Sometimes I feel like crochet gets the short end of the stick. Or maybe the hooked end of the stick? Heheh. But today I came across a few crochet-related  things that made me quite happy. First off is the announcement of a second Crochet Potholder swap. Hooray! Information is on flickr here and there is a ravelry group here. What I love about this swap is: you don’t sign up. You just show up, and by that I mean, send in your potholders by a deadline. If they are there on time, you’re in. If not, no hassle and no one gets a bad lot because one person didn’t follow through. Awesome. I am quite tempted to join this swap and make the Vintage Kitchen Trivets Diane designed for my book to send along. Quite. Tempted. (Did you see these colorful versions that Things Bright made? So colorful and pretty!)

I also found out that Rowan has put out their first ever Crochet-only booklet. This is exciting! It’s frustrating to buy “knit and crochet” magazines for only one  or two crochet designs (although I would do it, if I was sure I wanted to make it) and it’s so nice that they have put out an entire collection of classic, wearable crochet. You can bet I’ll be poking my LYS owner to order this one– if you crochet, and want to see more of these kinds of things, I encourage you to “vote” with your dollars. Thanks to Rebecca at A Slice of Life for the heads up on this one!

Ooh, and, thanks to the Crochet Today blog, I noticed Secret Pocket is hosting a giveaway of her lovely magnets made from doilies and lace. Very cute- head over and enter to win a set.

And, just by chance a customer mentioned Haruni,  a beautiful (free!) knit shawl pattern that gets a little help from the crochet hook during the cast off to create the looped edge. Gorgeous! One day I will knit that well and casting off with crochet will be a breeze. But if one of you wants to knit the knitted part and then let me do the crochet part, I think that’d be a fair trade (not). I added to my favorites, hopefully to be moved to my queue one day.

In the meantime, I keep crocheting away. As promised, here is a little peek at the crochet cardigan (ravelry link) I am making myself. I am mostly done with the fronts and back, and now need to add the edging and sleeves (if I can decide what I want there), then weave in the remaining ends. It has been fun to work this one. I’m not sure how much wear I will get out of it but I love the color and I hope the end result is flattering. The big motifs are making me wonder, though.

So, what kind of crochet love have you seen around the net lately?

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By the way– thank you to everyone who has purchased my Cables and Lace Scarf Pattern. There are still a few days for you to get it at the sale price of $2! Just so you know, I love nothing more than to see completed projects from my  patterns, so if you do make it, please add your completed versions to Ravelry or email me a photo. I also wanted to remind you that 50 percent of proceeds from all of the rest of my patterns (or things in my etsy) will be donated to Doctors without Borders through February 15th.  I even (finally!) added a pattern page to my website with more descriptions of each pattern, in case you aren’t on Ravelry.