I started crocheting five months ago because I wanted to do something in life that I didn’t have to take seriously. I mean, at all.
By that, I don’t mean that I sought something that wouldn’t involve patience, or time, or dedication. The way I look at it, everything worth doing in life requires those very qualities. Even a backyard sunflower, or succulent, or cactus, requires your attention and regular care. But there it is, you see: the thing about crochet. Even a dehydrated flower is more consequential than poorly executed crochet. You slip, you forget to sun and to water your beloved bromeliads? They die. You slip, you forget your crochet stitch pattern, you run out of yarn in the middle of the night? Nothing happens. Literally nothing. Unless you, like me, are a little bit nuts, and you often think of inanimate things as being alive and verbal, and so you actually imagine your fuming, unfinished sweater, curling its half-done sleeves into fists and mumbling something sulky in your yarn drawer.
The thing about crochet is that it is merely a craft. It is not an art. But it is a craft bustling with purpose and usefulness, and when you find your own fingers weaving a truly beautiful thing with nothing but yarn and the mere twirl of a hook… well, a mystical feeling settles over you, like a haze. You know there is no magic in what you are doing. Nothing but physics involved. You use a little curling wand to bend a fiber, trap it, fold it again, and voila! There’s a stitch! And then another stitch, and another stitch, and soon a pattern blossoms across the moss you are weaving. It’s not magic. It’s not art. It’s simple. It’s humble. And repetitive. And soothing. And beautiful. And terribly useful. And fully inconsequential. And it’s this whole combination that renders the whole process wonderful to me.
Most of life's goals don’t reach such an easy denouement. Think: a failed career, degree, marriage, or novel are understandably painful. Not wrong, mind you. Just, painful. Equally dolorous are the many hours of work you put into a gym and a diet, if you get undesired results because your body, and perhaps also your mind, won’t cooperate. Hell, even a badly cooked meal can hurt. It does me! It grieves my heart to throw away food that I’ve rendered inedible, which, as my poor husband knows all too well after ten years of marriage, I have done more than a few times. A badly cooked meal that cannot be eaten cannot be uncooked.
But a badly crocheted piece -- now that can be unstitched. Evidently, this, too, takes patience and dedication. No crocheter wants to Penelope herself -- nobody wishes to unweave, by night, a lovely day’s work. You have no undesired suitors to deceive with shitty yarn capabilities. There is no Odysseus, love of your life, trying to sail his way home to you. There’s just you and your unfinished sweater. You want the damn thing to be done.
But again: no real consequence. No real timetable. And: nothing at stake. No one is starving and waiting for dinner to arrive; your Honors Thesis isn’t pending submission. You’re not even required, really, to finish your damn sweater, or shawl, or striped mittens. Finish. Don’t finish. What the hell, who actually cares?
I am not surprised that knitting and crochet are downright addictive, that they've been known to help replace bad addictions, help cure depression, and have long-term health benefits. Supposedly, anyway.
Am I addicted yet? I don’t know. All I know is that I feel like I’ve learned a lot in only five months. January seems like forever ago. 1-18-18 was the day I first walked into the yarn section of a Michael’s craft store. Yes, I would notice a date like that, an unvariegated number like that. A number, I like to think, that wishes it had the gift of consonants and vowels. A number that longs to be a syllable.
In the store, I saw a baby that had learned to make syllables, and his mother, a lady with a buttery accent who wanted my yarn advice until I told her I knew absolutely nothing. I found a wall of crochet literature that was a real testament to the popularity of yarn crafts, and one book in particular seemed to be mouthing its sassy title, "Everything the Internet Didn't Teach You About Crochet."
I did not buy it. Instead, I bought a starter kit labeled I Taught Myself to Crochet, by Boye, that contained five shiny, metal crochet hooks, two plastic yarn needles, a stitch counter, a little box of stitch markers, a tape measure, and a little booklet of beginner’s crochet patterns. From the kaleidoscope of yarn skeins that dazzled me with informational labels that meant absolutely nothing to me, I bought a some cheap rainbow yarn that reminded me of unicorns. Because, what do I know, and why not.
And now, five months later, I’ve got pictures to prove what has happened. Often with my husband reading beside me, and sometimes while listening to audiobooks myself, I have made coasters and shawls and scarves and trinket bags and wallets and lanyards and even -- most recently -- an evening clutch. I’ve learned granny squares and flowers. I've learned several delightful stitches.
If you’re in the art of not taking everything seriously, if you have too many life goals already, if you can’t cook a good meal, or if you just can’t keep plants alive: I highly recommend taking to crochet. It does take practice. It does take time. But it costs almost nothing, risks absolutely nothing, and it might just become your best addiction.
5/20/18
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