Rohn Strong has a NEW Craftsy Class

Rohn Strong has a new Craftsy Class and has returned to the Yarn Thing podcast with Marly Bird to tell us All About It! We love when Rohn comes to visit because there is always lots of laughter when we are together.

Rohn shared that his North Carolina house is a busy place. First there is the dog, Chase, who appears in lots of Rohn’s social media posts. He’s very handsome and very much loved. About a year ago, Rohn’s mother-in-law passed away suddenly. As can happen when we’ve had such a shock, he began re-evaluating what he really wants to be doing.  As he loves crochet and knitting, but it’s not everything he loves. He also (you’ll know this if you’ve been following him) cooks and he looks for fun and healthy recipes and shares them. Rohn’s demonstrated he has a talent for drawing, lately botanical illustration. With this in mind, Rohn shared that he is working on a new self-published lifestyle magazine and his husband, Harrison, has been doing all the photography. The magazine, named Hyacinth, will focus on everything Rohn’s focused on (makes sense!) like crocheting, cooking, the artwork.  It’s first issue in July will have four crochet shawl patterns, recipes for the current season’s produce and demonstrating his techniques for the botanical artwork. Future issues will be about his Crocheted Socks, Rare Breed Yarns and other things that he’s concerned about and hopes others have these interests, too.

One of the people that Rohn admires is Martha Stewart. Learning that she wakes at 4am inspired him to get up a little earlier, so while he works from home, he gets up at 6am, starts to work at 7, working until 7 at night on crochet. Then he cooks until some of his favorite tv programs (like ‘The Bachelor’) when he must have a crochet hook in his hand. He realizes he’s blessed to be doing what he loves to do.

Here is Marly’s link to Rohn Strong’s Crochet Sock, Essential Techniques Class. Marly brought up that it’s really hard to imagine a benefit to crocheted socks. Of course, as crocheted sock advocate, Rohn can give us wonderful tips: first being open-minded is important. They are never going to be like knit socks, the fabric created is different from knitted. He believes they are quicker ~ he can do a crochet sock in about 5 hours where knitted takes 8. It fills that need that crocheters have to do anything that knitters can complete. The yarn matters, he recommends acclimating to crocheted socks by wearing a dress sock underneath for the first few times. He speaks of Linked Stitches, extended crochet stitches (discussed single vs double crochet) which can give the stretch, elasticity in both directions, that socks need.

Rohn also is an online instructor with Annie’s which produces Knit & Crochet Now that Rohn has been involved with the last couple of seasons. Learn Tunisian Crochet Colorwork, Learn to Crochet Easy Hats, Learn to Crochet Socks are the three classes available online. So far. The techniques he shows are wide and various, and hopefully gives us the method that works for us.

We can follow him at his website RohnStrong.com, which includes an active blog, Facebook page, Ravelry Designer page (spoiler alert: All his patterns are on sale right now to celebrate his 5th anniversary as a designer!), Instagram, and Twitter.

Rohn was able to share with us that he has a book coming out in 2017. Interweave contacted him with the idea of creating a crochet sock book, Step into Crochet. He tells us it has everything anyone needs to know about crocheting socks. He is appreciating working with a team on this, having done self-published books previously. A lot of the decisions are still left up to him, although often he is anxious about his first Publication, he is working with a successful publishers. His book will be beautiful and we will be watching for it!

If you missed getting to hear this live it is still available where it aired originally as an archived episode http://www.blogtalkradio.com/yarnthing/2016/06/09/rohn-strong-has-new-craftsy-class-crocheted-socks or with your favorite podcast catcher like iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The behind the scenes video is also available at Marly’s Facebook page.