Meeting Moogly

Last weekend, Tamara Kelly from Moogly taught a workshop for our local CGOA chapter. That’s right, I finally got to meet her, and it was awesome! I know I often joke about Tamara being my hero, but the truth is I’ve really admired and respected her for a long time now.

Around the time I first started blogging, I stumbled across one of her tutorials, which led to another, and then another. I actually ended up learning a lot of techniques like magic circles, foundation stitches, standing dc, etc. from Moogly tutorials. It seemed like for every technique I knew, Moogly had a new and exciting way to do it better.

It was several months later that I “met” Tamara on line through other friends, and I will admit I was a little star struck (in a Wayne’s World “We’re not worthy!” kinda way). As it turns out though, she’s a very nice, very hard working, perfectly normal person.

The more I get to know Tamara, the more I admire her business sense and appreciate the amount of time and dedication she puts into making Moogly what it is. I’ve gone from being intimidated by her to looking up to her as a great role model for running an on-line crochet business. Needless to say, I was more than a little excited about meeting her. Can you tell?

It was an all day workshop on the Moroccan Tile stitch, with a quick introduction to Neptune’s Arrow. Tamara is a gifted teacher, as any of you who have seen her tutorials already know. By the end of the day everyone was comfortable with the Moroccan Tile stitch and most had a pretty good handle on Neptune’s Arrow as well. That’s no easy task, considering we were a fairly large group with varying experience levels!

I decided to make a small version (half the stitches) of the Moroccan Market Tote. It came out so well, that when I got home I made another. Just to use up the last few scraps I had of that yarn, I made a little matching pouch.

Spending a whole day just crocheting was great. Spending it crocheting with friends, and meeting Tamara too…well that just made it pretty much perfect. I can’t wait to see her and lots of my other crochet heroes at the Knit and Crochet Show this year!