I’m so excited about this!! I’ll be releasing three guest posts at Kinga Erdem’s popular crochet blog. The first is a scarf pattern that uses a 6.0mm hook and Einband Lopi – a laceweight yarn.

Go check it out!!

 

Today I thought I’d give some press to a few groups on Facebook. It’s nice to get together with other folks and the internet gives us the ability to do that at 2am, in our underwear, tea in hand if we so desire. Some of these groups are HUGE and have over 100,000 members, so posts get buried quickly, BUT they all have one things in common: they are friendly, supportive places to visit:

• Crochet Addict 
• Crochet Addict 1
• Tunisian Crochet Club

These two might not be for everyone, but I sure like them!

• Crochet Uncensored – this group is different. It’s a no-holds-barred bunch of hookers telling it like it is, with many posts being listed “NCR” (Not Crochet Related) and quite often “NSFW” (Not Safe For Work). It’s a hilarious place but not for the easily offended.
• Your Mom’s a Hooker – billed as “a place for the more modern and open minded hooker”, this group was created as an antidote to the often religious and conservative overtones that seem to exist in a lot of other English-speaking, North American crochet groups.

And finally, for those looking to find other members of the Rainbow Tribe:

• LGBTQ Crafters – this is a very small group compared to the others listed here. It’s also not nearly as busy, but it is a nice place to go if you want to make some queer crafting friends, not specifically crochet but there are hookers there.

Like I said in my last post, I love a good roadtrip.

Three years ago before Nick’s dad got sick, we all piled in the truck and had a Griswold vacation to Omaha. We always said we’d love to return because we had a good time and it didn’t feel like we were there long enough. This year, thanks to some mighty powerful endothelin blockers, he felt more than up to making the trip and trooped all over the city like a boss.

I just came back from another road trip!! I love to travel. I love living out of my suitcase. I love not always knowing where I’ll end up the next day. I’m not a resort person or a guided tour person. Being served pink drinks with umbrellas in them in an artificial environment isn’t for me and neither is running around on a bus seeing this place and that place for an hour or two. I want to see the biggest ball of string, or the statue erected to the kid who ate the most pies in 1936, or the little museum dedicated to sailmakers – that’s what I want to see – and I want to see it on my schedule 🙂

It occurred to me, as we were driving through the USA for like, the 100th time, that even though we are neighbours and share a lot of the same cultural elements, Canada and the United States are two very different countries. I thought about the things at home that are definitely not the same, and it dawned on me as a traveler, that there are things unique to Canada that someone might not think about until they are here, faced with whatever IT is that is different. This does not apply to American visitors only, because I know that despite the jokes about Americans not knowing about Canada, most of the ones I’ve met are quite knowledgeable. This is for anyone who might want to visit my country:

• Canada is expensive. Like other Northern countries, Canadians are used to paying more for everything. If you’ve been to the US or you are coming up from the US, then you may be shocked at the prices for things. When we cross the border into the United States, the first thing we do is fill up the cooler at a grocery store. I am always amazed that I can still fill a grocery cart for about $120 because the same amount of food would cost close to $300 up here. The sort of sales that people come to expect in the USA, like being able to walk into an outlet store and get a $200 pair of jeans for $24.99 that is reduced again by 50% at the counter – that doesn’t exist up here as far as I know. I spent $95 at a woman’s designer clothing outlet on my last trip to Nebraska and walked out with four pairs of jeans and a sweater all worth about $600 at regular prices. That doesn’t normally happen up here. There are sales in Canada, but there is a reason that those of us who cross the border to shop, will move mountains to make it happen. Hopefully you aren’t coming to visit for the shopping 🙂
• The price is not exactly the price. Having spent time in other places around the world, I found it really, really convenient that a lot of other countries put the price in total on a price tag. Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. The price on the tag is the price before all the taxes and those taxes are different in each province. For those of you visiting from places without massive taxes – how is that? Most Canadians have a rolling calculator in their heads that will estimate 20% to add to their total before they head up to the counter to pay. If it ends up being less than we guesstimated then we get all happy. There is PST, GST, and HST. Don’t ask a Canadian to explain the different taxes or what gets taxed. We try not to think too hard about them – we just pay them. The Northern provinces and Territories don’t pay very much in sales taxes, I think they just pay GST, which is what the federal government imposes, but then the cost of things up north are ridiculous – like $20 for a tiny package of baby wipes or $10 for a green pepper.
• ……and the price is still not exactly the price. Canada dumped the penny a couple of years ago, BUT the prices have not changed to accommodate this. What this means is that you can still purchase something with a $2.99 price sticker on it, even though that number (and the number after taxes) will require pennies to make up the price. So let’s say that you buy a few things at the grocery store that total $67.23 before taxes. Your final bill in the province where I reside (Manitoba) will be $75.97. If you pay with a credit card or bank card, you will pay $75.97 – the exact price. If you pay in cash, you will probably pay $76.00, depending on how the merchant is rounding their prices. If you give $76.00, don’t be shocked when you don’t get change back. Yes it is confusing, and I’ve seen some visitors get their noses out of joint a bit, but it’s one of those things that isn’t going to change any time soon and we’re all used to it, so pony up that extra nickel, eh?
• Your pockets may get heavy. The smallest bill that Canada has is five dollars. We used to have one and two dollar bills but they were phased out ages ago for one and two dollar coins. Please don’t ask us why, we just live here. Canadians call the one dollar coin a “loonie” because there is a loon on it and so we just started calling the two dollar coin a “toonie” when it was released. At the end of the week I do a big purse dump and put my loonies and toonies in a jar. It adds up pretty quickly.
• This is a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIG country. I know it’s an old joke that people like to make, about the tourist in Vancouver who wants to have lunch in Toronto, but there is a grain of truth to it. Most countries are not 5,799 km wide from coast to coast – this is the distance to drive from Vancouver to Halifax. That’s a lot of land to cover and most Canadians don’t ever see their whole country. I am fortunate, having grown up in the military, to have seen lots of Canada. Each region is very different in terms of land and culture, and it is better to pick one region and explore it – chances are good one our regions is still bigger than the place you came from so be prepared to do a lot of driving around. By the way, you can still have lunch in Toronto if you are in Vancouver, but you have to fly out from BC at about 4am to do it. Make sure you say hello to Office Glen if you do that.
• Get used to driving…..lots of driving. Canada has a population of about 35.3 million people, give or take. The state of California has 38 million people. The only country physically bigger than Canada is Russia. You can fit Europe into Canada. You can fit California into Canada, many times over. There isn’t a huge population up here, relative to the size of my country, so there is a lot of empty space. A friend in the UK once said that Canadians think 100 years is old and 100 km is quick. That is probably true. We think nothing of getting into the car and driving 100, 200, 300 km to get to another town, but that is how it is when our population is so small relative to the size of our country. The population is heavily concentrated in some areas, like the lower mainland of BC, Toronto and surrounding townships in Ontario, and Montreal and its townships in Quebec.
• We talk about distance in terms of time up here. This annoys the hell out of tourists, especially the anal retentive ones that clutch their atlases with white knuckles. I live in Winnipeg. If you ask me about the drive to Regina (the next city) from here, I will tell you it is about six hours away on the TransCanada Highway. I’m not going to tell you that it is 567 km west of here. This is not something that we really think too much on up here, like these others things I’ve mentioned, it’s just part of how we are. We don’t dwell too much on distance because it doesn’t matter – everywhere here is far from everywhere else so there is no point in bothering to say exactly how far something is. It will take you six hours to drive there. That is what you need to know. If you don’t need to stop to eat, pee, and gas up then it will take you 5.5 hours to drive there.
• We are (mostly) metric. This irritates the Americans, but the rest of the world, also being metric, is totally ok with that. So if you’re from the US and I’m telling you that it is a six hour drive to Regina from Winnipeg, and you insist on knowing the distance, I am giving it to you in kilometers. Please don’t ask us for the miles. We don’t know. The reason I say that we are mostly metric is that being next to the USA and only having been metric since the early 70s, we have created our own blended measuring system for things. We measure distance in kilometers but most of us measure length, width, and height in feet. We cook and bake in Fahrenheit, but we know the outdoor temperature in Celsius. We ask for 200 grams of shaved ham at the deli, but add one cup of flour to a recipe instead 240 grams. I am part of the transitional generation, my 20 year old son was educated only in the metric system. However, it’s all there in our Gen X memory banks, so if you really irritate us, we can be 100% metric in .000045 seconds, just to really get under your skin.
• We are bilingual. Most English speaking Canadians learn French in public school and most French speaking Canadians learn English in school as well. We have two official languages and this is reflected in our signage, labels, and the voluminous amounts of paperwork that we love for you to fill out at the border when you leave. This does not mean that we can actually function in two official languages. What we excel at here in Canada is bilingual label reading. We can tell you how to say various advertising slogans in either language, or if you ever find yourself confused by the sign that says “Chalet Suisse”, we can bravely step up to the plate and let you know that “Swiss Chalet” is Canada’s best-loved chicken restaurant from sea to shining sea. Really advanced Anglos can order “…deux cinquantes…” at the tavern in Montreal (“…two fifties…” Fifty being a brand of beer) and everyone knows the proper pronunciation for “poutine”.
• We are a liberal country. Obviously there will be some areas that are more conservative than others, but for the most part, Canadians are a tolerant, accepting bunch of folk. Depending on your country of origin, you may be shocked to see interracial couples, mixed race children, topless women in the summer (this one might be rather rare but it still happens), people with physical or intellectual disabilities in the mainstream, single parents, multi-religious families, multi-ethnic families, same sex couples, same sex couples with children, the rich hanging out with the poor, and multi-racial neighborhoods where we actually know our neighbors and don’t worry that they’re going to rob us blind or drive down property values. And we’re all out in public on display like it’s no big deal…..because it isn’t. If you don’t like it, don’t look.
• We love lineups. If there is one thing that Canadians love to do, when they’re not reading bilingual ingredient labels or furiously converting from metric to imperial and back again, it’s getting in line for things. We love a nice, organized, polite lineup where everyone makes quiet conversation and waits their turn nicely. We don’t even have to know what the lineup is for, if we see a big lineup we might get in it just for kicks because who knows, we could make some new friends.
• We are polite and apologetic folk. While there is no such thing as a uniform Canadian culture (the country is too big and the population is too diverse for that) there are a few things that are uniquely Canadian and our politeness tends to stand out. We say please and thank you, we hold doors and give up seats, we take turns, we line up, and we’re nice to strangers. We are also known for saying “sorry” and “excuse/pardon me” a lot. The sorry bit perplexes outsiders to a certain extent. We don’t have a collective guilty conscience and we know we’re worthy – “sorry” doesn’t always mean sorry. Like any other idiom in any other language, sorry has a multitude of uses and it is important to pay attention to things like situation, tone of voice, and body posture to really decipher the meaning of sorry. For example, if I step on your toe and say “Sorry!!” probably preceeded by an “OhmygoodnessI’mso” then I am genuinely sorry that I stepped on you and caused you pain. Probably I wasn’t behaving as nicely as I could have been while I was waiting in line. That’s ok because now we will engage in another great Canadian passtime – small talk. We will become friends and probably figure out that we are distant cousins. After we’re done lining up we probably won’t speak again, until we meet in another lineup, but that’s ok – that’s how we roll in the Great White North. Here is another example: if you cut me off in the parking lot and make some snide remark about driving/turning/parking as you take the spot, I may say “Ooops, sorry, my bad” which in this case means “Go fuck your hat you son of a bitch, you knew I was trying for that spot. I hope someone knocks you in the shin with the door and you wait in line all night and it’s really unfuckingfulfilling.” So you see, we always try to be polite, but we aren’t always sorry.
• There is no such thing as bad weather in Canada. Only stupid wardrobe choices. We love to talk about the weather up here because it’s a big part of our lives. In The Maritimes, most of us have an umbrella in our bags, on even the sunniest days. Here in Winterpeg Winnipeg (all of the prairies, actually), the smart Canadian invests in winter. Sorel boots and Canada Goose jackets are only outrageously priced until you’ve been outside in -50C trying to scrape the ice off your windshield because nothing ever gets canceled in this place and you still have to go to work. Then when you realize that you haven’t frozen to death in ten minutes, they are the best! wardrobe items! ever! and you want to wear them all the time, everywhere, and so you do. There is a reason that our national “look” involves boots and a flannel shirt.

Is there anything you’d like to add? Tell me on facebook or leave a comment here!!

 

Entrelac is probably my favourite way to work Tunisian crochet. Since corner-to-corner blankets are very popular, I thought I would photograph a short tutorial showing how to do them. For this demonstration I used an 8.0mm hook and one skein each of Red Heart Super Saver in Aran Fleck and Blue Fleck.

It’s true – I am!! 

That is just heaps of fabulosity 🙂

Mistie is a great lady for featuring us on her blog. This is my first time actually doing social networking and I’m thrilled to bits to be participating in things instead of holding my breath and watching from the sidelines.

She’s also hosting a Twitterhop!! If you’re not sure what that is, go check it out. It’s a great idea if you have a twitter account and you’d like to build up your followers with like-minded folks.

In other news, we adopted kittens!! I wasn’t planning on adopting two kittens this weekend. In fact, I was silently congratulating myself on having a paycheque that didn’t actually have to go towards anything – hahahaha. Clearly the universe had some other plans. When I saw my hubby’s face light up in the kitten room, I knew we were leaving with these two little critters. We all miss Bruiser but I think he misses him the most.

I also have a shiny new 8.0mm Tunisian hook to replace the one that my dog ate, plus a new 9.0mm because you know…..you can never have too many hooks 🙂

That’s all for now!!!

 

Moar kitties!!!

A video posted by Nicole Cormier (@_nicolecormier_) on May 5, 2015 at 5:58am PDT

I have been terribly, terribly lax on my social sharing, folks. I apologize. I don’t go into the groups often enough and when I do, I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of posts to read and play catch-up with, so a lot of the times I just sneak back out. It is time to rectify this. Please click on the image to visit the site.

 

 

Stacy Krumel-Rhoades is a fellow crochet blogger and desginer who has been told that she is slowly going blind due to degenerative vision disease. She is putting several of her patterns on sale to raise funds for a family trip. She has a bucket list that she wants to accomplish – let’s help her do that!!

 

 

 

 

I am not particularly religious, but many in the North American crochet community seem to be. So, for the Christian hookers who may be interested, here is a lovely pattern that comes from From Grammy’s Heart to create a cross bookmark. I will probably make one of these anyway , religious beliefs aside, and make it BIG, because they remind me of the Celtic crosses that I used to see growing up in Nova Scotia, particularly on Cape Breton Island.

 

 

 

 

 

Fellow hookers – Stichin’ Mommy is hosting an INTERNATIONAL give-away!! This gives me a huge happy!! Seriously, it does. I get excited when I see contests and give-aways and then I read the fine print that usually says “USA only” in not so many words. But this is for everyone. Yay!!! She’s giving away a copy of “Hooked!: 40 Whimsical Crochet Motifs From Weird to Wonderful” Stop by and check it out.

If you don’t know what that Internet acronym means, then you live under a rock. Gauge is most definitely not a lovely piece of Arabic flatbread that wraps everything up in a nice, warm hug.

BUT

It can definitely be a fickle creature, with its own whims. Damnit!!!

So what do you do when gauge betrays you?

• You can use a bigger hook if your gauge is too tight
• You can use a smaller hook if your gauge is too loose
• You can use the same sized hook, BUT use one made in a different material: I tend to work more tightly, for example, with stainless steel Tunisian hooks than I do with wooden ones. I’m thinking this is because I can zip right on through my work due to the slipperiness of the hook. Carbonized bamboo moves pretty quickly for me, too, while my birch hooks tend to “grab” a little more, forcing me to slow down and my work ends up a bit loose.
• You can use certain yarns to certain hooks. If I want speed, I’ll use a slick metal hook with bamboo yarn and whiz right through whatever I’m making. If I’m doing stranded colourwork, and I might have a nuclear meltdown if I drop stitches then I’ll use “sticky” yarn (not terribly smooth, with a lot of wool in it) and a wooden hook. If I use a plastic hook with an acrylic yarn then – and maybe this is just me – I can feel something “squidgey” (sorry, making words up as I go for descriptive purposes!!) when I form stitches. I don’t like the feeling and I find that it throws my stitching off, particularly with acrylic yarns that are meant to imitate wool, such as Unforgettable.
• You can block the heck out of something when you’re done, and hope for the best.
• You can have a glass of wine and decide that a crooked pair of slippers is right for you.
• You can make your projects become airborne for a few moments, cry, then take them apart and start over.

Gauge is the big reason that I tend to start and finish my projects as quickly as possible. I find that the longer something takes, the greater an opportunity there is for gauge changes to completely wreck my best efforts.

This is also true of large items, like blankets. Gauge can change as the item is worked because it gets so heavy that everything pulls. Suddenly  your most recent work is pulled so tightly that your stitches start to squeak.

This happened to me with this panel on my corset vest. I put it down for several weeks and then when I picked it up again, my gauge was sooo little that even though it hasn’t shrunk, it is obvious in the stitching. I have tried to fix it a little already, to no avail, so to the Frog Pond it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

Gauge can also be a PITA when you start something, like, say, a pair of socks, and your first sock comes out FAH-

BYOO-LOUS because you’re relaxed and happy, and then Second Sock Syndrome sets in and you just want to get that %$*%$^%^ other sock done because you’re becoming disgusted with it all and OMG WHEN WILL THIS BE FINISHED?????

In the case of my first ever attempt at baby booties, the one on the right was the first one. I held my breath throughout the whole process, which resulted in a tight little bootie, but it has a nice shape. The next day I did the second one, in between clients at work. I was much more relaxed, because I did the first one, it worked, and all was well in the land. Then I put them together for a quick Instagram photo and….ummm…yeah. Unless this kid has one huge foot, I will have to make myself redo these.

In the case of socks, I would suggest (which I did not do) making like some knitters do, and putting them both on the same hook but using separate balls of yarn. This way they have the same gauge and will be the same size because they are made at the same time.

So how do you deal with gauge in your projects? Come to the facebook page and fill us in!!!

So when my little yarn buddy died at the end of March, I didn’t much feel like doing anything with yarn. It’s been weird doing anything at home this month, because Bruiser was such a character and a big part of the family. Before you get ready to tell me “It’s just a cat.” – don’t. I won’t be nice to you. We got his little urn of ashes back a week later and he sits under the spotlight in the lawyer’s bookcase that Dave built. Here are three things that I put down, that I’m planning to finish this week, so I can move on into designing some nice Tunisian shirts and skirts for summer (assuming summer ever comes to Manitoba!!):

(This post originally appeared on my professional blog, The Glitter Bitch. It has been edited for inclusion into this blog because I want to share it with my fellow Tunisian Crochet artisans.)

When the going gets tough, I crochet. My mother taught me how to knit and crochet when I was a child. I picked it up again as an adult when I needed a way to pass the long winters in Manitoba. When I sit down with my hooks and yarn and start designing something, I am focused like a laser beam for hours. Ideas flow and I can let go mentally and physically. In my case it has started turning into a second career over the years because I now sell my designs.

When we focus on something that is relaxing and interesting to us, we enter what is known as an alpha brain wave state. This is the state that people enter into when they meditate and/or exercise. Not only does this help us to be less irritating to those around us by way of destressing, this deep focus on something not related to work helps to create new neural pathways. (You will get sick of hearing me talk about your brain, but I do not care.) These information highways in our brain allow us to see things differently and ultimately will provide us with a different way of thinking in all areas of our lives.

Focused minds also think more creatively because the alpha brain wave state allows inspiration in. We have access to levels of intuition closed off to us during less mindful, scattered moments. Although we are a society that is focused on multitasking, unitasking – focusing on ONE THING ONLY – is much healthier. Multitasking may be socially acceptable and desired in the workplace but it is unhealthy and contributes to the disconnect that many of us feel.

Having a hobby also gives you something interesting to talk about. The more you do, the more interesting you become. Interesting people are attractive people. They are folks whose energy is buzzing because they are experiencing things, not sitting on their asses in front of a television set or laptop wasting their life watching other people live. When you have things to do, you change and grow as an individual. If you are currently stagnating professionally, try taking a cooking class or painting class, or join a sports team – but do something away from work. See how you are in a few weeks. You probably won’t hate your place in the universe like you did when you weren’t doing anything for yourself.

Doing something in your spare time also gets you out there meeting new people. Whether it’s strangers in the yarn aisle at Michael’s, or new team mates in the beer league hockey team, you are interacting with people in a different way. We spend a huge chunk of our lives at work and while we may be the professionals with all the knowledge and talent, ultimately most of us are in fields which serve the public and making people happy is a big part of our day. After a while this can wear on you. Nobody wants to be servile all the time, especially during stressful times of the year when deadlines or holidays feel like crushing weights. It’s nice to be able to make yourself happy and enjoy new accomplishments in an environment where you have more control over your level of interaction than you do at work. You may have to make nice with a client or coworker who is  a colossal a**hole because their existence in your professional life pays your bills, but you don’t have to be nice to the prissy b*tch in the book club. In fact, you don’t have to talk to her at all. You can surround yourself with people that you want to be around or you can even be by yourself.

Having a hobby can also open up doors to new opportunities. This  year I am submitting several of my Tunisian crochet designs to magazines. I don’t know if they’ll be accepted but my work has been well received in the TC community for a few years now so I have my fingers crossed. In fact, a lot of the current wave of knit and crochet designers are not professionally trained designers at all – they’re people just like me who enjoyed something and turned it into a second or third career, or side gig. You see this in other crafting fields like scrapbooking, candlemaking, art journaling, and soapmaking, too. I wouldn’t take up a hobby specifically to make money because then it will feel just like…..ugh…..work…..but when it’s enjoyable AND you can pay the bills – well that’s a whole new ball game, now isn’t it?

Ultimately, having a hobby is just plain FUN. It is awesome to feel like a little kid again, holding up your crooked scarf or sort-of-puffy pastries that you made, all by yourself, to show off to your friends and family. Everyone needs to have fun just for its own sake