Doris Chan Day

The Ohio pick-up is now complete.  It's official.  I now have two confirmed pool rats in the house!  lol

Anyway, back to the conference.  It's amazing to me that there is so much to say about this thing, so many ways to say it, and so many different points of view!  It's been fun for me to read others'  "reports", and get their take on the same things I've seen, and to hear about the things that I missed.  But today I want to talk about Doris.  The one and only Ms. Chan.  What an absolutely amazing lady!  I'm guessing it will be a long post!

My roomie, Karen, and I first spotted her outside the hotel.  We knew it was her because of her coloring.  The salt and pepper on top, and the pink and yellow on the bottom.  We stepped outside to say hi, and for Karen to talk a bit with her CGOA mentor.  Now how lucky was Karen?!  ( I got a new mentor, too, during this week, but thats another story!)  Karen had made one of Doris' tops, but had changed the lower portion to knit, rather than sticking with 100% crochet.  It turned out fantastic.  Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of it, and it does no justice whatsoever.  Here Doris is modeling the top in Dee's room.  Doris later modeled one of Karen's original designs during the Fashion Show on Saturday.  I'm bumming about not having a picture of that one!!!

Doris also modeled a fantastic dress made by Tammy HIldebrand.  Nice job, Tammy!!!!!  Let's see if I can get my picture of that one in here, too.  Doris modeled quite a few outfits that day, one gorgeous outfit after another!  Another pic that does no true justice.  The one shot I had of the right side/back of this dress was so blurry, I had a hard time seeing what it was!

Doris now has her own MyMichael's page with her designs.  I wanted to try my hand at her Lacy Duster, but it was the only one posted without gauge.  I mentioned that on Ravelry, and she posted right back what it should have been.   Great!  Now I can go to it!  I actually finished it just before going to the conference, and I didn't see anyone else with one at all until Saturday night!  How shocking!  The jacket is gorgeous!.  But I did get to model mine for Doris on PDD.  She checked it all out, and pronounced: "Gorgeous!  Great job!"  I glowed!.  lol  She even posted about it on her blog!  And did a good job on remembering names! 

I actually entered one of her designs in the fashion show.  I had converted her Jewel top from Everyday Crochet into a beach cover-up for Missyboo.  Smallest size was women's XS.  I downsized it more to fit a child, and added more length to it.  It turned out pretty well.  Then I was kind of embarrassed about it after seeing all the other original designs that were displayed.  Like I said in an earlier post, "Ah well, live and learn!"  Missyboo loves it, and it worked out great on the Ohio trip, since we stayed at Great Wolf Lodge, an indoor water park/hotel for the weekend.  It's a cooold walk back to the rooms thru the A/C when you're wet!  So here's my final picture for today.  The Jewel Beach Cover-up modeled by Missyboo.  Dee Stanziano's daughter, Mini Dee was kind enough to model it for me in NH.

I had seen Doris later in the week and stopped to ask her why she was wearing matching sneakers.  She started laughing and replied that she didn't have a pair of pink and yellow of that brand to mix and wear.  Dee Jr. asked her on Saturday why she was wearing one pink and one yellow sneaker.  She replied that she gets asked that many times, and that she likes to wear them that way.  They are both favorite colors and she could wear both of them that way.  Then SHE asked HIM, "Why not?"  I liked that response.  A new motto for me:  Why Not?

Time for me to get the pool rats moving for the day and figure out what we're going to be munching on.

Hope you all have a good day.  :)

And MORE Musings

I've been checking out some of the other blogs concerning the conference, and I came to one conclusion: Lordy, I wish I had worked my camera more than I did!  There were SO many things I missed!  By the time I got the camera out, turned on and ready to go, the moment, or person, or object had passed!  Boohoo!  Next time I go I think I'm going to get a WHOLE bunch of those disposable ones and just keeping shooting!  Ah well, live and learn!  Here are a couple more from last week.

Here's Dee Stanziano, the Cheerleader of Crochet.  She's also one of the founding members of my local crochet guild.  This was her first time teaching at the conference, and I was glad I took two of her offered classes.  Knit your Crochet, (just kidding, Dee!)  It was really called Crochet Your Knits.  And I'll tell ya, those stitches really did look like they came from needles rather than a hook!  The other class I took was Hand Jive.  We actually had a bit of a "dance" lesson at the start and finish of the class!  I taught Missyboo how to do this type of yarn work after I got home, and she was SO tickled that she was "doing it myself", she kept waking Hubby up from his nap to take a look at what was hanging from her fingers!  (I don't think I succeeded very well in not laughing.  Sorry, Hubby!!)  Thank you, Dee!  :D 

Woohoo, Dee, I just realized you used this picture as your new avatar on Ravelry!  It did turn out pretty well, didn't it? (blowing on fingers and rubbing on shirt front, all with a very big grin on my face!  lol)

Ok, next up on the list is a picture of me with Kim Kotary.  Kim just had a new book come out, You Can Crochet Socks.  They're pretty cool looking socks, too!  I got to meet Kim at one of Dee's "after-hours".  Then it seemed like I was running into her every day after that.  Hi, Kim!  I'm telling you, I met some of the neatest people all in one place during the course of one week! 

Now I need to go so I can take some more pictures of my niece's christening gown that I made a few years ago.  Then it gets to go back home to my sister's.   We'll be meeting up with my sister and niece this weekend in Ohio, then my sister will be going back to Wisconsin, and I'll have TWO pool rats in my house for the next month!  That should prove interesting.

So....have a good night!  :)

More Conference Musings

Let's see if I can get a couple more pictures loaded up in here from the conference.

Ok, I had a bit of succes here, but with only one picture.  Yay!  Better than none at all! This is a picture of Rita Weiss, wearing her gorgeous antique bridal jacket done in Irish Crochet.  Someone had asked her where she had gotten it from, and her reply was: "A garbage can."  She then went on to elaborate that the garbarge can was at Jean Leinhauser's house, and that Jean stores all her lace in covered garbage cans to keep them dry and "pest" free.  Hmmm.....was that supposed to include Rita?  ;D

I already mentioned I had taken a class with Dora Ohrenstein and Joan Davis.  I had also taken a class with Nancy Nehring on designing garments and the basic shapes most clothing uses.  That was a neat class.  I had never really paid a whole lot of attention to the finer details for tailoring a garment.  

A day later I realized that a sweater I was wearing was almost an exact copy of one of Nancy's handouts from class!  I saw Nancy for a brief moment that day, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her about it, and say, "See, I was paying attention in class!" because of all the people talking to her. 

Another class I took was with Lily Chin about tips, tricks and hints in crocheting.  She definitely had some pretty amazing tips, tricks and hints to share with us!  She will also have a new book coming out next year that sounds like a continuation of where she left off in Couture Crochet Workshop.  That class was a lot of fun.

My poor roomie, Karen, and I were lucky if we made it to bed before midnight each night!  What with classes, dinner, and the "after hours" get-togethers in Dee's room, and SO many interesting people to meet and talk to in between everything else!  That week went by very fast!

More again later.  Gots me some WORK to do!  lol

Have a good night.  :)

Conference - Part 2

Well, I think I have most of the new "perks" here figured out now.  I'll try a picture again in just a bit.  My fingers are crossed.  I can manage my way around on the computer, but once things start getting technical, I could be in for some serious hair pulling!  The site looks a little bit different now, so let me know how you like!

Anyhoo, as for the conference, I loaded up on classes every day I was there except Sunday.  I took a lot of tips, tricks and hints type classes, with only a few "learn new stitches" type classes.  All the teachers were fantastic, and a lot of fun, too!

I had a class with Joan Davis on how to do Celtic lace strips and put them together to make what ever your imagination could come up with.  I also got a pi review lesson.  I hadn't done anything with pi since junior and or high school!  But I was right on target with my circle!  That was a really fun class.  Joan is a ball of energy and a lot of fun.  I wish I could bottle it up! 

One class was with Dora Ohrenstein. I think it would be a hoot to sit down and gab with her!  We kept going off on tangents (all yarn related of course!), then she would catch herself and say, "Ok, back on track now".  That would last a few minutes, and off we would go again.  But we did manage to get thru all the points she had on her class outline before time ran out.  What a neat lady!

She actually ordered me to go show Rita Weiss and Jean Leinhauser a project I had that was made from #50 thread!  I'm glad she did.  I had to gulp up some courage to actually walk up to these two legends and show them something I had made!  They both liked the christening gown, and Jean thought it was true Victorian!  I was soooooo shocked she thought it looked that good, that it could have been 100 odd years old!  Jean and I had a very interesting conversation about laces and Victorian pieces after that.  What lovely ladies.

Ok, I got one picture in now.  I REALLY don't care for the way I have to get the sizing done now!!!!!!!!  I hope they get enough complaints to change back to something similiar to the way it was before!  I can wish, you know.

More coming later.

Have a good day.  :)

Home from the Conference

What a week!  It was well worth all the last minute work to get projects finished to take to NH with me!  I met a LOT of people during the course of the week from all over the country - Alaska, Florida, Arkansas, Kansas, Nevada, Missouri, Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.  There are probably a few states I've forgotten to mention; if so, I apologize to those I've missed!

Needless to say, I had an absolutely FANTASTIC time!  I would recommend everyone to go to one of these conferences at least once in their lifetime.  It was an eye-opening experience to say the least!  There were SO many beautiful creations to be seen, and everyone stopped to talk, touch and feel everyone else's "pets".

The design competion that was sponsored by CGOA was unbelievable.  The creations that came out of this......simply amazing.  This wedding gown was the grand prize winner.  My picture doesn't even begin to give this dress justice! 

(Ok, that's not working!  While I was gone, the formatting on this blog site has been adjusted.  Now I'll have to figure out how to get pictures uploaded and resized to be useful, rather than this humungus "thing" that I've been trying to get down to "normal" viewing size!  And figure out a few other kinds of new "perks" that were added along the way.  EEesh!)

I'll get more posted later.  Now I need to finish unpacking all my new goodies I brought home with me, then get started on the regular duties I've missed out on for the past week!

By the way, I sold five patterns while I was there! ( my heart has finally started to settle back to normal. Finally!)

Have a good day!  :)