Tibetan Cloud, Yak 2, Silk-Cashmere, Pure Silk.
These are the materials that I will be working with this year. Yarns from China and Turkey. A batch of silk in beautiful colours will be arriving from India.
I still don’t know what crocheting will be like this year, but I feel that it will be different. I am hoping it will be a marked improvement in skills: crocheting, Irish Crochet, pattern writing and design.
Perhaps most people think that I am a rich white man’s wife who has all the time to crochet. True about the time and the white man, but not so about rich. Crochet is really a kind of life-and-death situation for me. I am crocheting to survive in the future.
Just some 5-8 years ago, I had a very promising career in art and research in the fields of media and culture. Then when we settled here in Baclayon, a rural village, I left all that behind.
Yes, behind me are many long years of education, career and experience in art and culture research. And between me and that investment, is this beautiful rural life that I am still desperately trying to develop new skills for survival.
So at the moment, I have no substantial source of income of my own, no career or business (which I am most unlikely to engage in), or livelihood. I am totally dependent on my husband’s small pension. My husband is some 25 years older than me and I am only 42 years old. I have no children. Sometimes I wonder what would become of me here in 10 or 20 years? I also have no old age pension from my husband at all. Just love, really. 
Well, miraculously, there is a bit of income from crochet now, maybe US$50 a month. I am able to pay for the domain name and webhosting for this website. And a bit to buy some yarns, some vegetables to eat. It feels nice to be able to earn a bit for myself again.
But the money is only really a side-effect. What I am hoping to do is establish creative work anew in this craft, such a lowly beautiful craft, so different from the work I previously engaged in.
And I terribly miss creating something, I miss joggling my brains with words and numbers, tossing ideas and concepts about, working with my hands in meticulous detail. Crochet is becoming something that fulfils those needs.
I hope this year will be a better year for me and crochet …
