Authors: Mary Beth Temple
No matter what you choose to do with a moldy oldie, you will probably be happier in the long run if you do something with it rather than let it continue to gather dust. And if your project pile goes down significantly, you won’t feel the least bit guilty about starting something new!
M
y mother tells the tale of her early crocheting adventures in the language of limited yarn choice. There was wool, there was acrylic, and there was cotton. It came in various weights, but those were pretty much her choices. She bought her yarn at the five-and-ten or the discount store, not at the local yarn store. She bought exactly how much she needed for the project she wanted to do (plus one skein for extra in case she ran out), and when one thing was finished, she saved up and bought the yarn for the next. She didn’t acquire yarn as I do—it was something you needed, not something you lusted after. Mom would no more collect yarn than she would, I don’t know, plastic wrap. There just weren’t enough choices to make yarn double as a collectible item.
A few years back I took her to a beautiful yarn store near her home. I had a project in mind and wanted to buy some yarn for it (as opposed to using four of the hundreds of skeins in my stash, but I digress). I still
remember the look on her face as she sat there looking around the store at all the colors, weights, and fibers. This particular store is airy and open and extremely well lit, so the cases of yarn look like museum displays—each one containing something more eye-catching than the last. She still didn’t buy anything (although I succumbed to some cashmere/merino blend), but she greatly enjoyed the trip.
Her wonder at the huge variety of fibers available got me to thinking about what yarn is made from. The plant fibers are pretty easy to identify—cotton and linen, right? Oops, there’s also rayon (from cellulose, which is wood fiber), corn or soy fiber, ramie (which is related to nettles, but as a yarn has no sting), and I guess all those seaweed/kelp/sea silk fibers would be plant based, too. Of course, within the plant family you have a lot of choices between organically raised, organically produced, and traditionally produced items, and dyed or undyed colorways. Still, a plant is a plant.
Then there are the animal fibers. Generally, I think if you can look at a yarn label and get a mental image of the cute little fuzzy animal whose back it came from, you are doing a fine job. Sheep give us wool, but these days wool is indentified in some cases not just as wool, but as coming from a specific breed—merino comes to mind, as does Blue-Faced Leicester, Corriedale, and Rambouillet (actually Rambouillet sounds like it should be the star of a sheepy action film, but again I digress). Then there is angora (the rabbit kind), angora (the goat kind), mohair (also from goats), llama, alpaca (my favorite), and qiviut (which would be my favorite if I could afford more than an ounce a year). Some intrepid folks spin dog hair, but I don’t want to buy any of that—I keep thinking the wet sheep smell I get when my minimally processed wool sweater gets caught in the rain is one thing, but wet dog smell would be quite another thing …
For some yarns, you get not only the animal breed but also the animal’s name. I have some 100 percent Bob in the closet and recently purchased a Josie/Gracie/Bonnie blend. Since I spin, too, I am about to make some Harrison and some Miss Velvet just as soon as I have the time. This is pretty cool because not only can you picture a cute, fuzzy animal, but you can also picture a specific cute, fuzzy animal that you might have gotten to pet.
Even acrylic yarns have gotten into the act with the type of acrylic specified on the label—as if that makes a difference to me. It pretty much doesn’t; in my mind acrylic is a crylic no matter what its subspecies. Dralon? Sounds like a villain from
Star Trek.
But now there are yarns out there that I am not sure exactly what part of the plant or animal family they came from. I have sock yarn with Chitin in it (it comes from shellfish and has some antibacterial properties, but I am not sure how they get fluffy yarn out of hard shells), milk fiber (again, huh?), and I have a skein of yarn sitting right next to me that says 100 percent vinyl, and underneath in small letters,
Yarn not edible.
Okay, it’s called Jelly Yarn, but still, would I put this on my sandwich?
Actually, crab, milk, corn, jelly—lunch is not sounding like a bad idea right now. I can crochet a little after I have my snack. But I promise not to eat the yarn—it’s too pretty anyway.
W
henever the Olympics come around, one Internet community or another will organize a related craft game where each participant starts a project when the Olympic flame is lit and finishes it by the end of the closing ceremonies. It all works on the honor system—crocheters can choose the project they want to do and award themselves a gold, silver, or bronze medal depending on how close they get to their goal. It’s a lot of fun. But it isn’t what I want to see.
I want to see a real Crochet Olympics in which crocheters from all around the world descend on some location or another and compete in a variety of tasks. In real time and in real life with cool opening and closing parties and endorsement opportunities—the whole deal.
The uniforms would have to be crocheted, of course. In fact, the uniform design could be part of the competition with points given for style, fit, and durability. There couldn’t be any swimming events, though—I
know crocheted swimwear is cute and all (on some people, not on me!) but when it hits the water … ewwwww.
Anyway, we could have a fiber identification round in which blindfolded crocheters have to guess the fiber content of a given yarn by feel or smell. Bonus points if they can tell one type of acrylic from another. This would be followed by a speed round to see who can crochet fastest, a technical round in which we could see who has the least fudge factor in their patterns (come on, you know we all cheat on occasion), and maybe a round in which crocheters compete to see who can wield the smallest hook with the smallest thread.
There could be a multiday event much like the Internet version in which crocheters from around the world start a project at the beginning of the Games and finish near the end. That could be something large, for instance, an afghan, or complicated such as a lacy fitted garment.
There would have to be a team competition. Teams could be made up of a specialist in each of six subgenres of crochet—thread, filet, Irish crochet, Tunisian, tapestry, and yarn. Plus, of course, a substitute or two in case the worst happened and someone got a hand cramp. The all-around winner would be the crocheter who could successfully complete the prettiest swatch in all six categories, but medals would be given to the highest-scoring individual in each event.
There could also be related events in shearing and spinning. Maybe a sheep to shawl competition in which teams are made up of spinners and crocheters who have to turn a fleece into a wearable shawl in a matter of hours. There could also be competitions in stuffing a stuffed animal, blocking, and felting. Oh, and a contest for designers in which they have to write out readable pattern instructions in a short period of time … the possibilities are endless.
Imagine the Olympic village if it were inhabited by crocheters! There would be no infighting—everyone would happily be working on her free-time projects between events. There would have to be yarn stores everywhere, with yarn and needles and books available from all of the participating countries. The village could even have its own currency—the merino instead of the euro.
I would totally watch this on TV, wouldn’t you? Who do we talk to about this?
A
friend of mine once said she really wished there was a crochet version of
Project Runway,
in which crochet designers had a certain amount of time to face design challenges, and there would be some fabulous prize, as well as the adoration of the masses at the end. Of course, this wouldn’t really work because it takes too long to crochet a garment for the camera—we are talking weeks for full garments as opposed to the days that are edited into the hours we see on TV. We can’t just whomp something together out of found materials. And if there was a time limit that was hours rather than days long, everything would be made with six strands of bulky held together and worked on a modified plunger handle. Bulky-weight garments have their place in the crochet pantheon, but a whole collection of them probably wouldn’t win any design prizes. So sadly my friend has given up on her reality TV fantasy.
My crochet TV fantasy was always that I would wind up on something like
Survivor.
Everyone would be frantically running around trying to improvise shelter and comfortable beds, and I would dash into the forest, clean off a suitably bent-ended branch, and whip up some hammocks and shelter roofing out of the readily available vines and palm fronds. My team would win all the challenges because they would be dry and well rested. In the end, I would win the million dollars and everyone would agree this was the least uncomfortable
Survivor
in history because crochet had saved the day. When I came back, I would sign a development deal with a large eco-friendly yarn company, and palm frond-based yarns would be a big hit with crocheters around the world. The end. Gotta say, odds are this one isn’t going to happen, either, not least because my poor-swimming, sedentary, doesn’t-play-well-with-others self would be a total washout in the wild except for my mad hammock-crocheting skills.
Maybe we could do one of those shows where fifteen random strangers are locked in a house together for a period of time and whoever comes out at the end with their nerves intact wins. We could have some crocheters, a few knitters, a spinner or three, and maybe even a needlepoint enthusiast. We could play games to compete for stash, earn points for actually finishing anything, and argue about color combinations. Although practitioners of the needle arts are generally pleasant souls, I am sure within days, the dramatic tension would increase with accusations of stash stealing, slurs against one type of crafter by another, and lead to the eventual duel of knitting needle against afghan hook. The crocheter would probably lose for lack of sharply pointed weapons, but she wouldn’t care because she had had days of uninterrupted craft time, and she is used to being picked on by the knitters, anyway.
Crocheters couldn’t be on a personal appearance make over show, because if the host/stylist tried to throw out one of our crocheted garments claiming it didn’t suit the current trends, we would be arrested for physical assault (and convicted because there would be proof of the crime on videotape). However, a
Mission: Organization—style
show has possibilities … but I can’t imagine a host in the world who has more clever ideas about stash storage than the average crocheter. Although maybe such a person would have some input on the upside of stash storage—all that yarn has to have some insulation qualities, doesn’t it? Empirical evidence that we are not indulging in hoarding behavior so much as lowering our energy costs would be welcome to most crocheters I know.
Wait, I have it. We need to go steal a bunch of ideas from the Food Network. Isn’t a designer sort of like a chef? We all use pretty much the same ingredients. Be it butter or silk, it’s the combination of flavors and use of technique that separates one practitioner from another. If Paula Deen makes it, it is going to start with a stick of butter and a pound of sugar; if I make it, it is going to start with a 4 mm hook and a pound of alpaca. What’s the big difference? We could have yarn store crawls where the locally produced yarns are sampled. Check in with indie dyers to see how they do what they do. Or we could have a secret theme ingredient (bamboo! corn!) and see how two champion crocheters approach the creative process—both with technique and style, of course, but with completely different results based on their taste and experience.
Iron Crocheter! Allez crochet!
E
veryone has a type of crocheting she loves to do above all others. But no one takes more crap for her selection than someone who loves to make dishcloths. Even other crocheters pick on dishcloth crocheters from time to time. “Why bother?” they ask. “You can buy dishcloths at the discount store for loose change! And even if you make them with inexpensive yarn, why put effort into making something beautiful that you will then plunge into a festering pool of greasy water?”
But the crocheters of dishcloths just smile and keep crocheting. They know that utility and beauty go hand in hand. They know that the entertainment value they get from the crocheting time is worth the price of the yarn. They know that crocheted dishcloths are actually far superior to the store-bought ones because the texture of the stitches makes them effective scrubbers. They know they are helping the environment on many levels—making things by hand, washing and reusing cloths instead of
using throwaway plastic sponges, and using natural fibers such as cotton and linen, which will biodegrade when their useful life is done.
But the list doesn’t end there. These clever crocheters know that they can satisfy their need for instant gratification on a near-daily basis if they like, and never run out of different stitches to use. In fact, making a dishcloth is a great way to try out a new stitch or technique—swatches lay around and gather dust but a dishcloth is a useful thing to have after an hour’s playing around with hook and yarn. And last but not least, a dishcloth crocheter will never be caught short around the winter holidays by not having a gift to give. If anyone shows up with an unexpected treasure, she can snag one of her newest creations, stick a bow on it, and give a welcome present. And if her friend prefers using a dishwasher to doing her dishes by hand, then it’s a facecloth with magical exfoliating properties, rather than a dishcloth!
As a side note, watch out about accepting this sort of gift. Once you get used to using a handmade cloth, you will never want to go back to the dollar store brand. Next thing you know, you will be making some dishcloths of your own despite the potential scorn from your fellow crafters. You, too, will just smile and keep on crocheting for you have seen the light.