Hooked for Life (11 page)

“You could do that yourself,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but you are faster,” she replied.

“You would get faster if you practiced more.”

(
long dramatic sigh
)

And then I would make her the garment anyway. I love making things for her, and as the teenage years approach like an oncoming freight train, some part of me treasures the fact that she will still be seen in public in something that came from my own two hands.

One day at Mecca (the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, New York, for those of you who are misguided enough to think that yarn heaven is elsewhere), we were tooling around the booth of a wonderfully talented dyer and choosing roving to go with our just-purchased drop spindles. A gray-haired woman with an armload of color looked at me and shook her head with a slight smile on her face. “You know you are taking a real chance bringing her in here,” she said. I must have looked puzzled, because my daughter has always had excellent shop manners (she definitely got the shopping gene from me), and I thought the woman was implying that children shouldn’t be shopping in this setting. Then
she smiled more broadly and said, “You are setting that poor child on the path to a lifelong fiber addiction!” “Well,” I said with a laugh, “it’s too late for me; she might as well come along for the ride.” Everyone nearby smiled and we bought our roving and moved on.

It was easy for me to laugh. I already knew about my own fiber addiction and the kid had always been more interested in the shopping than the crafting. I am sure if I had some other type of lifestyle, I mean hobby, and if there were weekend-long festivals with cool things to buy, she would have been equally interested (or not interested, as the case may be). Plus being little and cute has its advantages. Some wonderful vendors at Mecca gave her gifts of fiber and tools because she was polite and interested—and free stuff is almost better than shopping. I guess in the back of my mind I figured the fiber gene had skipped a generation—she was interested enough because it surrounds her, but the attraction to the needle arts was not rampant on a molecular level.

But this summer, everything changed. We were at yet another yarn and fiber event, and in the interest of having something to do while I schmoozed (or more likely, because she heard that the attendees of this particular class, Crochet for Kids, were getting a really awesome goody bag), she took a crochet class. The instructor was great (and not me, a definite advantage), her friend was sitting next to her (and has a preexisting interest in crochet), the goody bag was in fact awesome and full of yarn sure to warm the cockles of an almost-twelve-year-old heart (it was brightly colored! And fuzzy! And sparkly! And all three at once!!!), and she learned how to make a really fast project (instant gratification). She had a great time and was smiling ear to ear when I collected her from class.

She crocheted all that afternoon and into the evening, presenting some of her friends with her very first handmade flowers. She crocheted in the car on the way home during a fairly long drive. She crocheted after
we got home—making flowers for her friends and bags for every electronic item she ever owned (a not inconsiderable number). She pulled out the stash she had been given over the years, unearthed a wicker basket in which to store it, and started poring over crochet books. The next time we had to go out on an errand that we knew would involve some tedious waiting time, I reached out for my tote bag full of yarn and saw that she already had hers on her arm. The fiber gene, hiding all this time, had kicked in with a vengeance. My child was hooked!

And I was delighted. Does that make me a bad mother?

A
lthough you may have heard the urban legend than crocheters outnumber knitters three to one, there isn’t much hard scientific data to back that up. Research does exist on crafter demographics in America, but there is a bit of a muddle between who is a crocheter and who is a knitter, and of course many of us are both. Don’t get me wrong—no one doubts that there are more crocheters than knitters; it’s just the order of magnitude by which we rule that is in question.

Which makes it a little strange to me that certain yarn stores are often not equal-opportunity places to buy fiber, but specifically knitting stores. I had heard about this discrimination, and honestly questioned it a bit, but then I stopped in a few new-to-me LYSs and got a sample of what some of my sisters with hooks were talking about.

I guess I don’t identify myself as a crocheter when I enter a new store, or as a knitter, either, for that matter. I just tend to wander in and
pet what I like, and I have never had anyone question my right to be there. But after hearing some horror stories about crochet-phobes in yarn shops, I tried an experiment. In one particularly well-known big-city store, the crochet books, most of which were several years old, were placed in a dusty rack by the ladies’ room. There were about three crochet hooks, buried at toddler-eye level under umpteen thousand styles of knitting needles. When I asked where the crochet items were, the store owner looked at me with a bemused expression, as if she was waiting for me to say I was just kidding or something. When I didn’t, she pretty much lost interest in waiting on me at all. Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything at that store, and I started to see that maybe my crocheting friends who cried discrimination had a valid point.

But guys, we outnumber the knitters. We really do. And there is strength in numbers. We just need to get a little organized about how to wield our power.

For one thing, we should not support shops that do not value our custom. Which isn’t to say we should be nasty, because that rarely gets anyone anywhere, but if you walk into a store and are treated rudely, walk right back out. Even if you will then have to make a trip somewhere else to get what you need. Make sure you tell them why you are leaving or your leaving doesn’t help change their behavior! If you are too shy (or shocked by the snark) to say something directly, drop the person’s superior a quick note or an e-mail after you get home. Something like:

The flip side of this is to make sure, when you see a growing selection of crochet items in your local store or someone goes out of their way to help you, that you leave a little of your hard-earned cash behind—and again tell them why.

And then do it—support the shops that support your craft.

Complaining to one another is not going to change the ways of the fiber world but getting out there and making ourselves more visible might. If there aren’t any crochet lessons where you live, teach some. Wear your crochet with pride, and if someone confuses it with knitting, explain politely that it’s crocheted and what the difference is. If someone presumes that you only crochet because you haven’t learned to knit yet, tell that person that crocheting is your needlecraft of choice and you are quite happy with it—you crochet out of love for the form, not lack of knowledge or skill. Rioting is not the answer (although wouldn’t it be fun? A crochet riot? I can’t imagine!), but speaking up is. There are so many of us that eventually, people will have to listen.

1. “Oh, you can’t crochet with that.” Yes,
   in fact I
   can
   crochet with that. If it’s long and stringy, I can crochet with it. Hell, if I was desperate enough, spaghetti squash would look like a good substitute for yarn. Please stop telling me that yarn is only to knit with; it isn’t. Although there are certain yarns I wouldn’t want to crochet with, that’s not because I can’t but because I choose not to.
   

2. “I thought only grandmothers crochet.”
   Anyone can crochet—there is no minimum age requirement. I hope I am still crocheting when I am a grandmother. But last I heard, you don’t get assigned a hook and some yarn the minute one of your children gives birth (although it would be cool if we did!). There is no correlation between crochet and procreation. Unless, perhaps, you crochet sexy lingerie, but that is a whole different conversation.
   

3. “Oh, you are crocheting… do you want to learn to knit?’
   I do knit, but it is not a higher life form or something for a crocheter to aspire to. It’s a different form of working with fiber. Neither is inherently better or worse; they are just different. But implying to me that I am too stupid to knit is eventually going to get me to do a little more than imply that you were too stupid to internalize the good manners I am sure your mother thought she taught you.
   

4. “Oh my goodness, I would never have time to do something like that.”
   I do not have more than the requisite twenty-four hours in my day, either, I just choose to do a little bit more with them. I won’t take shots at your sitcom habit, and you can stop assuming that my house is a mess and my dog unfed because I like to crochet in my free time. Well, my house is a mess, but I am pretty sure that even if I didn’t crochet, it would still be messy. And if I don’t feed the dog, she sits on the yarn until I do.
   

5. “You are crocheting for charity? Wouldn’t it be better to write a check?”
   In the words of the Beatles, money can’t buy me love. I do not give my work to others because I think it is subpar. I crochet for others whom I think need the tactile comfort a crocheted item can bring. You can’t cuddle twenty-five dollars, sleep under it, or wrap it around you and know that even if times are a bit bleak right now, someone, somewhere, wanted you to know that you were not alone. There are certainly times when a charitable donation is better made as cash, but I am not going to stop crocheting blankets for Project Linus any time soon, either. I put the best of my talents to use when I crochet for others—I am not giving it away because it’s awful, I am giving it away because I think it’s the right thing to do.
   

6. “What are you knitting?”
   I am not knitting; I am crocheting. And I truly don’t mind if you don’t know the difference—I may not know much about your obsessive hobbies, either. But when I say it’s crocheting, please don’t tell me, “Same thing.” They’re not. Separate but equal, but not the same. And if you don’t want to know anything at all about it, why did you ask what I was knitting in the first place?
   

7. “You can buy that dishcloth/baby blanket/scarf-and-hat set at Wal-Mart. Why would you waste time and money making it?”
   I could buy
   a
   hat at Wal-Mart but I can’t buy
   this
   hat at Wal-Mart. This hat is exactly the color, shape, fiber content, and style that I want. It is unique because it is handmade. And not only will I have a good time wearing it or giving it away, but I also had a great time making it. The one at Wal-Mart might be a bit cheaper but cheap isn’t always the most important thing.
   

8. “That’s way too expensive
   ” in response to a crocheted item offered for sale at a market. May I direct you to a nearby Wal-Mart? Several people have told me just today that you can get really cheap dishcloths/baby blankets/scarf-and-hat sets there.
   

9. “You can’t make cables/fitted garments/socks with crochet.”
   Maybe you can’t, but I certainly can. Want to see?
   

10. “Wow, that’s really cool!”
    Want to learn? I can teach you—come sit here by me. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha …