Thoughts, Prayers, Vibes

Please keep our neighbors in your thoughts and prayers tonight. An arsonist struck our neighborhood early this morning. If you don't know, we live in row homes, so the whole thing was pretty scary for us, since it was the house next store to ours that burned.

We're fine, just temporarily displaced. Everybody next store got out, some with the help of the fire department some on their own. The house that burned was converted into 2 apartments. The family downstairs got out pretty safely, although their little guy was taken to the hospital just to make sure he was ok.

The upstairs family was not as lucky, the fire department had to force entry and all four of them were taken to the hospital. Their 5 year old daughter is in critical condition, but from what I've heard they think she'll be ok.

Please keep these to families in your thoughts, send vibes, add them to your prayer list, whatever it is that you do. Also, please think of the family on the other side who only closed on their house last week.

Something Wonderful!

Something wonderful has happened! I have been contacted by a "Warm up America" type charity group in regards to permissions for one of my patterns. They would like to use my Bath Puff pattern to help the homeless. I believe that they will be using the puffs to raise money to buy yarn in order to make somewhat more practical items that is what will actually be donated. (Help me out here, Rhonda, if I go that wrong!)

What an honor! This is why I do this stuff.

Crochet Pages Shop on Etsy Now Open!

So, I finally got my Etsy shop up and running. Now you too can have something handmade by yours truly! Right now it's all coffee coats and cozies, but they're adorable, I promise.

Check it out!

So, it's February.

Wow. The first month of 2009 is gone already - and I've been sick for all of it.

Love Bites will only be available until Valentine's Day so grab it while you can.

Leon in the winner of the Candy Hearts Contest. Get in touch with me so I can get you your prize. I'll post the finished photo soon.

Studio progress has been slow due to not feeling well, however, I will be posting my first Esty items in the next day or so.

I think that's everything for now. Keep warm and happy hooking!

...and the Winner is...

So at this point it seems that Leon is the winner by default. With no other entries, he is automatically the most popular. Anybody have any last minute entries? or should I just call the contest early?

Audience Participation

So, I need some help. I'm making a candy hearts pillow for a valentine's pattern. What should the sayings be? Email, comment or Twitter, I'll put up a poll with the entries and then use the 4 most popular. Winners will get recognition on Crochet Pages and a goody via snail mail if they're willing to share their contact info.

Submit Entries to:
strngbn@lycos.com (subject: candy hearts)
@agecrochet on Twitter
or Comment on this post

Rules:
1) 12 characters or less
2) nothing obscene
3) please don't send contact info via twitter or comment, leave your email and I'll drop you a note if your suggestion is picked.
4) Crochet Pages Staff cannot enter (sorry, Galen), but contributors may, since I will not be deciding the winner, you will.
4) Deadline: January 23, 2009.
5) Once the poll's up, vote often. The poll will be up from January 23, until the end of this month.

Thanks!

Some (belated) Halloween Pics

Me dressed as Amaranth from Tales of MU,  Dave in drag.  We realized later that we sorta accidentally dressed him as Steff (also Tales of MU).

Carl as a deranged hippie with Dave.

Minor Edit and an extra chance to vote!

I just finished making a very minor edit to the Granny Square Drawstring Bag pattern.  I linked the granny square reference to the granny square pattern page.  Like I said, nothing big.

Now, the chance to vote.  The US Presidential Election is over, with results that I'm quite happy with, actually, but you're not reading this to find out my political views.  You're here for crochet stuff.

How about this.  I'm working on a booklet of bag patterns.  I'm planning on having about 12 patterns in the book, but to help encourage people to check it out, I want to preview a couple patterns on the website.  I'm including the Granny Square Drawstring Bag pattern, mentioned above, that's already been posted on the site for a few years now.

But, I'm not sure what I want to use as the other "preview" pattern.  So, I'm gonna let it up to you.  Hopefully, I get some feedback.  I'm probably going to let the voting open until December, so you have about a month.

Holy Page Views, Batman! What happened?

I'm not totally sure what I did or didn't do, but Crochet Pages had over 1500 pages views yesterday and more than 62,000 this past month. Thanks to everybody who stopped by, your support in appreciated!

Ballerina was a hit

So, the ballerina pixie was a huge hit. Lin's father just passed away and she's going through a rough time. If you've been following this blog, you know that I lost my step-dad last December, so I certainly understand what she's going through. One thing that has stuck with me from that, is there's nothing that you can say that actually what the person needs to hear. All you can do is let them know you care and be there if they need you.

So, to that end, I made that ballerina pixie for Lin, because she used to be a dancer. And it had the exact effect that I was hoping for. I meant a ton to her that I cared enough to make her something, and most importantly, she hasn't been able to look at it even once without getting a laugh from it, which is really what I was aiming for. When you're going through a hard time, I think the best thing someone can do for you is give you a reason to keep laughing.

I know I've been promising pics of the pixies for days now, but with my camera on the fritz, it's unfortunately gotten to be somewhat unpredictable when I'll have access to one.

I think, though, that I've hit on what the pixies are really about to me. They're quick, they're easy to personalize and they're a great way to share a little love. Plus, you finally have something to do with at least a few of the damn grocery bags that everybody has too many of.