2017 NatCroMo Blog Tour, March 16: Vashti Braha

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A-Glamping We Will Go: 5th Annual National Crochet Month Blog Tour

Welcome to Crochetville’s fifth annual National Crochet Month (NatCroMo) blog tour, taking place each day of March 2017. Join us for a month of virtual glamping (aka glamorous camping), as we visit crochet designers, crochet-friendly local yarn stores, and yarn companies, as well as offer some fun giveaways.

Today’s Posts: Vashti Braha | Marty Miller | Andrea Lyn Van Benschoten | Daily Giveaway

Want to Chat about the Tour?

Part of the fun of glamping is the daily round-up around the campfire, chatting and stitching with friends. We hope you’ll join us in our NatCroMo Facebook group, where we’ll be sharing daily camping recipes, campfire songs about crochet, and so much more! We’d also love to hear about your favorite things you’ve discovered on the tour and see photos of your current crochet projects. You’re invited to join us daily for virtual cocktails/appetizers and dinner. (We’ll be sharing links to some fabulous recipes!)

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Vashti Braha, Designing Vashti

Vashti Braha, Crochet Designer, wearing her Tokyo Jacket — Crochet Designer Vashti Braha wearing her Tokyo Jacket

Crochetville is very proud to have designer Vashti Braha with us today, March 16, as one of the featured designers on our 2017 Designer Blog Tour in honor of National Crochet Month (NatCroMo). If you’d like to know even more about Vashti, check out our post from last year’s blog tour.

About Vashti:

I produce crochet patterns, classes, articles, and other materials that promote crochet as many things: an art, hobby, learning tool, and practical medium. My primary goal is simply to see crochet do things I haven’t already seen it do, and to explain how to do it.

I love meeting other crocheters online and in person. If my name is familiar to you, you might have heard about my newsletter; perhaps we met at a CGOA Chain Link crochet conference, for which I’ve taught several classes and served on the board of directors for 4 years.

My crochet designs have been published in magazines and books since 2004.

Do you crochet in public? If so, when and where?

Wherever I have to sit and wait, especially the school parking lot. Also, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble cafe, and in hotel lobbies when I’m traveling.

I keep a small ball of my Lotus yarn and hook with me so that I can at least try new swatches if I forgot to bring a project.

Do you have a special place at home where you crochet? Tell us about it.

At night, an armchair in with a nearby OttLite.

Otherwise, the dining room table where the natural light is fantastic and I can easily jot down what I’m doing.

Share the story of your favorite thing you’ve ever crocheted or designed.

If it has to be ONE thing then I’d say the Weightless Tunisian Wrap. Here’s a photo of me modeling it in a CGOA fashion show. It makes me feel pretty and I loved the discoveries I made about Tunisian lace with it.

How do you decide what to name your patterns?

It’s strangely challenging. I need it to ring true and convey something or other — I don’t know what exactly. It also needs to be unique so that it comes up readily in online searches, so for this I try combining word roots from different languages and times (such as archaic & obsolete terms). That’s how the Starwirbel name came to be. (English + German for whirling).

Tell us about your most popular pattern.

Starwirbel! It has international appeal. (So do star stitches it seems.)

Visit Vashti’s Site: NatCroMo Specials

Head over to Vashti’s blog to see how she’s celebrating National Crochet Month.

Vashti’s Designs:

If you’re not familiar with my work already, I’d like to share three of my designs with you.

1. Aery Faery Wrap: Tunisian Lace Enchantment, $5.99

The idea for Aery-Faery came to me while watching Once Upon a Time (a TV series based on fairy tales). I wondered if a glittering mohair and silk lace version of Aero and Warm Aeroette would be spellbinding. I proudly present Aery Faery.

Unlike Aero and Aeroette, Aery Faery is not started in one corner. No increasing along the end of the Forward Pass is required. You can either seam the ends together to create a loop scarf, or steadily decrease to create scarf corners.

2. Big Hook Bucket, $2.99

Make this sturdy hook holder in one evening with half of a ball of a super bulky yarn (55 yds or so), and a recycled plastic ring. Using a ring for the rim of the bucket base makes it even more stable than it already is.

Big Hook Bucket’s honeycomb top has seven compartments for sorting your jumbo-sized crochet hooks and other project tools. I like to use the center hole for large scissors. I designed it to go with the five largest crochet hooks I offer at my website: Q, R, S, T, U (15.75 mm up to 25 mm). Get this pattern free as part of a kit: a set of all five jumbo hooks, this pattern–plus the plastic ring while supplies last.

3. Cantina Scarf: Flounced Filet Lace, $3.99

Cantina Scarf is the yarn-partying sister of the Emdash and Antoinette scarves. Like Antoinette, this one’s a holiday-inspired design; in silvery colors and beaded picots, the flounces remind me of silver bells.

This is a fast and portable filet crochet project in the Easy skill category. The pattern includes optional intermediate-level skill-building refinements: Special Turn, Centered stitches, and Standing stitches. It naturally lends itself to color changes and scrap amounts of yarn. The beaded option is low-fuss because you only need string on enough beads for one flounce at a time.