Hooked for Life (8 page)

W
hen I talk to people who crochet, I always ask what got them started, and invariably the women and men who didn’t learn as children became interested and sought out lessons when they or someone they knew was expecting a baby. There is something about a new baby that makes even noncrocheters (or as I prefer to call them, latent crocheters) rummage through pattern books and coo over blankies and bears.

Crocheted items are the perfect combination of utility and art, so far as babies are concerned. At the rate that infants leak out of one end or the other
(or both), a parent or caretaker can never have too many blankets, bibs, or sweaters. Even if your crocheted offering is not an exact match to the adult recipient’s taste or fashion sense, you will still wow them with the fact that you took the time to make something to welcome Junior into the world with your own two hands. And as for art—the pattern choices are almost endless, so you can choose something that shows off your particular skill set.

Another great thing about crocheted baby items is the speed with which they are finished—you can find out about a baby shower a few days before it happens and still show up with a lovely handmade gift that will wow the crowd and look like you were working on it for the duration of the pregnancy. That speedy finish time is also a great fix for those of you (okay, us) who like to bask in the warm glow of instant gratification from time to time. In fact, I know several crocheters who like to make baby items between larger projects, even when no new baby they know is on the horizon! Baby clothes can always be stored until their time of need, and they will always fit someone, so you can make whatever baby pattern appeals to you, resting easy that it will be used in time.

Although a lot of crocheters prefer blankets and home decor items to garments because blankets don’t need to fit, garment sizing is a no-brainer for a baby as long as you don’t make something infinitesimal. Babies grow really quickly, so if that adorable jacket doesn’t fit Baby now, it will eventually and probably sooner rather than later. Any too-large gauge issues can be played off by telling the mother, “I know it’s a little big now, but I thought you would get plenty of things in newborn size and that this would give Junior something to grow into.” Not only will you not hear crap about your gauge issues, but you will also be commended for your thoughtfulness and preplanning abilities.

Blankets seem like the easiest thing to make, but believe it or not, you can really foul up a blanket with an incorrect gauge. When my
sister was anticipating the birth of her first grandchild, she fell into the “I must crochet something for the baby” mode of thinking almost immediately. She chose a pattern for a set with matching blanket, jacket, and booties—there might have been a hat as well. She ran off to the store, got a soft, multicolored acrylic yarn, and started crocheting away on the blanket. She crocheted and crocheted and crocheted—and ran out of yarn, even though she had bought what the pattern said would be enough for the entire set. And she crocheted and crocheted and crocheted until the blanket was crib size. Finally, she ended it off and put on a delicate edging. She was so proud of all of her hard work as well as how quickly it was finished. She would be able to give it to her daughter well before the baby was born, even if she wound up giving her the garments later.

So, smiling and happy, Grandma-to-be presented her gift at the shower. First, the attendees wondered what could possibly be in the box because it was so darned heavy. I mean, this thing weighed a ton. We were thinking that it might be furniture that needed to be assembled, or baby books. My niece tore into the wrapping and pulled out the blanket—it really was beautiful, and we started to tell my sister what a great job she had done. But then someone (it might have been me) unsuccessfully stifled a laugh and said, “Well, as heavy as this is, you won’t have to worry about the baby rolling off the couch if this is on top of her—she won’t be able to move!” That got the rest of my family going (hey, I didn’t get my snarky attitude from strangers). “Oh noooooooo, not the lead blanket. Mommy, I’ll be good I promise!” came from one of my nieces. “Help… can’t… move… arms…” came from another, and I am sad to report it went downhill from there. We had tears running down our cheeks from laughing so hard at the madness, and even my sister cracked a smile after getting over the shock of the first verbal assault (she, too, is a member of my family, so it couldn’t have been a very big shock).

And a valuable lesson was learned by all, that gauge affects fabric density as well as size. To my sister’s credit she went on to finish the garments, going up a couple of hook sizes now that she knew what the problem was. And the baby (now college age) got lots of use out of that set. After all, a blanket that densely constructed is extremely durable; it would probably survive a nuclear attack (which now that I think about it, someone pointed out, between snorts of laughter, at the shower). But I don’t remember her making any more crocheted items for the rest of her grandkids—I don’t know that she could have taken the abuse!

Did we kill the joy of crochet in my sister? Not really. What she did crochet-wise for the longest time was welcome new
cars
into the family with throws for the backseat or trunk that color-coordinated with the automobile’s paint and upholstery. If any of her family suffered through a car’s breaking down, they were going to stay warm in style. And the vehicles didn’t complain about the extra weight.

Now my sister has discovered quilting and the rest, as they say, is history. Her quilts are truly works of art and the best part about it is: no gauge is required.

O
ne of the things that always throws me when I am trying to figure out when a crochet project will be finished, either because I have a deadline coming up or my daughter wants to wear it to school, or even just because I am sick of it and want it to be done, darn it, is the actual finishing part. I can’t tell you how many times I wind up swearing in the middle of the night because I want to finish something before I go to bed and the lightbulb goes on in my head and I realize the darn thing is taking longer to finish that it did to crochet.

More than likely the pieces have to be blocked, because a lot of crochet looks like a damp dishrag between the time you end off the last stitch and you get to actually wear or use it. Then it has to be stitched together if it was made in pieces. Sometimes I whipstitch garments or afghans together and sometimes I crochet them together—I find the crocheting finish goes faster but I often prefer the look of the sewn one.
And of course, there are ends to be woven in—sometimes lots and lots of them.

I hate, hate, hate weaving in ends. Hate it. I am compulsive about it, too, because I hate little cut endies sticking out even more than I hate weaving them in. So I am always pondering just where the best place to hide an end is. At least once a year, I threaten to design something in which the ends turn into a decorative application of some sort (fringe? bows?) just so I could get out of the “twelve hours to finish this piece” jail. Actually, my loathing of end-weaving-in is probably a major part of my felting obsession. You do have to tuck in the ends before you felt, but you don’t have to be compulsive about it because the ends will felt in along with the rest of the piece.

The other thing I realize when I go into finishing mode, is how very not portable it is. Since I crochet all the time, a lot of my crocheting projects are portable. If I only got to crochet when I was home, days would go by when I didn’t have a hook in my hand, and that’s no good. But I can’t weave in ends on a moving bus, block in the parking lot outside of dance class, or sew seams at a party while people are talking to me. Finishing requires too much attention and too many tools to be a go-anywhere stage in your project.

But ah, when the finishing is finished—what a rush. I am happy each and every time I finish crocheting something, but when it is all pressed and sewed up and I am wearing it or displaying it—wow. I feel so enormously clever. I feel like I have accomplished something. I am supercrocheter!

If only the feeling lasted longer than the finishing time…

W
hile I am a big supporter of ideas such as the Worldwide Knit/Crochet in Public Day, around here every day is crochet in public day. I am not as organized as those women I have heard about who have a crochet project in the car, one in the den, and one in the bedroom so they can work on whichever one is handiest, but I do tend to have two or three project bags sitting by my chair and I grab one whenever I go out the door.

But last week, the unthinkable happened. I grabbed the bag I wanted but had forgotten to “reload” the night before when I finished off a skein of yarn. Here I was, trapped, in a government office that gives out numbers like they do at the deli counter, only with
no yarn.
You can’t imagine the cold chills that ran through me when I realized this. Because I didn’t realize right away… no, the afghan block teased me. I grabbed up the square in progress, started stitching away, and after a half a dozen double crochets,
what was in my left hand where the working yarn should be? Nothing.

I searched through the bag—I saw some purple in there; surely it had to be the new skein of yarn. But no. Since I already had my deli number and there was no possible hope of having it called in the next two hours, I ran outside to check the car. Surely the purple skein had dropped out of my bag and I would rescue it, have a good laugh, and get back to making afghan squares. But no. Maybe another, different project was still in the car. Even if it had been abandoned long ago, there must be a skein of yarn for something in there somewhere. No again. Sadly, I dragged myself back in to the office to face my interminable wait, crochet-less.

If time flies when you are having fun, it drags like crazy when you have nothing at all to do but watch the fifty people ahead of you transact tedious government business. “Buck up,” I said to myself, “it’s only a couple of hours of your life. You can get through this without having something to do with your hands.” That positive attitude lasted for about five minutes and then my mind began to wander…

Perhaps I could unravel some of the squares I had already made, and make them again. Hmmmm… no, the idea of undoing all that lovely work made me cringe and the problem with afghan squares is that no matter how interesting the square pattern, odds are, you are going to be a little bored with them by the time you finish them all, so it wasn’t as if I had a burning desire to make more than the thirty-six I had already signed on for. Fifteen minutes down, who knew how many to go?

Maybe I could use some of the long tails I had left on for sewing up. No, I was going to need those long tails someday soon, and the only thing more irritating than not having anything to crochet during a long wait has to be weaving in 300,000 ends. I knew! I could start sewing some of the finished squares together—that would be productive! I
started digging in the bag again, but sadly only one completed square sat next to the half-finished one. Could I sew the finished half to the full square? That didn’t make sense, even in my desperate state. Another twenty minutes down.

This being July, no one was wearing any sweaters or shawls with patterns I could ponder. There weren’t even any handmade blankets on the numerous crying babies. I swear that the clock stopped—if I go to hell when I die, this is what it will be like. I read every word in the forms in my hand and then every article in the weekly free paper. I looked around for anything to use as yarn, wondered if I could go to jail for unraveling the American flag so I could crochet the thread, and sized up the heft of the security guard and wondered if he was armed…

And then they called my number. Safe! Four minutes later, I was on my way home, lamenting the loss of two good crocheting hours but knowing I was nearer the purple yarn with every passing mile. It was okay to be projectless on the way home—I don’t crochet in the car when I am driving. Well, maybe during traffic jams, a little bit…

A
t least that’s what my friend Remi tells me. Remi has met no yarn that she cannot see the good in—where I see cheap and scratchy, she sees inexpensive and durable. Where I see fibers not found in nature as a bad thing, she sees easy care and cleaning. Nothing repels baby spit-up like 100 percent acrylic. Where I see fun fur or sparkles and cringe, she sees bright and cheerful and fun. It isn’t that she would say no to some luscious dusty rose alpaca or a big old pile of hand-painted silk; it’s that she wouldn’t say no to some neon orange 100 percent acrylic bargain brand, either. And I would, I definitely would.

It isn’t that I don’t get the upside of inexpensive acrylic yarns—they last forever, can stand up to constant use and cleaning, come in every color in the rainbow (and several that Mother Nature I am sure never intended), and an afghan’s worth of them will not require six months of credit card payments. They are readily available in all parts of the country
and can be used in all sorts of projects from afghans to baby clothes. Intellectually, I understand. Tactilely I am just not sold.

I want to feel natural fibers running through my fingers as I work. I want to pet the alpaca at the fiber farm, and then buy the fleece or the yarn that came from his furry butt. I want organic cottons that will weather like my favorite pair of ancient jeans or linens that are sharp and crisp and then soften with use. I want colors that glow with inner warmth and call to mind beautiful sunsets or roiling ocean waves. In short, I want the expensive stuff.