Tales of a Techno-Hooker Crochet Blog by Amie Hirtes

Here are some quick picture from my latest pattern release, “Montauk Handbag.” I’ve included a photo fan of the first four pages. You can see that there are a great deal of photos, illustrations, and diagrams to help the crocheter along the way. Don’t be afraid because it’s labeled “Intermediate.” I use a couple more [...]

Finally. A published pattern. FINALLY. I’ve been sitting on this pattern for a year and a half. That’s right. You aren’t seeing things. I did say A YEAR AND A HALF. Designers are known to come up with a bevy of ideas and sit on some of them, but it’s not so usual to be [...]

Here are some more details about the wedding…which is in 4 days! Techno-Wedding Cards & Bouquet Extras: Larry came up with the FABULOUS idea of having our guests be able to automatically upload pictures they take at our wedding using their cameras and phone cameras. Once someone takes pictures, they just send them to a [...]

(If you missed Part 1, here’s a link. If you want to see where they wedding will be held or check out the color inspiration for everything, check out this post.) While I’m a fan of the importance of the larger details of a wedding – the clothes, the wedding vendor, the food – it’s [...]

Sorry to leave you “flat” as we used to say when I was 10 years old. I’ve been so busy with wedding plans that I haven’t had time to pop in here and write. But let me catch you up on all things wedding (with some crochet too!). I decided early on that I was [...]

SCRATCH THAT: But it here! We’re oh-so close to releasing the 3rd and final volume of the Bag Book series from SFTD Online. (I will update this post when we go live). Strapped For Bags, Volume 3 featuring: A Crocheter’s Backpack by, Amy O’Neill Houck Hip Hoppin’ Backpack by, Dee Stanziano Knot Bag by, Doris Chan Scrap Yarn Bag [...]

Now that you know how to make slip and chain stitches as well as single, double, and treble crochets, let’s talk about how we can group our stitches to make a simple chart. Open a new document and save it. Call it whatever you like. I’m calling my “First Symbol Chart.”  The Setup There are a [...]

Picking up where we left off in the first lesson, I am going to show you how to create a single crochet stitch, which in turn, will get you on the path to creating other basic stitches. (If you haven’t read that lesson, I would do so as I won’t be reviewing too much from [...]

I get asked a lot by fellow designers how to do use certain aspects of Adobe Illustrator to create symbols for charting, so I figured I’d shed some light on that process. I don’t anticipate covering every aspect of this topic. I’ll be breezing through the basics which will get any aspiring designer on the [...]

So, what are the components of a good crochet blog? Why are some bloggers able to retain a readership and others flounder?  Last June (6/23/08), I received an email from Drew – which I think he sent to everyone he knew with a blog – asking in a sense, “What makes a good crochet blog [...]