Three entire months have gone by and I’m just getting back to my blog! I look at blogs all over the Internet and 90% of them seem to write something every day. I must be one of the 10% who blog when they can!
Someone once said: Life is what happens when you’re busy doing other things. I’ve been exceedingly busy over those three months.
My partner, Paul has had another serious operation and my small Tanning Salon had to open in January so the local snowbirds could tan before going on their vacations all over the southern hemisphere. In addition to reading prolifically, I’ve been cleaning house and rediscovering some of my other loves.
Crochet for one.
There was a time when I crocheted things to feed my young and growing family. I worked at it constantly only taking breaks to cook, clean and make sure my children were amused or busy or happy overall. Most of the time they were self contained and never bored. They usually had some project they were working on alone or together.
I remember crocheting large laundry baskets out of hemp twine. As two or three of them sold the demand for them grew and my fingers suffered greatly. I had calluses of unbelievable dimensions. I would also sit up nights to finish projects with my feet on a space heater to keep warm. Some folks might find that hard to believe in this century that not everyone lived in a house with central heating and hot and cold running water. But, even today I’m sure if you look hard enough you can still find a few who do. I used to dream of crocheting a cozy for the house, like you see on some teapots.
In any case through a lot of hard and deliberate work things got better as time moved along. My crochet arts went to projects that didn’t injure me bodily to any extent. I made Afghans, sweaters, hats, tablecloths and pillows. One year I made some of the toys my children received from Santa. I also made some pocket dolls they could give to their teachers and bus drivers. Adults like to have toys too!
It’s amazing what you collect over the years when you crochet, knit, embroider, sew etc. and even more amazing that you keep as much of it as you can. You end up with a multitude of yarns ends that you have no idea where you bought it or when. You have reference books, magazines (you never part with them) and patterns galore. None of which is organized but live in tubs, bags and boxes.
You promise yourself you’ll go through it all one day. Thirty years later you find that “day” isn’t going to arrive and if it did, the day would need 168 hours in it and a small helpful crew!
Having spent the last eight months assisting my partner back to healthy recovery I did a lot of reading between times. Recently I got the wool urge and returned to crochet. My speed was a bit off but after a few days it came back; maybe not as strong as it was but enough to satisfy me.
Then I decided to teach it to beginners. So I sat down and wrote a proposal and curriculum for the program. I’ll send it off to the local women’s group soon and see if they want to run it. If not, someone else will.
I’ve joined several online groups. Ravelry, and a few others. Then I realized there’s software out there to assist in the creation of patterns. You can sell and/or give away your original patterns. The major problem is, all the software I’ve encountered, purchased and ran demos on are all structured for knitters. Some of them say they’re for crochet as well but in my explorations of them I cannot see how. Unless they think filet crochet is the only kind of crochet; which it isn’t!
After having little or no success with software I did find some crochet fonts. Now that was a real find! Even if the software doesn’t deliver you can certainly buy the fonts and do your patterns with your word processor, the old fashioned way.
I bought StitchinCrochet from MyFonts.com and so far I’m pleased with them. They cost all of $4.50. Excellent value!
Also, if you get Open Office they work wonderfully with it, and you can produce a PDF document for your pattern with graphs. What more do you need? Well, the pictures you took as you went and maybe a list of the stitches you used and all the things any pattern might include. But the point is, Open Office is FREE!
MyFonts.com also has fonts for other fiber arts as well.
It’s a shame really because out there in cyber land is a programmer who could write a nice program for crochet artists so they could make their patterns all in one place. If I ever get his or her name, I’ll let you know!
Until next time, Stay Well
