I’d venture to say at this point that in hook years, I’m a teenager. My edges are pretty straight, my stitches mostly uniform (although I can still tell the difference between crocheting while watching CSI and crocheting while watching whatever hack Science Fiction movie my son has going on.) I can single, half-double, double, triple, double triple, back handspring triple lutz with the best of them. I can granny square, doily, beanie, scarf, sweater, and shrug as long as the pattern is clear.
Yet despite my seemingly precocious talent with the hook, my family insists on requesting things that require nothing but the simplest of stitches. My grandmother’s shawl for instance…it’s a simple half granny square. You’d think I could whip it up in the time it takes for my son to go through a pitcher of juice, but I have one fatal flaw.
I bore easily.
These simple stitches feel like being forced to box-step, one, two, three, chain, one, two, three, chain when I want to Tango - step - turn – cha-cha-cha…or Samba…or even Hokey-Pokey for gawds sake!. I’ve started and stopped unnumbered blankets and throws for the simple reason that the repetition is more than my constantly buzzing brain can take.
Am I doomed to a life of drooling in a half-double haze or will I be immobilized by the soporific single to get these gift requests finished?
Take heart, my children. Come…gather ‘round the altar of the hook. I have a revelation to impart.
My deliverance…my salvation…has come in the form of a HEY! A Highly Entertaining Yarn. I found that if I choose a yarn that has unpredictable color repeats, or some interesting bleed of one color to another, it keeps me engaged enough to want to know what’s going to happen on the next new round or row. It’s like all of a sudden this boring stodgy box-step has become a BIG! HOLLYWOOD! MUSICAL! complete with costume changes and – if I don’t mind the cats- LIONS AND TIGERS AND HAIRS!! OH MY!!
Now granted, my mother told me to use pale pink and green when I asked about colors, but I don’t think Grandma will care. Her eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and if I tell her that the color reminded me of her, she’ll accept that because it’s mostly the truth.
The real truth is that this yarn actually reminded me of grandma’s hair. Somehow, through consumer chemistry, my grandma maintained a head of hair that boasted varying shades of red and brown – sometimes both - throughout my childhood and while it might have looked odd…it certainly wasn’t boring.
