award from Molly

I am honored to be the recipient of an award given by Molly over at Crocheting my Best with my Worsted, which I have to also say is the cutest blog name!

I am going to alter the rules even though I'm not the originator of this award - I could not determine the originator.

The current rules say you have to pass on the award to 10 people and tell us 10 things about yourself that we don't already know. (Don't worry I won't make a happy of talking about myself! LOL) The recipient of the award does not have to do any of that. You can if you want to, but no guilt trip if you don't. I give awards because I appreciate what you do and enjoy reading about your projects and ideas. So just sit back and enjoy it!

Here is the picture of the award.

You don't have to put the award permanently on your blog. If you choose to  post about it, you can pull the picture from above, just save it to your own computer.

I am such a rebel that I'm going to veer from the original rules again and present this award to The Bridge and Beyond Project and all the folks who participate in it. I'm sure that is way more than 10 people. :-)

And here are ten things you may or may not know about me.
1. I became a born again Christian in January 1996.
2. I am deathly afraid of snakes, lizards, geckos and frogs. but don't mind spiders and can deal with roaches though they're not my favorite.
3. I learned to crochet in my early 20's and have not been without a hook since.
4. I miscarried my first baby in November 1983. She will always be in my heart.
5. I drink bottled water with all my meals unless I am at a restaurant that doesn't offer it. In that case, I drink Sprite.
6. I used to dye my hair auburn.
7. I have diabetes.
8. I have lived my entire life in Louisiana.
9. I am deaf in my left ear.
10. I have never eaten bread. Yep. In my entire life. I do eat biscuits though.

There ya have it. So on to crochet things ...

Some of you may remember that I took the CGOA crochet course back in July. Well, I got an address yesterday to which to mail my swatches. This is NOT to the reviewer. This is another address where they will hold the swatches until a reviewer becomes available. At that time I will get an e-mail for the reviewer so we can correspond if needed. The e-mail said I am in the top 15.

What cracked me up is that the e-mail said to send my box RIGHT AWAY and thanked me for sending it TODAY [emphasis mine]. They also suggested I take a photo or scan of every swatch in case it gets lost. Really, people. I mean REALLY.

I'd already been to the post office once and it was pouring down rain so did not plan to go out again. And really, I wait almost four months to get the address, which is not even the address I've been waiting for but a temporary stop, and now the urgency. Today? I realize they don't want to have any more delays than necessary, and rightfully so. It just irked me. I know, sounds like a personal problem. LOL

If it had been suggested four months ago that I should take scans or photos to have on hand, that might have worked, but to say do that and send it off today does not work for me. These workers are volunteers and they have lives too, so no problem. I understand they are busy and doing the best they can under less than ideal circumstances. They're trying to maintain the quality of the course, so that the certificate means something. And I get that. It's just irritating. But patience was never my strong suit. :-)

I did NOT take photos or scan. I started to. I really did. Then I decided to just pack the whole thing up and get it out. So I went to the post office again, in the rain, and mailed out the package. Cost me $15.20 with delivery confirmation. I'm glad to get it out of here. The post office has never lost a package of mine before so I'm sure it will get there fine. I don't think you can judge quality of a crocheted piece by a photo anyway. I would need a much better camera and photo op to get that type of quality.A can might have done better. I don't know. I rarely scan physical objects.

Now as to whether I'll pass or not, remains to be seen. From what I understand they may ask you to redo swatches if it is deemed necessary. How long you have to redo them, I do not know.

The e-mail said "if there are at least five swatches the reviewer cannot identify well enough to review, they will send all back for you to resubmit." That part I did not understand at first, but I checked the web site at http://www.crochet.org/education.html .There is a section that says: "Rework in the CGOA Masters program may be required if material presented is not satisfactory. If there are five or more unsatisfactory items identified by the reviewer, the review will be discontinued and the portfolio will be returned. See "Second Review" application form, with additional fees required to resubmit a portfolio." So I think what they meant was not whether they could identify them, but if they are found unacceptable. Each swatch is labeled so it should be easily identified.

The second review cost is $20 if requested before a year has passed. You cannot resubmit before a month. I guess they figure it will take you at least that long to redo the swatches correctly and double and triple check them. Plus with the backlog of first timers, they wouldn't want resubmits to be added to that workload. That is my thought anyway. It doesn't say that.

In any case, my swatches are gone. I may have to redo some. I may have to redo them all. Or I may not get the certificate. I don't know at this point. Truthfully, I'm wondering if all this hassle was worth it. Maybe so. When it's over I'll have to look back and decide. I certainly don't regret actually making the swatches. I think it was a good experience.

One thing I did notice on the education page. They don't want you to do the swatches the way you think they should be done, or the way you normally would do them. They want you to do them the way you are told to do them. This is to see if you can follow instructions. I get that. But that wasn't made clear in the instructions, my version anyway. As time goes, they make corrections and additions, so those who take it later will get what should be a better version. The swatches, as far as I know, are the same.


That's all for now. I have some links I want to share in a different post. Probably tomorrow.


Happy crocheting!