Doris Chan's Blog

Speaking as someone who has done her share of moving, this is not going to be fun. Shifting a simple crochet blog from one URL to a new domain cannot be compared to the heavy lifting involved with moving house, but for me the technical aspects of figuring out the new stuff is just as much work as physically packing boxes and loading furniture.  I have moved house perhaps 16 times in my life.  This is my first time moving a stupid blog and it's more aggravating than all those combined.

My new location is much easier to remember, actually, and it more closely matches the way people search for... and eventually stumble onto... my blog.  That's according to the stats. Shoot, I don't know how you guys found me here in the first place since I am so clueless about social media and tags and search engine stuff.  I never want to type in new addresses.  Honestly, I can't visit anywhere on the net without clicking links or copying and pasting URL addresses into the browser because that string of letters, slashes and numbers is all gobbledygook to me.  My eyes sort of glaze over. Bookmarks are my friend. So now I am terrified that nobody will be able to find my new home because I don't know how to tell everyone.  All I can do is pray that you guys remember to update your bookmarks.

Funny how my memory is selective.  I can remember and recite without hesitation my address (including the zip code) and phone number from a home 28 years ago. I can remember the first address I ever had to remember, and that was before there were zip codes. I know the license plate from my second car.  I'm pretty sure I could dial my locker combination from eighth grade but I can't prove that. On the other hand, don't ask me what my current cell phone number is.  Do you have to look at your cell screen to find your own number, too?  My partner has his number scrawled on a bit of tape stuck to the back of his cell.   We do what we have to do.


There was a time when all you really had to have firmly in your head was your home address, one home phone number and maybe your Social Security number.  And, no I wasn't around before there were Social Security numbers.  Today my brain is stretched to the limit with multiple phone numbers, e-mail addresses, usernames, account sign-in names, passwords, PIN numbers. Not one hour of my day goes by when I am not asked for some kind of ID or number.  I know you're never supposed to write all this stuff down or keep it stored anywhere but in your head.  I'm convinced that's why I can't remember what I had for lunch today.  I really believe that there is a finite amount of accessible hard drive memory and that once I reach capacity I can't put anything in there without kicking something out.  So in order to remember my new web domain, I have to lose where I put my glasses.

Therefore, I do not expect any of you to remember where this blog is going, at least not right away.  I plan to leave these pages, posts and links here for a while before shutting down, bye-bye.  So if you keep coming back here because you forget that I have moved, lucky you.  Maybe you're still holding the memory of what you had for lunch!

As the proud holder of two previous Flamies (scroll down the righthand sidebar to see mine!), I have personally experienced the flood of happyhappyjoyjoy that comes from taking home... posting on one's blog or website...  these beauties.  But however the voting goes and whatever the world may think of the Crochet Liberation Front's Third Annual Flamie Awards, the winner has been, is still and always will be crochet.

There is no other event like it, created for and by crocheters, that specifically recognizes excellence across all these areas of crochet.  Not tied to any company, publisher or industry "suits", we just want to have crochet fun, jump up and down {squeeee!} on awards night and thump each other on the back for jobs well done.  And at first, as CLF Fearless Leader Laurie Wheeler will admit, that's what the Flamies were all about.  A wink-nudge take on Oscar night.  A lark.  But as the reputation of this award has spread and grown over the past two years, so has the weightiness of the crown. 

Now the event is under closer scrutiny by yarn execs, editors and the media.  Past winners in corporate categories have taken to displaying and, yes, flaunting their Flamies in ads and newsletters, taking the focus of the award far beyond what could be accomplished by individual crocheters.  YIKES! The feeling of competition among the nominees is palpable and continues to snowball as the voting draws nearer.  Now it sort of matters who wins. 
Bozena, nominated for Best Design Adult Garments
On the strength of my design work in 2010 and my book, Crochet Lace Innovations, I have received multiple Flamie nominations, an embarrassment of riches.  Honestly I would be totally overjoyed to take home just one this year.  But that I leave up to you, the voters.  So please check out the list of nominees and cast your ballots when the voting commences on 15 March.  The eyes of the yarn industry are upon you!

Have I mentioned that one of the perks of being a crochet designer is that I never have to match any other crocheter's gauge?  Given that I design the project, make the sample garment and write the pattern, I am allowed the luxury of setting the gauge.  I never realized how empowering it has become being the one to dictate the number of inches per a specific count of stitches or stitch pattern repeats.  It tends to make one unspeakably smug and self-righteous.  Can't match my stated gauge using the exact same yarn?  Too bad.  Want to substitute another yarn?  Good luck with that!

All of it, every single fracking hubris-laden moment of my designing career, has returned to bite me in the butt.  This month I have promised to release the next design for my independent pattern line, DJC2: Tank Girl. I started working on Tank Girl not that long ago while the Northeast was still in the grip of stinging winter cold, snow and ice. At the time it seemed like a good idea to offer Tank Girl in a warmer, cozier fiber as a layering vest.  So the design began with the wonderful yarn in hand, Spud & Chloe Fine, a fingering weight blend of superwash wool and silk  that probably makes awesome socks, too. And, for fun, I also sampled a tank in Kollage Sockalicious, which is a softer, plumper yarn but worked perfectly to the same gauge. 

The universe being what it is, a gang of cosmic forces kept me from completing Tank Girl right away.  So now the seasons are threatening to change and think I should switch gears, stay ahead of the curve and make my tank samples more spring/summer-like.  I tossed the stash looking for substitute fingering weight yarns in cotton or blends with cotton, linen, bamboo, whatever would work to gauge and be kid-friendly, washable and durable.  I discovered that there aren't a lot of choices for comfortable, easy-care yarns in this weight class, at least not to be found in this house.  So I amassed a few that came the closest and swatched them all.

Imagine my dismay when none of my intended swaps would work to gauge, partly due to the fact that wool and animal fiber yarns have some give or stretch, whereas cotton and other plant fibers have none. Also, most animal fibers have some surface texture and stick-to-itself qualities that many plant fibers do not. Whatever the reasons, I found I could get the cotton/plant yarn swatches to match either stitch gauge or row gauge but not both.  I switched hook sizes.  I switched hook styles.  I wound and rewound balls in case the tension off the skeins was making any difference.  I cursed, I prayed. I did everything except crochet standing on my head and still I could not get any of the non-wool, warm weather choices to match my own gauge.  

What I swatched:
DMC Senso, a soft blend of microfiber and cotton that is listed as a Size 3 crochet thread.  Not a thread, trust me.  It is a lovely fingering weight yarn and is terrific for fashions.   Aunt Lydia's Size 3 Crochet Cotton, not as soft but workable.Red Heart Lustersheen, a cabled acrylic fingering weight, very soft, a better color range than the cotton threads.Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy, a sportweight blend of hemp, cotton and rayon; not as fine as the above, but would make a terrific spring tank.Tahki Cotton Classic Lite, a sportweight mercerized cotton in awesome colors, but a touch heavier than all of the above. DMC Senso, Spud&Chloe Fine, Tahki Cotton Classic Lite SwatchesI also tried a few fingering weight yarns that I'd be loathe to use for kid wear.  Fine gauge silk and fine gauge linen. Still no joy. Looking at the swatches this way, it doesn't seem as though there's much difference, but when the gauge is multiplied over the width and length of a garment, it really gets messed up.
Tahki Cotton Classic (pink), Kollage Sockalicious (blue)
Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy (green), Spud&Chloe Fine (pink)My solution?  Heck, if the yarn won't come to the gauge, then re-tool the gauge to fit the yarn.  This would not be possible in traditional pattern publishing where space is a limiting factor.  We don't worry about word count in download land, which leaves me free to offer as many sets of instructions in as many gauges and variations as necessary to cover the bases for the range of yarns you might want to use.

It's going to be a crap-ton of work, but worth the extra pages, trust me. Barring any unforeseen shifts in the universe, you should be able to find DJC2: Tank Girl, a seamless, lacy layering vest sized for girls, tweens and teens, in a couple of weeks at www.designingvashti.com.

Happy Chinese New Year!  Gung Hei Fat Choy, as I would say in Cantonese, but the spelling is suspect.  That dialect of Chinese is incredibly and notoriously difficult to write out.  Chinese is a tonal language, so the same phoneme (syllable) spoken with a different intonation, rising, falling, dipping or high, means something different.  Mandarin, now the national dialect, has just those four tones.  I believe Cantonese has five.  That's probably why Cantonese sounds so sing-song; it actually IS a song.

That makes for tons of puns due to those homonyms. The sound "ma" can mean mother or horse, depending on the inflection.  Be careful how you call your mom, huh?  It is also the basis of many traditions and superstitions.  For example, the word for the number four sounds like the one for death.  Needless to note, four is not a lucky number in China. One of the reasons that red is the happy, lucky auspicious color is that the word for red sound like the one for prosperity.  Makes perfect sense.

In fact, Gung Hei Fat Choy does not translate as Happy New Year, exactly.  It sort of means "congratulations and be prosperous".  The prosperity part is incredibly important. But mostly New Year is for eating and connecting with family and honoring ancestors.  And eating. For most people the party can go on for at least a week, but strictly speaking, New Year season is 15 days long.

I digress. One of the traditions I observed while growing up in a Chinese American household was that the things you do during New Year set the precedent for the whole year.  So if you cry, you will be crying all year.  It's not like the Western thing, the New Year's resolution.  You can make all the resolutions you want, but it's always up to you to make it so, know what I'm saying?  There is an element of personal choice involved after the fact.  With the Chinese tradition, you're rather stuck.  New Year karma.  So my parents impressed on me the idea that if you are bad, messy, loud or hungry (as if that would ever happen!), then that's how it'll be for the rest of the year, no do-overs.

I forgot all about that today.  Dang it.  I should have gotten all the horrible work done before New Year and set this day aside to do pleasurable, fun, happy stuff.  Instead I've been getting to tasks that are not my favorites: crochet pattern writing, housecleaning, laundry, pattern writing, updating my design pages at Ravelry, responding to crochet design questions and complaints.  Did I mention pattern writing?

Put in another perspective, the only way I can conduct my design business is to write patterns for my crochet creations.  Crochet patterns = prosperity.  So if I find myself doing pattern writing all year, that can only mean I will earn some fees.  This is not a bad thing.  Fat Choy, Fat Choy!

However, there are so many other things I could do, better precedents to set for myself. So, in hindsight, here's my list of stuff I should be doing today for a truly happy new year:

Crocheting.  Instead of writing crochet, I really should like to do crochet, now and all year long. Chances are I will anyway, but it might be good to have New Year luck on my side!Toasting with some bubbly wine, either a Spanish Cava or maybe an Italian Asti.Consuming mass quantities of chocolate.Talking to my friends and family.  I consider myself a low-maintenance kind of person, but every once in a while it's good to reach out and connect.  It lets them know you are still breathing.Eating cake.  Not baking that cake, though.  Baking results in delicious products, yes.  But the process entails work, mess, clean-up, which should not be my fate for the entire year.Browsing and buying yarn, hand candy.  No rationalization needed.Not a superstitious person in the least, I still have that little nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that maybe there's something it.  So instead of blogging any more I think I'm going to wander off and enjoy setting some other precedents. :-)

True to her word, Jaala Spiro, editor of Knitcircus, drank the KoolAid and has added crochet designs to her lovely online knitting magazine.  The Spring 2011 issue contains my Trellis stole, done in a majorly cool stitch pattern that is a variation on filet crochet technique.
If you were at Vogue Knitting Live last month, and if you happened to wander by the Bijou Basin Ranch booth all the way at the back of the second floor of the market, and if you noticed that bright pumpkin colored crocheted scarf on display behind the comfy sofa and if you were wondering where you could find the pattern for it... wonder no longer.  This is the stitch pattern I used to make the display sample.  The Trellis pattern gives you enough information to substitute your choice of yarn and gauge to make whatever dimensions you desire.  So instead of the Spud & Chloe Fine as shown in KnitCircus, I crocheted a smaller proportioned scarf out of one hank (150 yards) of Bijou Spun Bijou Bliss, a blend of yak fiber and Cormo wool that is softer than you can imagine.

Follow the link  to see and read the Spring 2011 issue of Knitcircus.  To receive the pattern collection, simply subscribe.  I believe it costs $7.99 for all the designs in the issue, mostly knitting, but including the Trellis, and that makes it a very good value.

Hand Candy (aka yarn).  Works for me.  Thanks for the term, Renee!

What goes great with hand candy?  A free crochet pattern comes to mind immediately.  Almost immediately.  Right after coffee (which habitually comes to my mind whenever I have to think about anything), wine (the libation that liberates creative passion and floats the mind past pragmatic crochet concerns like how in the heck is this stitch construction ever gonna work?), and chocolate (for which no rationalization is ever necessary).

For all my crochet friends coming to Vogue Knitting Live in New York City this weekend, 21-23 January 2011, Tahki Stacy Charles Yarns, Knitty City (the upper west side destination LYS) and I have created this awesome promotion.  Please stop by the Knitty City booth at the VKL marketplace (booths 2301, 2303, 2305, 2307) to see our lovely design, Variations, a set of three projects in Filatura Di Crosa Superior (the most satisfying hand candy I've had the pleasure to sample).  Choose your shade of Superior, a gorgeous fingering weight luxury blend of cashmere and silk, and with your purchase, you'll get this free pattern.
Here is the Wrap Variation, a twisted infinity style wrap.  Also included are instructions for a scarf and a stole.

I will be wandering around throughout the event, but if you want to catch me being good and still, find me hanging out at the Tahki Stacy Charles booth from 1 pm on Saturday and signing books at the Knitty City booth from 1 pm on Sunday.  Wear crochet so we'll know each other!

As a writer, I am all for having fun with language and amuse myself finding other ways to say the same thing.  This approach is not always appreciated by editors who would rather I use fewer words and a less colloquial, more formal tone in my prose.  And I agree that much of the crochet writing I produce (think patterns) has to be clean, clear, pithy, precise, concise and.... well... boring.  But this is the blogosphere, the wild west, where anything goes and usually does. I understand that using jargon, slang and euphemism in writing may mean that some readers will not understand what the frack I'm talking about.  I can live with that.

Obviously the way we speak is not the way we are supposed to write. What I was taught in school, Standard American English composition, today seems static to the point of moribundity.  In contrast, spoken American English, like all living languages, is dynamic and constantly changing to meet the needs and coolness of the speakers. I don't say we should have no standards for grammar, syntax, usage, spelling and such. I do say that there is a richness, texture and much humor to be found in personality prose, what I call this relaxed style.  I guess I want to express my joy and relief that I don't have to obey all the rules here.

Naturally, we invent the greatest number of non-standard terms and euphemisms for the things that most interest us, what we humans think about and obsess over or are not allowed to talk about in plainer English.  For instance, there must be hundreds, no, thousands of slang terms for sex, the internet, bodily functions and parts, sex, technology.  Illicit activities and substances.  Money.  Hokey smokes, I can easily bang out at least two dozen words for money or dollars.  Bucks, buckos, buckaroos, simoleons, greenbacks, green (which probably doesn't make sense in countries where currency is multicolored), smackers, clams, cabbage, kale, bananas, coconuts, dough, bread, potatoes, beans, bacon, cheddar, guacamole, lettuce (this is beginning to sound like a fast food order!), moolah, filthy lucre, dinero, paper, scratch, wad, Jacksons, Benjamins/Franklins (although I think only bank tellers and drug dealers ever handle those any more) and the related terms dead presidents and big faces.

Another category of slang I can appreciate addresses lack of either intelligence or sanity. Colorful and evocative, all deliver the sting of insult without being mean about it. So instead of saying stupid, brainless twit we can use dim bulb, low pressure zone, not firing on all eight (or all six), not the sharpest crayon in the box. I like some of the alternatives to crazy such as loony tunes, bats in the belfry, lights on-nobody home, bonkers, wacko, space cadet and my favorite, a french fry short of a Happy Meal.

Some words are more potent in print because they are difficult to pronounce or would come off as too effete in speech.  I use lots of scary words in writing that I'd never say in conversation because I am not an asshole. And I have to agree that most colloquialisms are better heard than viewed in print because our voices carry important cues for emphasis, emotional content and nuances that can't be typed in, except perhaps by the lame use of emoticons.  :-)   But since I "read" out loud in my head, I can still crack myself up in writing, no problem.

So (here's the payoff), we have a million thousand slang words for this other stuff that's important to us, like sex and money.  Why are there no happy, amusing slang terms for yarn? Yarn is something I think about all the time. Don't you? I find myself typing the word y-a-r-n so often that the labeling on those keys has worn off.  This annoys my partner no end.  He types by hunt and peck and if he can't see which key is "A" then he is totally lost. It would be nice to give some of those other keys more action, to kind of even things out.

A better question would be, do we actually need a euphemism for yarn?  Is yarn considered shameful or taboo in any way? That would depend on your upbringing and how big your stash is, I suppose.  But wouldn't it be cool to have our own word?

Imagine the possibilities.  "OMG, that LYS gives great [yarn]!".  "This cashmere [yarn] is to die for."  "Did you [yarn] today?" "So much [yarn], so little time."

I'm gonna work on it.  Slang for the "Y" word.  Something that doesn't have the letters Y, A, R or N in it, please.  Just saying....

Little things mean a lot.  Little projects that can be whipped up like lightning in mass quantities and have multiple uses mean that you can do a handmade holiday for everyone.


This tiny retro treasure can be an ornament on the tree, a special trim on a gift package, even a gift in itself.  It's pretty stretchy and can be stuffed with a surprising amount of candy.  Really.  Chocolate coins, petite candy canes, perhaps a chocolate marshmallow Santa. Hey, if you work a full worsted weight yarn to a generous gauge it could handily hold a gift card or a wad of cash.  Just saying.

I posted about this Mini Stocking a couple of years ago, and the pattern given on the blog is here.  You can also get it

One never knows what to think when the retail community moves Black Friday, the traditional kick-off for holiday shopping, to Black-Week-Before-Halloween, with slashed prices, deals and free shipping in abundance.  I am eternally puzzled about hard-core shopping.  Do people really stockpile gift items that early?  Is it safe to keep presents around too long?  If I were to purchase something really wonderful for a crocheter friend in say, August, with the intention of stashing it until Christmas, what are the chances in the intervening months that 1) I will grow so antsy to give the present that I send it in September thereby necessitating finding another gift for actual Christmas; 2) the intended recipient will switch gears and the item would no longer be so perfectly suited; or 3) that highly-sought-after item wouldn't become a merry gift to myself?  The latter happens more times than I wish to contemplate. Knowing myself, I now buy two; one to give, one to keep.

So I am more likely to be found scrambling at the last minute for those awesome, meaningful items that are sure to please the crochet people on my list.  But because the dealing starts, like, NOW, I am seeing the wisdom of shopping early.  What I call early.  Mid-November rather than mid-December.

What sorts of stuff do crocheters want for Christmas?  Hey, it's the same stuff they want all year round, all the time.  No surprise there.  If you are reading here and don't have a clue what that stuff is, peruse the following short list for a few ideas.  Even if you don't know what particular techniques or tastes your crocheter favors, you're pretty safe with something proven universally useful and/or so brand new to the crochet scene that she hasn't yet purchased it for herself.

I said this in a post two years ago and it still holds true.  For us it is all about yarn.  Crocheters appreciate yarn, any yarn.  So you don't know her favorite brand or weight or fiber or color.  Doesn't matter.  Even if it isn't her usual, it will still go into the stash in the sentimental treasure or souvenir category.  You can wimp out and arrange for a yarn shop or yarn site gift certificate.  But if you take the plunge and actually buy special yarn for a crocheter, you might want to pick not her favorite color, but YOURS, and get plenty enough skeins.  Who knows, that yarn might not linger in the stash very long... it might come back to you as a lovingly crocheted birthday or Christmas gift next year.  That's Karma Yarn.We can never have enough tools.  There is nothing so aggravating as dropping your only whatever size hook and watching it slip through the upholstery of a sofa in mid stitch.  It is imperative to have spares easily accessible for any eventuality.  Whether you supply her with duplicates of her cherished hooks, or take a chance on some of the new products this season, you won't go wrong.  I am totally addicted to the new Etimo cushion grip hooks, manufactured by Tulip Company and distributed here by Caron. Tunisian technique is now all the rage.  Inexpensive and becoming widely available this past year in shops and online are the Chiaogoo bamboo Tunisian hooks in sizes that were impossible to find before.  Also useful for Tunisian is the set of Denise interchangeable crochet hooks, which are compatible with the Denise knitting needles.  It won't take much shopping to find products that would enhance anyone's tool set. It may seem obsessive, but I enjoy having duplicates of certain hard copy books, particularly my favorite stitch dictionaries and technique guides.  I like to sticky certain pages, scribble notes in the margins.  Horrible habit, I know, and deemed sacrilege by book lovers.  But there you have it.  These volumes were meant to be used, thoroughly, completely and often.  If you notice any particular stitch book in her library that's really beat up, dog eared, with split binding, pages falling out and no cover, then take the hint that she would probably like a spare to stash away.  If you're a bit on the tech-y side, for those who prefer being fed information in electronic form, I don't exactly know how you'd be able to gift an e-book or pattern download and keep it a surprise.  You could e-mail them, but how do you label an attachment "Do not open until Christmas"? I carry crochet files stored on a flash drive, and it seems that might be a handy way to gift crochet e-books and patterns that you can purchase, download to the drive and gift wrap.  The drive itself is an extremely practical gift for not just tech geeks but for anyone with a USB port interface. And to have it preloaded with crochet goodies would be the cherry on top.  And it doesn't have to be a monster huge expensive drive.  Even a small capacity (2 GB) stick will hold tons, I mean crap tons of purchased pattern files.Where do we store our stuff?  Can there ever be enough storage?  For stashing yarns in protected places, because these are not air, water or bug proof, or toting mass supplies around, I can't live without Ziploc storage totes.  They are rectangular, clear blue vinyl, sturdy, handled, zippered, moderately stackable when filled, collapsible when not in use (which is never) and inexpensive.  I use both XL and XXL sizes and they have saved my life on many occasions.Crocheting takes a toll on hands.  In my house, hand cream is never more than an arm's reach away.  Hand cream falls in the realm of beauty gift, but should be considered a tool of the trade, to be slathered with zeal and abandon.  Many formulas are not happy for crochet if they do not absorb immediately or completely into the skin, leaving a film or a heavy scent that could sully your project.  Two excellent brands, both a bit pricey but worth every penny, are Perlier (available in company boutiques throughout Italy and Europe, but here primarily online and at HSN home shopping) and L'Occitane (available in company boutiques, some beauty chains and online). My vacuum cleaner eats anything smaller than a bread box.  Although it never snacks on larger gauge crochet hooks, it does find tasty anything else loose on the floor, such as stitch markers and safety pins, yarn needles, steel crochet hooks, bone rings, buttons and beads.  Heck, who wants to paw through vacuum cleaner dirt to find those tiny missing notions?  My rule is to have plenty extra.  The thing I can never ever have enough of is those little plastic saftey pin stitch markers, such as the ones from Clover and the new carabiner style markers from Wrights, available pretty much everywhere.  A sweet stocking stuffer.Speaking of sweet, although not techincally a crochet gift, chocolate would nonetheless make the crochet holiday experience complete.  Unless your crocheter cannot or does not eat chocolate (in which case you should really be extra considerate and nice to her because she is totally disadvantaged), a little choco-goodness is always welcome.  I have just begun to appreciate chocolate with peanut butter, which I never really enjoyed together, but now I think the combination is acceptable.  The absolute most heavenly best such bar, the one that takes you from zero to nirvana in the first bite, is this.  Worth every single fracking penny. I think I have to go find myself some chocolate right now.  Perhaps more ideas will find their way to this list later.  Perhaps not.  In any case, happy crochet shopping!

Likely you missed the world premier of my Magical Broomstick: Crochet Lace in a Flash workshop last week at the NYS Sheep&Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY.  My inaugural class might have been small in numbers but huge in terms of enthusiasm and spirit.
Yes, it's true.  I swatched.I don't bite.  Not today, anyway!Megan, Pam, Jean and Ruth, intrepid crocheters all, joined me for a fantastic and fun flight through three approaches to Broomstick technique, tons of show and tell, umpteen swatches and not enough coffee.  Thanks to my class angel Diane Moyer for capturing the morning in photos.
Pam was wearing a Broomstick scarf she had already made, YAY!In a pinch, these make awesome drumsticks.After class I had the honor of sitting for a book signing at the Merritt Books author booth.  I lugged in a dozen garment samples from Crochet Lace Innovations and from my new self-published pattern line DJC Designs.  Scott Meyer, my genial host, thinks I know how to work a crowd.  Little did he realize that the crowd was loaded with ringers, fellow designers and crochet friends from CGOA and Ravelry.  We were all having such a jolly good time that it only looked like I was impressing the assemblage.
Since many of the fans stopping by to meet me already own my books, I sometimes offer to sign book plates, signatures to-go.  OOOPS.  Well, now that Scott knows those people weren't all paying customers, ya think I'll get invited back next year?
Next teaching-op for me is the Chester Springs Studio Holiday Fine Crafts event on November 13th for Historic Yellow Springs, a non-profit enterprise in Chester County, Pennsylvania that preserves and promotes the history and arts of Yellow Springs village.  Chester Springs Studio is a vibrant arts center that hosts classes, workshops and exhibitions in the visual arts.  My Magical Broomstick crochet workshop is from 1 to 3 pm, but even if you can't make the class, please stop by before and after for mini-demonstrations and crochet Q&A.  Hope to meet you there.