CGOA Member

Let it be known that  after many years of thinking about it, yep I joined the CGOA.  I am a member for the next two years, I am hoping to take advantage of it's benefits and see what comes out of it.  I have been a member of the Men Who Crochet Chapter that Meets in Oakland for some time now.  I have to say that I have enjoyed being a part of the chapter. They have some advance certifications and some programs that I will eventually get into.  Is it worth it?  I don't know yet, I will tell you in a year, I have downloaded a list of member discounts and benefits and I will see how I can use them, but more than discounts is what can I learn.  I am hoping to becom a better Tapestry Crochet Artisan. Thanks for stopping by.

San Mateo Cty Fair,Crochet & Father's Day

All in all today is father's day.  I wish all of you out there in the cyber world and the regular world Happy Father's day.  There are some guys that are greater father's without having the opportunity of having children of their own, I salute you as well. To my two brothers on the earth plane J. Andres , S. Noel and to my brother who just passed away a few weeks ago.  Yep his name was Andres as well he died at an early age of about 55; my father who is  still alive, by the wonders of life, loved his name, but I am not here to talk about him, not much positive to say, if you have read my blog you will understand why.  This Sunday finds me content and waking up from a dream in which I was travelling in a bus that had first class, dishes and everything lol!

This was our area at the San Mateo County Fair.  Lots of people came in and walk by, stopped and talked to us.  Our main purpose was to promote crochet though the Men Who Crochet Chapter of the CGOA, which is the parent organization.

Here we got Mattie standing on the the left of the table, Penny which is sitting down , she is amazing after having a hip replacement done, and Cay who is looking in the bag for something, I forget what it was lol!

Here I was sitting bringing some of my hats for show, my hats are the ones laying flat on the table among other things that I crochet.  I was making a demonstration of Tapestry Crochet and I got so many compliments it was nice.  This was not a good day for me as I left my computer at home in need of  having to re-install the whole system again, and I will be doing that twice again until like today, I am happy with the results.

What a great experience , even as I was not feeling the greatest, my life is just taking such an interesting road, but here I am walking and making that road forward.  I am creating a new pattern and as I was creating, writing it down, lots of people stopped to watch and asked me about my hats.

Tom another of the members of the group was there with us demonstrating crochet as well. Tom is part of my Monday Night Knit group at the Cafe Trieste in San Francisco.

These are some of the Items exhibited at the fair which won prizes, there are two more cases with crochet items there.  I did not enter any of my hats.  You can see here the Crazy Eight Vest by Cay, in the Noro Colorway and a Vest and some sweaters by Peter Franzi aka HookerBear. 

We had a lot of people that stopped by the table , but only few brave souls that came to learn how to crochet and Cay was so kind as to help them to learn.  Here she is teaching a lady how to make a coaster and by the end of the lesson she made one.

This was my first San Mateo County Fair and it was interesting, I was glad I was inside, there were a lot of people on the grounds.  Cotton Candy, but I lied the fresh cotton candy, not the already made.  It just does not tastes the same. 

The are we were at was full of the most beautiful quilts I have ever seen.  If you lie quilts you would have enjoyed this building we were in.  There were a lot of quilts, not as many as they could have had I bet.  All in all it was a fun experience that I will be happy to volunteer again for.  I was able to take the train all the way down to withing blocks of this fair and that was something I enjoyed.  I hope toi have some more exciting things to show tomorrow, which I have, but not for today. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Father's Day!

Suede Soles and a Flower Pot

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get my suede soles in the mail. It was a very interesting process to make the suede soles fit. I was glad I made the BUMPEr that the pattern calls for as optional. Why? Because I felt comfortable cutting with my scissors around without fear, lol! These babies are very comfortable and a great experience in felting by front loader. I will probably do a second pair and start the felting on the front loader washing machine, but move the rest to the bathtub. I follow the advice of people on the net to secur the soles. I actually used quilting pins to pin the sole to the slipper and then went around the slipper with the darning needle and thread. I think I did a pretty good job at this.

A flower pot came to be when a hat was too heavy to wear, lol! Actually I learned a lot about felting and crochet stiches. I also learned about embelishments and how they behave. The Vertical lines on the bottom was an experiment, they where not crochet, but actually threads that were over imposed. I was noticing after a bit of felting that the top, in this case of the picture t, the bottom was shrinking and pulling the hat or bowl in a strange way, so I got my scissors and cut them loose. This allowed the pattern to relax a bit and to continue the felting process. I now know how this will behave if I want to use it in the future.

I want to thank you for your indulgence and for stopping by my blog today. I am hoping to go to Stitches West 2010 and will be manning the Warm Up America Booth, representing the Men Who Crochet Guild Chapter of the CGOA , doing some crochet and knitting for the Warm Up America Project . Come and say Hi!

Men Who Crochet CGOA Soire Aug 07

This was my contribution to the potluck a Sugar Free Buttercream Frosting Double Layered Chocolate Cake. I also brought a Pasta Salad.

We had a gathering and it was a success. The MWC (Men Who Crochet) had it's meeting Saturday and it was combined with a Potluck, Gift Exchange Soire. I got this nice Tweed and I

gave away some Chenille that I was happy to depart with.

There was a show and tell from Cay, our Vice-President. Some of Cay projects won some awards, no wonder they were beautiful and some of us where working on projects of different kinds, sweaters, dishcloths, knitting, crochet.

Here you also have one of the newest members Mike which was working on a sweater.

Mike also brought us these for everyonedo you know what they are? The may be used for holding your stitches while your work is put away. They are bread clips,; clips to close the bread bags! Clever don't you think. Kind of Make your Own.Our President Peter Franzi in here with some of his girls modeling in front.
There was food and there was conversation and future planning of the next Soire and the next meeting. Thanks for the fun and than you for stopping by!

MWC Men Who Crochet Jul 07

Title: Men Who Crochet CGOA Chapter Meeting

Date: Saturday July 21, 2007
Time: 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Repeats: This event repeats every month on the third Saturday.
Location: Telegraph Community Center
Street: 5316 Telegraph Avenue
City State Zip: Oakland CA 94609


This was this month's meeting, I brought some brownies to share with the group. Everybidy was fun to be around and lots of crafty people. We had a small class about doing a stitch in a different way by our Kay who is stanfing up. Kathy in the Backgroun, Me, Glenda in yellow and Peter. Peter who is the group leader.

We received a folder with last's month's How to make a Diagonal Box Stitch Square. They make sqaures for a Charity Group, each member usually donates a 12 " square a month. Inside the folder there was a lesson explaining the making of this particular Square. I will enjoy going as much as I can. I had a great time. You can find this stitch at ---> Diagonal Box Stitch!

Thanks for stopping by.