♥ I live and love enveloped by the unique beauty of the California High Desert so breathtakingly exemplified by nearby Joshua Tree National Park. My husband Dennis and my children Joe and Lily animate my world and, like the Joshuas, fuel the fires of my creativity. I invite you to gaze with me through cactus flower-colored glasses at our adventures and misadventures as we continue to explore High Desert culture, symbolism and reality, past and present. ♥ I am passionate about crochet, which I first learned as a child and have missed in intervening years. Under the thrilled tutelage of my mom, Thimblelina, I recently dusted off my beloved Grandmother's hooks and will share the things I am learning with you here. ♥ Please feel free to peruse my Etsy shop where you will find crocheted baby and toddler hats, bonnets and gift sets as well as my High Desert-inspired creations. A portion of net sales of my desert designs will go to the Joshua Tree National Park Assn. to benefit their programs. ~ Heather

Monday, February 16, 2009

Hot Crocheter: Rachel Hunnicutt of Cornflower Blue Studio


Welcome to the first "Hot Crocheter" post at High Desert Hooker. As the animation to the left says, this series will highlight artisans who are redefining what it means to be a crocheter.

To kick things off, let me introduce you to Rachel Hunnicutt of Cornflower Blue Studio. I found out about her through this post at the Crochet Liberation Front. After a little investigating, I was able to locate the Cornflower Blue Studio blog, and a post entitled, "...and then I realized it was just a dream." I said WOW.

What makes Rachel a Hot Crocheter? Innovation. This piece, inspired by the sea and entitled "Ghost Reef", just blew me away...




I couldn't help but check out her Etsy art shop: Cornflower Blue Studio: felicity shop. You will find Ghost Reef there available for purchase, among other treats for the eyes. You might also be interested to check out her Etsy craft shop: Cornflower Blue Studio.

Thank you Rachel for sharing your talents with us and for tickling our imaginations.

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Potpourri of us-ness



Thimblelina was kind enough to watch Joe and Lily for a while so Dennis and I could get out to a Valentine's/4th Anniversary Dinner at Stefano's - the local "fancy schmancy" (Yuccatucky style) restaurant. It was a ton of fun. I had my twice annual nip at the wine barrell and dusted off my "good" fake Ugg boots. (Dennis, you lucky dog you.) She also crocheted this lovely heart for us as a gift. As you can see, Joe was thrilled to pose with the heart - this is the third pic I took and by then he was like, "Mom! I love you, but Grandma has a new Barney video that I want to go over and check out.".



I'm beginning to suspect that my gummy little baby girl Lily is starting to teethe. As such, I picked up a bag of bagels the last time I was at the supermarket (oh, who am I kidding - the market). I've read for years that frozen bagels are great for teething. Lily wasn't so sure about them and Dennis and I freaked out when we saw what appeared to be a tiny amount of gagging and threw the bad sucker into the trash. I may try again when I get my nerve back. Or not.



On Friday I looked down at my arm at about say...oh...6:30 PM and noticed that I had a "just in case" scrunchie there, along with the bead bracelet I transfer from arm to arm to denote which boob is primed for the next bout of nursing. "What's the big deal?", you may ask. Well, upon closer inspection you can't help but notice that I had my hair up in a clip that day. Sigh.

My bra is still in the washing machine. I'm getting antsy. I have ONE nursing bra, as they're quite expensive. I'd get another, but then we'd have to sell the van. Am I the only person who hates being braless? All the other women I know just loooove walking around without their bras on, and can't wait to rip those bad suckers off the second they walk through the door. I, on the other hand, feel horribly floppy and unsafe, kind of like how I feel the two seconds after I sit in a car before I put my seat belt on. So, until my bra is out of the dryer (yes, I can't stand to take the time to let it air dry) I will be here at home wide-eyed and uncomfortable. Yipes!

Wising you a good week. And wishing I could figure out how to "un-center" these last two paragraphs. Mox nix.
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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Lily can "do" purple too!



Mom thinks she's so clever wrapping a snugglie around my neck to conceal my red shirt.



I don't know why she bothered. I look just as cute in my red shirt & the purple hat looks just as good set off against it!



This will be the first hat featured in the High Desert Hooker Etsy Shop! As soon as I get shipping figured out! Yay!
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Joe can 'do" purple

I'm just testing the "blog this" feature in Picasa. Joe put on the purple hat and scarf Thimblelina made for me a couple of years ago & was modeling it this morning. What a nut!

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It just occurred to me (duh) that Joe found and put on this hat because I was taking a photo of Lily in a purple hat for Etsy. What a clever boy!

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Time to get my stuff on Etsy!


I keep waiting until I have a stash of hats large and impressive enough before adding them to my Etsy shop. Today I realized that that day only exists in my mind & will never come. It's up to me to make it come by:

1) Taking pictures of my creations to date. This is hard if you don't have a child's head the correct size to fit the hat. I have plenty of cute girl hats that fit well on my two year old son's head, but if I choose to use him as a model I think he'll find out somewhere down the road and (quite correctly) hold it against me.

2) Figuring out how shipping charges work on Etsy. Seems as though they're not based on zip code the way they are on eBay. You have to enter shipping charges per best guess, or use the USPS website to average out charges. Whee! How exciting! Not to mention that I want to ship out internationally, and that's a whole 'nother new ball of wax.

3) Actually adding my creations to my store & opening for business!

It probably makes sense to add things as time goes by instead of waiting until I have hundreds of hats backlogged, then trying to do it all at once.

Wish me luck!

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