C is for Crochet

You may not know this about me, but it's time for me to go public: I'm bisticksual. I've been quite open about the fact that I use two sticks a lot, aka knitting, but I also use one stick with a hook on the end, aka crocheting. Occasionally I even use both in the same piece. Shocking, I know.

Crochet occupies an odd place in the fiber-arts world. It's the ugly stepsister, the poor relation, the unassuming beer can squatting on the table while knitting lounges elegantly in the champagne bucket. Even the Yarn Harlot derided crocheters' lack of discretion and taste, declaring, "You find yourself making a ripple pattern freezer cozy out of the 100 percent petroleum knitting product you had left over from the toilet cover and you think you're having fun."

All tongue in cheek, of course (the essay from which I took that quote is titled "Sour Grapes," and it begins with an admission of crochet impairment — which I'm not sure I believe coming from She Who Will Do Anything With Yarn, but I digress), but under this steady barrage crocheters can understandably get a little defensive, maybe even pugnacious in advocating for the craft. I like crochet because it's endlessly versatile and adaptable, not to mention highly conducive to winging it. You can crochet a toilet-paper cover or garish acrylic granny squares, if you so choose, or you can make, well, pretty much anything else you could knit, including stunning lace tablecloths and elegant sweaters. You can put things together in any number of decorative ways. If I want to knit an edging for an afghan, I have to think about it and probably chart it, but give me a crochet hook and a ball of yarn and I'll experiment for a minute or two until I have the perfect size scallop, not too gaudy, not too plain, and I'm off.


My grandmother taught me to crochet the summer before I got married. She went through the basics, single, double, half double, treble (I've never used treble except in some experiments with filet crochet), and within half an hour I was pretty confident and expressed interest in making an afghan. That would be a little big for a first project, my grandmother said, and suggested that I try a pair of mittens instead. This of course was waving the big red "it can't be done" flag in front of a born contrarian, which is how she got an afghan to donate to her church's Christmas craft fair that year. I made a couple more afghans after that, including one for Grant's parents made from generic acrylic I bought at the supermarket (in my defense, we were cash-poor newlyweds), and eventually he began to wonder out loud when he was going to get one. By this time we had moved east, and we were both working, so while this afghan is still acrylic, it's nicer acrylic, in the colors he asked for. It's no great feat of skill, being entirely double crochet with a single-crochet border, but I had fun with the colorwork.


Some time later I was messing around with a diagonal stitch a friend had taught me, and by the time I had had my fun with diagonal stripes I had created a blanket for Miss B, who I think was three at the time. It sat untouched at the foot of her bed for months, until one day she glommed onto it, and she has loved it ever since.


More fun with that same stitch. I really like the almost-entrelac effect. Someday I'll make a whole set of mats.

Maybe someday soon, in fact.