Fastest Fingers, Fashion Show and Friends

We packed a lot into the CGOA’s Chain Link Conference in July (2019) in Manchester, NH. I tried to savor every moment since it had been 5 years since I was able to attend a conference and see many of my crochet friends.

Fastest Fingers

I wanted to give the Fastest Fingers contest a try on Friday. For 10 minutes a bunch of us crocheted like crazy and then those who had the highest stitch count were entered into the Finals.

I was surprised to see my name on the poster announcing the finalists.

On Saturday we repeated the same task of crocheting rows and rows of double crochets in just 10 minutes. I completed 221 stitches and won Second Place! Bonnie Barker (who won this competition last year) came in third and Ellen Moray won First Place with 236 stitches (I think)! Yay, Ellen!

Bonnie, Bobbie Matela (who organized the contest), Ellen and Jennifer

Saturday Evening Banquet

On Saturday evening we attended a special banquet when we honored the winner of the Crochet Hall of Fame award and watched several crocheters model their beautiful designs and projects on the runway.

Gwen Blakely-Kinsler (founder of CGOA) presenting this year’s Hall of Fame Recipient, Nancy Nehring

Nancy gave a nice speech about the importance of crochet in her life and how crochet has changed over the years. She has been collecting antique crochet hooks for a while and now has a collection of thousands!

Fashion Show

Marly Bird and Tamara Kelly emceed the Fashion Show. There were many beautiful crochet projects – here are just a few from the evening:

Friends

I had a wonderful time seeing friends and catching up.

I made some fun crochet photo props that Amanda Saladin of Love.Life.Yarn. and I held up for a quick photo.

Lisa (left) and her mom, Phyllis, went on the crochet trip to Ireland with me in 2016 – it was great to see them again. In fact, there were 3 other women at the conference that went with us!

Margaret Hubert has been designing, writing books and teaching crochet for a very long time – she was wearing a beautiful cardigan made from vintage and antique crocheted pieces.

Here I am with some dear friends after the Saturday night Banquet – From left to right:
Phillipa, Bonnie, Marcia, Carlotta, Susan Lowman

Thank you for stopping by and reading about the conference!

Happy crocheting!

Jennifer

CGOA Chain Link Conference 2019
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10 thoughts on “Fastest Fingers, Fashion Show and Friends”

Congratulations on your second place win. Beautiful crocheted items show so much artistic creativity. Makes me want to grab my hook and start something new. Not in record time though.

CKCJennifer

September 26, 2019 at 9:38 pm Author Reply

Thank you! Fast crocheting is fun but any crocheting is good for the soul. 🙂
Jennifer

I Have been to two and would love to go to another. Thanks for the great post.

CKCJennifer

September 26, 2019 at 9:34 pm Author Reply

You are welcome!
Jennifer

Every item is gorgeous.

CKCJennifer

September 26, 2019 at 1:52 am Author Reply

Thank you!
Jennifer

Wow, there were some really fast crocheters in your group. Congratulations to you on winning second place! I really like some of the beautiful fashions and hope to see patterns of them soon.