Avante Garde Crochet…Shake it up

Hooksters, Crochet Aficionados, Yarn Lovers…Lend me your ears or eyes as the case may be…

A wonderful member of the CLF has made a very important point on the CLF Message Board on Ravlery. There seems to be a rut in design happening. Now let’s not blame the designers over much, but we have to acknowledge that because of poor wages a designer has to crank out multiple designs at lightning speed to make any kind of earnings at all. This is not grand for creative expression, and it is a sad fact of our crochet industrial world.

On the other hand, publications are not willing to be daring and risky in the designs they publish, and back to what they are willing to pay for something HOOKALICIOUS: Not much. They are also afraid of innovation, because what worked last decade must work in this one, right? WRONG. Sad really.

One of the issues we’re facing, and not to discourage budding new designers in the least, is the amount of people with stars in their eyes to be published as a designer and they put up a rather simple double crochet (dc) or single crochet (sc) scarf or hat into the pattern upload, for free or not for free and flood the pattern searches with things that, may or may not be attractive, but aren’t innovative. Now, again I do NOT want to discourage our budding designers however I do want to encourage you, the budding new designer, to stretch your wings and do something EDGY, do something exciting, do something daring if you are going to publish. After all, we all want to be published out of some kind of desire…the desire to be known, to share our knowledge, to share our creativity, to be seen, to show off our skills and creative abilities. Find your motivation and then DARE!

Dare to be creative, avant-garde, out of the box, create fabulousness…and then…wait for it…wait for it!

                                       CHARGE FOR IT!

The internet is FLOODED with free content, some of it is great, some of it is rubbish, and some of it is just ok. I have seen free patterns that are DIVINE and frankly should NOT be free! If you want to design, that is an occupation that is worthy of compensation, if you aren’t prepared for success, then make a plan and get ready and go for it!

Crochet needs designer leaders, and we have some of those for certain! But you too could be a leader in design…you could be more, design more, and create more…we can all benefit from more creativity…from diversity…from something out of the box!

So, promise me this in 2011, GET OUT OF THE CROCHET BOX and FLY!!!

More Hookalicious Crochet!!

Congratulations to CelticMommy, a very active CLF member who used Julie Armstrong Holtz’s pattern to make the Hong Kong Bag found in Uncommon Crochet! CelticMommy you are the recipient of the CLF Hookalicious award for outstanding crochet! I love the notes, and the details you put on your project page!!

Love this bag!

Studs & Bows Sets our Picot Free!

So, I was browsing through the CLF Group Projects, which can take one hours and hours and hours of laborious drooling and dreaming, and I spotted this LOVELY top designed by CLF Member Violak83.

Besides being beautifully crocheted and well constructed, this is soooooooooooooooooo in right now! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

 

Violak83 I duly award you with the Set My Picot Free Award for phenominal crochet ability and superb fashion sense! Gorgeous!!

Now for a quick message from our sponsor:  Please don’t forget that you can register for the Crochet Liberation Front’s Retreat “Crochet @ Cama” Oct-17-21, 2010. The Website was down briefly, she’s back up now, so please don’t wait too long, the early bird price of $75 ends in Sept!

CLF News: 2010 Voting, results are in…

Yeah, isn’t that a tease, cause I won’t say who won, not just yet…but the results are in! Voting ended last night at 11:59pm Pacific as planned. Winners will be announced on Getting Loopy, Monday April 19th!

If you are a winner you will be hearing from me this week, to all of the nominees I congratulate you on being nominated by your peers in crochet, and know  that too, is a winning vote!

Now, I promise to continue blogging about the various categories that I couldn’t get to before the vote, and I shall. I do want you to know that frankly the blog posts influenced the voting very little. I also want to tell you that next years process is going to be different. I will be forming a nominating committee and we will take suggestions from the CLF, but I figure two or three people to work with me, will help make the process a little more well rounded and fleshed out 😉

Thanks to all who participated in the process!

Nominees for Best Podcast:

Getting Loopy

The Yarnthing Podcast

The Crochet Side

All of these are fine podcasts, and even though Mary Beth Temple is our Flamies host, I can tell you I personally enjoyed all THREE of these. Though sadly The Crochet Side has been put to bed.

Jelly Yarn…yum!

Yeah, yeah, I know year’s retrospective…it’s coming I promise! In the mean time may I please be allowed to amuse you with my most recent obsession?

Jelly Yarn. Yes, you heard me, Jelly Yarn.  Yes, it is my new obsession. It just arrived today. Talk about blow my mind!

First of all I wouldn’t have figured it to be as supple as it is, and yet, it is very supple. Using lotion or lip balm on your hook makes it really glide, but I found I had to be a little careful with how much I put on my hook, otherwise it became a little too slippery for me to work with.

So here’s the first of my experiments with ye olde Jelly Yarn!

Made from “Vanilla” Jelly Yarn, it glows in the dark!

So, I’m working making it “block”…not that I really tried blocking it this morning, I basically got the yarn out of the box, picked up a hook, put some Bert’s Bees Lipbalm on it, and away I crocheted. I am liking it so far!

My next crochet attempt was with a crocheted rose, single petal at the moment, since I had to actually get some work done today, but I will more than likely at least edge it with the pink glow in the dark Jelly I have too…and the rose shall be part of a funkified belt I’m designing for my daughter 🙂

Tokyo Jacket by Vashti Braha Sets Our Picot Free

tokyo_4_lg

Originally uploaded by vashtirama

 

Talk about fashion forward, CLF member Vashtirama (aka Vashti Braha) sets all of our picots free with this design!

What’s more? This fantabulous jacket, is a free pattern from Caron International! And was published in Naturally Caron. Check it out!
http://www.naturallycaron.com/projects/tokyo/tokyo_5.html

Vashtirama consider yourself duly awarded with the Set My Picot Free Award for crochet excellence and phenominal fashion!

See more of Vashti on her blog, or follow her on twitter as @vashtirama and on Ravelry.com as vashtirama.

Picot Freeing Skirt!

1

Originally uploaded by Yekaterina

CLF Member Liana made this fabulous skirt! It totally sets our picot free! Fun, sassy, and red hot!

The pattern is by Patricia Pepe.

Check out the project notes here on Ravelry! http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Liana/patrizia-pepe-crochet-skirt

Congratulations Liana! This is a fabulous, fun and fantastic skirt!

You are duly awarded the Crochet Liberation Front Set My Picot Free Award for outstanding crochet!

Hookalicious Wrap!

Motif 6 Wrap – finished front 2

Originally uploaded by adr1enn3

CLF Member adr1enne made this gorgeous wrap using Motif 6 from Edie Eckman’s book Beyond the Square.

This wrap wins our hookaclicious award! I love the motifs, I love the colors and I love the wrap.

If you haven’t checked out Beyond the Square by Edie Eckman it’s a fabulous book of motif patterns, with suggestions in cartoon for for project ideas! I bought the book when it came out, but haven’t had much chance to use it, since my daughter took it for her own use and I am probably gonna just have to knuckle under and buy myself another copy!

Once again I shall say, I LOVE THIS WRAP! It should exactly what we can do with a simple idea, some hooks and some yarn! Congratulations adr1enne!

Check out her project notes on Ravelry, for they too were excellent!

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/adr1enne/motif-6