What's Your Mountain Hat Design Contest!

If you haven't already heard the buzz, you're going to want to get right over to My Mountain's Facebook page and check out the great contest they have going on. All you have to do to enter is design a hat with one of their fabulous yarns! They'll even send you the yarn! It doesn't get any easier than that!

The contest, put together by Westminster, features Schachenmayr yarn which comes in such vibrant, bold colors and styles that you're going to have a tough time choosing. It was impossible for me to choose just one (or two, or even three) so my hat has five of my favorite colors using their wonderful Lumio yarn.

 My life tends to be complicated and a little bit challenging so my personal mountain is to face each day with a positive attitude and try to fill my world with color and fun and so I present my hat design.... "Whirlybird". Willow thinks it's great!  

With a simple change of hook size, minus the "whirly's", we made Mommy a more subdued version but still full of color and fun! So what are you waiting for? Go visit My Mountain!

Wrapping Up National Crochet Month With A Winner!

There are many of us, myself included, that celebrate crochet every day of every month but the official National Crochet Month celebration ends in just a few hours. I hope everyone enjoyed the blog tour put together by Crochetville. Thirty-one days of blog posts from our professional and associate professional members of the Crochet Guild of America. You can find the complete list here in case you missed any of them. If you'd like to learn more about CGOA, please visit our site http://www.crochet.org/

Don't forget to join us in supporting Project Night Night which is an organization that provides homeless children with a new security blanket, an age-appropriate children's book, and a stuffed animal -- all nestled inside of a new canvas tote bag. You can find all the details here.

And now to announce our winner of the yarn giveaway........ the winner is Carrie P. Congratulations! I will get this sent out to you right away and I hope you will share photos with us on my facebook page Hot Lava Crochet of all the wonderful things you create with it!

Happy National Crochet Month!

I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy National Crochet Month! I hope you are doing something special to celebrate and sharing the love by teaching someone how to crochet!

Unfortunately, (hanging head in shame) I also need to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's, and Happy Valentine's Day. Where on earth does the time go? In my defense, it has been a very busy time. My first little granddaughter, Willow, was born just before Christmas. She has been a blessing and brings much joy to our lives. Since neither of my daughters have any interest in knit or crochet, I have very high hopes for Willow. I had a hook in her hand by the time she was one week old.

And I include her while I stitch so she is exposed to yarn regularly. She may not seem like she is very interested but I could tell she did enjoy it! I am determined that this child WILL crochet!

I have also been keeping busy with work. I became the vice president of CGOA in January. That has been very exciting and fulfilling. I just finished my first book which will be released Summer 2014 and I'm now working on my second book which will be released Fall 2014. I will tell you more about them in my next post. I promise it will be soon and not months from now!

Celebration!

When I was at Stitches East last month I had the opportunity to try the new Red Heart Celebration yarn. I'm a big fan of bright, bold, in-your-face colors (which none of you probably knew about me) so I was instantly drawn to this yarn. It comes in aqua, blue, gold, lime, pink and purple. Each color has a metallic polyester thread which adds even more "bling". I love it!

I stuffed as much as I could into my suitcase and decided a couple weeks ago to make something just for fun. I don't get to do that very often since I'm usually racing against deadlines. My first little granddaughter is due to arrive soon. Two weeks from today actually so I grabbed a skein of the pink, relaxed in my recliner while watching a good movie and created this dress for Willow.

I have been reading all the wonderful comments on my giveaway post. They have been heartwarming and so full of passion. Crochet and knitting is so much more than merely making loops with yarn. Many readers shared how they still feel close to mothers and grandmothers that that taught them to knit or crochet and have since passed. People are able to show their love and let someone know how much they care by gifting prayer shawls, cancer caps, afghans and petghans to shelters, baby gifts to welcome new little ones and the list goes on. I think "Celebration" is a great name for this yarn since we DO celebrate our stitching! It was a celebration for me to create this and it will be an even bigger celebration to see Willow wearing it and welcome her to our family. 

If you haven't already entered my giveaway, make sure you do it! There is a skein of Red Heart Celebration in the prize package. Just comment on my November 19th blog post. Contest ends November 30 at midnight.