Every Saturday during National Crochet Month 2013, I’ll be highlighting one of my favorite online crochet resources. Today’s featured site is New Stitch A Day, my favorite source of crochet videos.
There are many online sources of crochet videos and everyone has their favorites. Mine is New Stitch A Day. I frequently refer my crochet students to the crochet stitchionary (and the knitting videos are pretty cool, too). I like the videos because they are clearly lit, well edited, and frequently include written instructions as well.
Some of my favorites include his videos on the sc3tog decrease and the dc5tog bobble. Many of my students struggle with this type of stitch so it is great to have a site to refer them to once they get home from the lesson.
I had the chance to interview Johnny Vasquez, the site’s founder, earlier this week, and talk to him about the site’s growth and their upcoming expansion. But I saved a few special NatCroMo questions from the interview for today.
Underground Crafter (UC): Can you share a favorite crochet memory with us?
Johnny: My wife and I inspired another couple who are friends of ours to start knitting. So we were all hanging out in this little town in northern New Jersey in late October ’10 for the weekend. We went to this cute little yarn store because they had never been to a real yarn store at that time. While I was there I saw a gorgeous crochet hook made of palm wood. I didn’t know how to crochet, but I bought it anyway. Now I needed to find something to make. Well, my buddy Nick, the hubby, hates Panda Bears. With a passion! He thinks they’re the dumbest, lamest, laziest animals on the planet. So I found an amigurumi panda pattern and made it for him. The funny thing was, I was making it right in front of him and he had no idea what it was. He was so excited he was jumping up and down with anticipation.
We ended up getting together for Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh (we all worked for a company where we traveled full time). I gave him the toy panda and he looked at me like I was crazy at first. But he finally broke out with a big smile and said it was the only panda he’d ever loveWe named it Bambu and now it lives in the crib of their new baby girl.
I liked that panda . . . I’ll have to make another one . . .
UC: What’s your current favorite crochet related resource on New Stitch a Day?
Johnny: We’ve got all kinds of stitches on New Stitch a Day in our Crochet Stitchionary, but I think our Crochet 101 series is pretty darn useful.
We get A TON of requests for stuff on Tunisian crochet, and we’re working with Lion Brand to put together some resources on that in the near future.
UC: What are your favorite types of crochet projects to make?
Johnny: Personally I am not a fan of crochet for garments. I think it looks like chainmail in most cases, especially on men.
I prefer to make amiguruimi with crochet. I’m working on a project I’m calling Yarn Monster that will be an amigurmi template in both knit and crochet that people will be able to use to make all kinds of toy monsters!
UC: What are your favorite websites for crochet-related content and community?
Johnny: There’s a lady, Kathryn Vercillo, who runs a blog called Crochet Concupiscence. I can’t pronounce it for the life of me, but she puts out some really cool content. I’m always impressed with the stuff she finds. And she wrote a book about how crochet saved her life! (UC comment: I love Kathryn’s blog, too. I featured it as my favorite online resource for crochet news here, interviewed Kathryn here and here, and reviewed her book on the CGOA blog here.)
Thanks so much for stopping by Johnny, and for creating a wonderful resource for crocheters!