making a slip knot
Holding your yarn like a pro
Chain stitch
Single crochet into the chain
Single crochet rows
| Terms | Instructions | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| The instructions assume that you are holding your yarn like a pro! | ||
| Yarn over | Put your hook under the yarn from left to right (inside to ouside), rotate your wrist so that the yarn goes over the hook. Alternatively, use your hand to “throw” the yarn over your hook, from right to left (outside to inside.) | YO |
| Chain | Insert your hook under the yarn from left to right (yarn over) and grab the yarn with the hook. Holding the loop that is on your hook with your left hand, pull the new yarn through the loop with your right hand. | Ch |
| Single crochet | Insert your hook into a stitch (chain or single crochet), yarn over and grab the yarn, then pull the yarn through the stitch. You now have 2 loops on your hook. Yarn over again and pull the yarn through both loops on your hook. | Sc |
Fruit of These Hands 