Crochet to Go

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Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

I'm still in my cowl phase. This is the same pattern as before, using a soft acrylic yarn. It's proving very practical - it's perfect for skiing, an extra layer at work, or bunching under your collar to keep your neck warm.

Cupcake pincushion
Originally uploaded by sukigirl74.

There's nothing better than finding examples of your patterns! Here's a cute flickr find. The crocheter found the pattern on canadianliving.com (you can also find my duck pattern there, too).

I've spent the day proofing a pattern for the 2009 edition of the Crochet Pattern a Day Calendar. The deadline is swiftly approaching - get your patterns in now! I'm definitely sending in my easy arm warmer pattern (picture shown), and hope to get organized enough to finish another 1 or 2 patterns in the next week.

Speaking of which, I just received my copy of the 2008 calendar. I have two patterns included - a mesh-weave scarf, and a pretty little clutch. The overall calendar is a bit hit and miss, but I did find several patterns in the 2007 edition worth making. If nothing else, it makes for fun browsing.

The Lifetime network has posted three of my patterns online, just in time for holiday crafting! There's a blanket and pillow for the ambitious, and quick and easy jewelry ideas for last-minute gifts. You can find them here.

It's a beautiful, sunny day, I have a wedding to go to in a few hours, and I just found a picture of a project made from the Crochet to Go Deck! I don't know if it gets much better than this. Fern commented on the blog recently, and I just spent the last hour reading through her posts (great blog, Fern!). She made the cupcake for mother's day. I made all of these projects at least once (most many, many times), but it's still a huge relief to see that they work for other people. Thanks Fern! You made my day.

Craft magazine posted a feature on the Crochet to Go Deck! You can check it out here. The editor, Natalie Zee Drieu, did a beautiful job. There's a link to a free pattern (the cover wrap top), too. You'll also find an interview with yours truly, with everything you ever wanted to know about the first project I crocheted, favorite patterns, and what I'm making next.

Check it out! My friend Elese spotted the Crochet to Go Deck in the NYC Anthropologie this past weekend. So far it doesn't seem to be at the San Francisco store, but I'm checking frequently. Let me know if you see it at any other locations.

My apologies for delaying so much on posts. I finished posting pictures from the Colombia trip on Sunday - click here if you're interested. I'm nearly through my list of missed blog posts too (I'm currently reading 47, which is fine on a daily basis but completely overwhelming when I fall behind). Who knows, maybe I'll actually get to my Colombian crafts post tonight.

Hannah's Baby Shower
Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

Hannah is the first of my friends from college to have a baby. I find this a little odd (I'm almost 30, after all), but perhaps it's normal now that more women in America are unmarried than married?

It's exciting - I can't wait for Hannah to have her little girl.

Blanket Detail
Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

Holiday Gifts
Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

I'm trying to be better about getting photos of the actual receipient wearing the things I made them (poor Adam gets tired of all the modeling). Here's Wes in his new hat, and Christina with her scarf.

The final three! I'm especially pleased with the military green and red version. Next up:

- Hand warmers (2 pairs)
- Baby blanket
- A new hat design, with a fold-over brim and earflaps, for really cold weather

Yes, I've started the Christmas craft frenzy. I'm tacking it in stages: first hats, then ornaments, then scarves and mittens. If I work really hard, I think there's a chance I might actually get everything done. Here are the first six hats. Thanks to Adam for graciously modeling all of them. His favorite is the black and grey one; I'm partial to the fuzzy white hat with blue and brown accents.

I received a real, final copy of the Costco edition of my patterns last night! It's massive and just beautiful. Rumor has it that the kit will be in stores within the next week. I think this is going to be a great gift - it has 50 patterns (25 from my Crochet to Go Deck, 25 from Melissa Leapman's Cozy Crochet Kit), yarn, and instructional booklet, and several hooks. Adam and I are driving to Costco today to see if it's there yet.

Here's a few samples of how the photography turned out. Gorgeous!

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Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

The photoshoot went very well--I cannot wait to see the final pictures! The photographer promised to scan in her polaroids and send them over; hopefully she'll do that this week.

So, what was it like? Well, as an observer, a long day. Clearly a lot of people have to work quite hard, and do it in a certain order. The stylist has to dress the model, who needs to have her hair and makeup done. The photographer needs to figure out the location and test the lights. Then everyone converges to actually take the photograph (or photographs--three rolls per shot seemed standard). It's an impressive process, and by the end of the day I understood why 11 shots was a lot to get through.

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Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

Also known as my mom's scarf--this was the one book project where I was able to use something I had already made.

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Originally uploaded by aliciamalia.

I'm so glad I made this hat! The original model was black with a red stripe; it really wouldn't have worked with Jennifer's coloring.

I whipped these up earlier this week to provide a few different color options for Crochet to Go's photographer. The original cupcakes for the book were solid brown (chocolate) and brown and white (chocolate with white frosting). The fact that everything I made is actually getting professionally photographed somehow makes the book feel more real, and more likely to actually appear on a shelf someday. Hey, the publisher's paying good money for this, right? Surely they want a chance to recoup their investment. I've seen the call list, shot notes, and locations. I'm taking the day off of work for the first day of the shoot (this Monday). They plan to shoot for three days, doing the adult stuff, then baby, then still lifes. I'll try to sneak of few pictures of the team in action.

On another note, I finally broke down and bought Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker. Stoller really rubs me the wrong way--I often feel that her books are forced and trying too hard to be "cool." The patterns aren't awful in this one, though (she didn't write the patterns; just solicited and chose which ones to include). Her writing is also occasionally very funny and I find myself agreeing with a lot of her points. For example, she acknowledges that there's nothing wrong with acrylic yarn. (This is a huge pet peeve for me--why spend a bundle on yarn that you'll never be able to wash? Especially when the item is for a baby, who's sure to barf on it within the first ten minutes?)

I love what she writes about thread crochet (which is what the apron in the previous post is):
"it is understood by crocheters of every stripe to be a practice reserved for those with advanced skills, prison inmates with loads of time on their hands, or folks with a masochistic streak." I fear I fall into the latter category.

Crochet to Go has a photographer! Her work looks perfect--check it out here.

I've been on a major hat binge for the past few weeks. These are all variations on the hat pattern I developed for the Crochet To Go Deck. Adam wanted a hat of his own, and I wanted to make sure that the instructions for medium and large sizes actually work. (Amazingly enough they did. It was a big relief.) So I started with the basic, a single stripe on a solid background, moved on to a stripe with a colored border on either side, and then made a two-stripe version for good measure. All in different types of yarn to make sure the pattern continued to function. How's that for thorough?

And yes, in case you're wondering, it's awfully cold in the Bay Area right now.