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Last year: Why yes, this time of year is one big nostalgia trip for me, why do you ask? |
"Bring it through!" the old lady insisted.
"Through where?!?" the girl demanded, the irritation slipping into her voice. "Slow down!"
The old woman was blind, but she aimed her eyes at the girl's as she continued her own string, somewhat slower. "Through the loop on the hook," she explained yet again.
That you had to drop the loop off the hook in order to do this seemed obvious to the old woman, but when her slowed movements revealed this to the girl, it was like the sun emerging suddenly after a week of rain. It wasn't the loop pulled through that created the link in the chain, but the loop dropped!
"I got it!" she squealed, shifting from frustrated to elated with an ease that can be achieved only by a thirteen-year-old.
The first chain was pretty sloppy. Tight with tiny links here, loose and sloppy with big links there... But it was undeniably a chain. Ecstatic with her discovery, she made chains for the rest of the afternoon, rebuffing the old woman's attempt to show her the next step.
The old woman, merely grateful that she had a student at all, smiled, closed her blind eyes, and continued with her own work. The charm of the chain would pall by tomorrow, and the girl would be back for the next step.
My Great-Aunt Rose was only partially blind. She could see out of the corners of her eyes well enough to play cards, if you had cards with enormous printing. She still took her naps with her eyes wide open, though, which spooked me as a child more than a little. I had wondered she was actually napping when she did that, or just resting, but one day at my grandmother's house I stumbled across Aunt Rose on the fold-out guest bed, eyes wide open and snoring to beat the band. I fled, torn between horror and fascination.
But it was Aunt Rose who taught me how to crochet. I still don't know how she made anything other than afghans without being able to see, though I suppose a lifetime of being mostly blind taught her well how to count the stitches by feel. For a few weeks after she taught me the basic stitches, I was very enthusiastic. I made countless circles and squares, and began planning an afghan.
But she went home after teaching me the basic crochet and double-crochet stitches, and while I was able to extrapolate to the treble-crochet, fancier patterns never dawned on me, and I soon bored of making circles and squares. (It also never dawned on me that there might be books with patterns in them. I thought crocheting was something that had to be passed down the generations, and that I would have to wait for Aunt Rose to make another visit before I could learn how to make anything as complicated as a sweater.) I packed the yarn away in a box, and forgot about it.
I picked it up again two, maybe three years ago; nearly fifteen years after Aunt Rose had taught me that first chain. I'm not sure why, but I conceived a desire to learn how to knit. I bought books, and yarn, and needles, and did a little project or two. One of my books recommended using a crochet hook to "work in" (hide) the ends of the yarn.
Knowing that I had a crochet hook, I went back to my parents' house and dug out the box of yarn. But as long as I had the crochet hook in my hand, I did a little crocheting. Bought some books, learned some patterns. I tried working with thread instead of yarn, but I was too out-of-practice to handle the fine thread and tiny hook.
The difference, in the end, between crocheting and knitting is this: Knitting builds a prettier, smoother fabric; while crocheting moves much faster. I would never knit an afghan. It would take me years to finish. It took me two months just to knit a scarf. But a crocheted sweater would look too lumpy to wear. So there you have it.
So I crocheted a bunch of rectangles and then attached them to each other, and voila! - an afghan. One of my books had a cute pattern for crocheting watermelon-shaped potholders. I made a couple of those. I found a pattern for a pretty, almost lacy, afghan. I made it in blue and tan for my mom, and then red and tan for my brother and his wife.
Then I was tired of working in squares and circles. Around October, I started poking around online for patterns for Christmas stockings. I found several, both knitted and crocheted. I bought more supplies, and tried the patterns. Most of them turned out pretty well, I have to say, though most of the patterns wound up needing notes in the margins: The jingle bell stocking wasn't worded very specifically, and it wound up inside-out above the heel. (No, I can't explain it any better than that, not unless you know the difference between stockinette and reverse stockinette stitches.) The all-white stocking was gorgeous, but the directions had me continue the foot way too long - it looked like it was meant to go over top of a platform shoe!
Only the crocheted stocking came out right the first time.
Thanks, Aunt Rose.
(Today, I was On Display.)
Word of the Day: dreidel - a 4-sided toy marked with Hebrew letters and spun like a top; a children's game of chance played with a dreidel, especially at Hanukkah
Man wrestles gators... and likes it
-- "Most gators, once they bite you, they'll shake about four or five times. As long as you don't put up any resistance, they'll usually let you go."
You hope never to hear Greg Long say that his job is eating him alive. Because it could happen.
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Current Projects:
- Christmas stuff
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