Category Archives: Life Aboard a Sailboat

May 25, 2015: New Crochet Book Reviews

Today is May, 25, 2015. I’m beginning my notes for this post at 9:55 am local time here in the Med, and it’s already uncomfortably hot and humid here in our sailboat. This sort of intense heat zaps my energy and sucks it right out of me, so I’m hoping today’s post won’t end up reading something like “Today I slept all day. The end!”

Speaking of sleeping: My kitties all got up at some stupid early hour this morning, and they were running around like wildcats. I was awakened by one of them taking a broad leap and landing on my head. I have scratch marks on my face to show for that. 🙁

Now the kitties are all sleeping like little black and white angels. Happiness = 4 adorable sleeping cats.

6:24 PM

I ended up being more productive than expected today. No sleeping for me — not even a little nap.

Today I Crocheted…

…a swatch of “zig-zag lozenge stitch”, from Sarah Hazell’s Crochet Stitch Dictionary.

Today I crocheted this swatch of ZigZag Lozenge Stitch  from Crochet Stitch Dictionary by Sarah Hazell.

Today I crocheted this swatch of ZigZag Lozenge Stitch from Crochet Stitch Dictionary by Sarah Hazell.

This is an intriguing stitch that I’m interested in trying again, next time in stripes of three different colors.

Today I Published…

The short version of these reviews: I love both these books, and highly recommend them. I invite you to check out the reviews if you’re curious about the details of why.

Thanks for dropping by! I really appreciate your interest.

XOXOXOXOXO

Amy

About the Author: Amy Solovay is a freelance writer with a background in textile design. She has been crocheting and crafting since childhood, and knitting since she was a teenager. Her work also appears at ArtsWithCrafts.com, KnittingandCrochet.net and Crochet-Books.com. Amy sends out a free knitting and crochet newsletter so interested crafters can easily keep up with her new patterns and tutorials. If you’re already an Instagram user, Amy also invites you to follow her on Instagram.

This page was last updated on 7-3-2019.

Back From a Long, Unanticipated Blog Hiatus

So, I’m dusting off this blog and trying again with daily blog posts. I stalled out on doing that for a few months, because I’ve been staying at a marina with unreliable Internet access. I haven’t been able to get online until just a few days ago. It has been so frustrating!

In the past, when I used to blog for a corprorate crochet website, I was able to maintain daily blog posts for a couple of years running. However, since I knew I had unreliable Internet access, I used to schedule the posts ahead of time. I’d usually blog about a month ahead. I’m realizing that’s doable in my particular situation, whereas “Today in Review” style blog posts are not necessarily sustainable for my particular situation. At least, not on a daily basis. Bummer! Because I really like doing them. I’m thinking it over and pondering where to go from here.

I do know this: I’m at the mercy of both the local Internet antenna and the network, which are susceptible to going down for a number of reasons. The network seems to go down a few times a day for no apparent reason, and then the antenna often goes down for longer stretches of time — particularly when it rains or gets wet. It was the same when we were cruising in southern and central California; in Two Harbors, California, on Catalina Island, the Internet tower would go down every time it rained — typically every weekend during the rainy season. They wouldn’t usually fix it until sometime Monday morning or afternoon, which would cause me much anxiety and stress if I hadn’t already scheduled my weekly newsletter to go out. I learned quickly: work ahead. Work far, far ahead.

I’m not sure I want this blog to consistently include bunches of scheduled posts, just for the sake of maintaining a daily blog. That doesn’t make much sense. So I still have some thinking to do about whether to just pick up with what I was doing, or try a different approach.

I did use the down time to begin working on a crochet book, and the book is now nearly finished. I’ll be posting more about that soon. Update 7-9-2019 I decided to scrap the book and post all those patterns for free instead of trying to sell them. But I did resume working on the crochet stitch dictionary.

Also in the works, for those of you who are crochet fans, I am putting the finishing touches on an interview with Sharon Silverman. I’m hoping that will go live later this week at KnittingandCrochet.net. Update: You can now find 2 interviews with Sharon at my website: Interview #1 with Sharon Silverman covers Tunisian crochet shawls, Tunisian crochet tips and more interesting stuff about Tunisian crochet. Interview #2 with Sharon Silverman covers crochet cowls, fashion tips and more.

I’ve also been caring for a disabled cat, in addition to all the other cats I already help to take care of. Poor little baby. I’ll post more about that soon, too.

Well, hopefully I’ll be posting about those things soon. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll be posting soon if all goes according to plan.

About the Author: Amy Solovay is a freelance writer with a background in textile design. She has been crocheting and crafting since childhood, and knitting since she was a teenager. Her work also appears at KnittingandCrochet.net , ArtsWithCrafts.com and Crochet-Books.com. Amy sends out a free knitting and crochet newsletter so interested crafters can easily keep up with her new patterns and tutorials. If you’re already an Instagram user, Amy also invites you to follow her on Instagram.

This page was last updated on 7-9-2019.

Cindy the SuperModel Gets in on Our Headband Photo Shoot

Mike Wearing a Crocheted Headband and Holding Cindy the SuperModel Kitten. A free crochet pattern is available online for the headband pattern.

Mike Wearing a Crocheted Headband and Holding Cindy the SuperModel Kitten. A free crochet pattern is available online for the headband pattern.

A few days ago, I made Mike a couple of new, guy-friendly crocheted headbands. I asked him if he’d let me post his picture wearing them on various websites online, and of course, he agreed.

The cockpit of our boat was the most convenient location for the photo shoot, so we headed out there.

Cindy, one of our cute little kittens, just would not leave us alone while we were taking the pictures. She kept trying to climb up Mike’s leg during the entire photo shoot. It’s as if she were trying to say, “hey guys, I’m the supermodel in this family!” (Note: We did name her after Cindy Crawford, and we do jokingly refer to her as “Cindy the SuperModel.”) So what could we do but include her in the pics? Cute cats = lots of website clicks! Er, we hope.

Cindy seems to get prettier every day; I think she is really turning out to be a beautiful cat. And of course, Mike is my favorite model when it comes to guys’ crochet projects.

Our kitties used to be scared of the outside world, and in the past they were content to stay inside the boat. Not anymore; nowadays they are playing outside on top of the boat — with supervision only, because we’re worried that the naughty little cuties will end up in the water if they aren’t careful. Every time they see fish jumping, I get nervous that they are going to dive right in and go fishing.

When we were cruising around California, we knew a guy who lived aboard his boat with several fully-grown cats. He told us that the cats enjoyed fishing from his dinghy. Sometimes we’d see them out there, their little eyes intent on the water, watching for fish. It was really cute. He said the cats actually managed to catch some impressive fish from time to time, although most of the time their catch was basically bait material. Maybe our girls could be taught to fish too…someday. We don’t have actual plans to make that happen any time soon.

If any of you are interested in grabbing the free headband pattern, it’s available online. And for those of you who might like to see more pics of the headband< (or incidentally, more pics of Mike and Cindy,) those are used to be available too. At the time I originally posted this pattern, I also posted an image gallery that shows several different views of the headband plus a couple different colors of the design. I made a green headband first, then made the blue one afterwards to test the pattern. However, the editors at the publishing website have apparently decided that those weren’t worth migrating when they re-branded their website and moved domains.

Hope you’re all well and happy, and enjoying 2013 so far. It’s hard to believe we’re this far into the month of January already!

Related Resources

About the Author: Amy Solovay is a freelance writer with a background in textile design. She has been crocheting and crafting since childhood, and knitting since age 16. Her work also appears at AmySolovay.com, knittingandcrochet.net and Crochet-Books.com. Amy sends out a free knitting and crochet newsletter so interested crafters can easily keep up with her new patterns and tutorials. If you’re already an Instagram user, Amy also invites you to follow her on Instagram.

This page was last updated on 7-9-2019.