Crochet

A friend got a new foster baby today, and I'm really excited to crochet her a cuddly blanket for her new little angel.  Planning and starting a new blanket made me realize (again)  how much I love crochet, and how much it is part of who I am.

I started crocheting when I was 8 or 9 years old.  We had gone to visit in the tiny town in southwest Illinois where my grandparents lived, and I guess all my cousins were busy with something or other, because I was 'stuck' at home with Grandma, with nothing to do but watch her create an intricate and beautiful doily.  I loved watching Grandma crochet.  Her hook would move so quickly over and through the yard or thread.  And I don't recall ever seeing her use a pattern.  I saw patterns around her house, so maybe she did, but it seemed to me, at that young age, that the blankets, slippers, ponchos, scarfs and doilies just appeared magically as if her hook were some sort of magic wand.

At last I was overcome with wonder, and said to her, 'I want to learn to crochet.'  Quite matter-of-factly, I had just decided that this was something interesting and valuable, and I wanted to know how to do the magic for myself.  She refused.  "No." she said, "You're not big enough."  Looking back on it, I know now that she must have known how much that would bother me.  As the youngest of 17 cousins, I was often being told I was too little to be included in...whatever the other cousins were doing.  So I repeated, "Grandma!  I want to learn how to crochet!  Will you show me?"  Here is where my Grandmother's child-rearing genius becomes evident, because what she did was straight out of 'Reverse Phychology 101'!  "Nope.  Teaching you to crochet would take all afternoon, and I never knew a little girl willing to sit still all afternoon! Well, I'd even bet you an ice-cream cone you couldn't sit here all afternoon for me to teach you!"  So, determined to prove her wrong, and win myself an icecream cone in the process, I sat.  And she taught me the 4 or 5 basic stitches common to every crochet pattern.  When we were done, we walked a few blocks down the street to the store, where I got the ice cream cone she had bet me!

The next afternoon, she had me make a square, which probably was more of an irregular polygon, but she seemed very proud of it, and tucked it in her drawer full of all the potholders she had crocheted.  I was very pleased with myself.  The following afternoon, she taught me how to read a pattern, and helped me follow a pattern to make a simple, coaster-sized doily, which later became a tablecloth in my doll house.

From such humble and beloved memories, I continued.  I have been crocheting for several decades at this point, and have graduated to thinking up my own patterns, and adapting the ones I read.  It's as much a favorite passtime as reading or playing the piano.  Sometimes, when I'm working on a project that is extra-special, or extra-challenging, I would swear I can feel Grandma sitting next to me, looking over my shoulder, checking my stitches.  And I'll tell you a secret, if you promise not to tell anyone.  Sometimes when it seems she's near, I talk to her.  I still miss her, even though she passed away when I was in high school.  But when I'm crocheting, I know she's still there.  If not in person, in my stitches, the stitches she lovingly taught me all those summers ago.

And I've realized something along the way.  My grandma didn't just teach me the stitches to crochet, she taught me to love it like she did.  She taught me to think about the person I'm crocheting for, and weave good wishes, happy thoughts, and love for that person into every stitch.  Maybe that's why I love it.  Because it reminds me how loved I felt wrapped up in one of Grandma's afghans, or wearing a pair of slippers made just for me.  Because it is a treasure to my heart when I hear that someone I crocheted something for cherishes it, when I know they feel loved, like I did.

Someday I hope to pass down the art of crocheting to other little girls who are my friends or granddaughters.  And I hope I pass down the love, as well.  Because that is certainly one of my everyday joys.