Hooked for Life Read online

  Hooked for Life copyright © 2009 by Mary Beth Temple. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

  E-ISBN: 978-0-7407-9033-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008936237

  www.andrewsmcmeel.com

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  This one is for my mother, Doris McCabe, who put that first hook in my hand. Thanks, Mom.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Author’s Note

  Pattern Abbreviations

  Part One

  Decorative Wristlets

  A Brief (and By No Means Complete)

  History of Crochet

  If It Exists, It Must Be Covered in Crochet

  Doily Mania

  Crocheting for a Cause

  Afghans

  Edging Your Way Along

  Everything Old Is New Again—

  the Toilet Paper Roll Cover

  How to Get Gauge

  Crochet and Beverages—Mix with Caution!

  Felting

  Scrumble Fever

  Amigurumi

  Part Two

  Links in the Chain Scarf

  Greetings from Mount Yarn

  Speaking in Tongues

  Crocheting in Public

  Crochet on the Runway

  The Crochet Time Warp

  How Small Is Too Small?

  No Brain Cells Required

  Crocheting and Babies—

  You Can’t Have One without the Other

  The Great Finishing Fake-Out

  The Day I Ran Out of Yarn: A Horror Story

  It’s Possible I Might Sort Of Be a Yarn Snob

  Crocheter vs. Stash

  Too Much Yarn

  The Secret Life of a Crochet Designer

  Passing On the Yarn Gene

  Part Three

  Goth Princess Toilet Paper Doll

  Crocheters, the Silent Majority

  Ten Things Crocheters Would Like to Say to the Rest of the

  World, but Most Times Are Far Too Polite To

  Crochet Needs a Good PR Agency

  Granny Gets a Makeover

  I Am Not a Hooker

  New Ideas for Enterprising Yarn Store Owners

  The Center-Pull Skein—

  Modern Convenience or Urban Legend?

  Attention, Prop People Everywhere: Crocheting and

  Knitting Are NOT THE SAME THING!

  Crocheting in the Closet

  The World Wide Web of Crocheters

  Too Pretty to Use

  There Is No Wrong Way to Crochet

  Finish or Frog, or the Fine Line between

  WIP and UFO

  What’s That Again?

  The Real Crochet Olympics

  The New Crochet Reality Show

  Dishcloths—Fancy, Fad, or Failure of Imagination?

  You’ll Never Walk (or Crochet) Alone

  Proudly Multicraftual

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  I learned to crochet when I was in the fifth grade. I wanted to make a granny square because my mother was making some for an afghan for the living room and it looked like fun. She gave me a skein of royal blue acrylic and a hook, and she showed me how to make those 3-dc shells. Having the attention span of a flea at that age (and actually I am not much better now), in the middle of round two I ran across the street with my hook and yarn to show my friends how cool I was. I sat on their porch and carefully finished the round—3 dc, ch 1, 3 dc in each space—and went on to work rounds three and four in the same manner.

  Well, if you know how to make a granny square, and I have to assume that if you are reading this book you do, you know what happened. It got all oval and ruffly and didn’t look like a granny square at all. That very day I was introduced to two very important concepts in crocheting. My neighbor Mrs. Gonzalez said that while it might not look like what I was expecting, it was still very nicely done so maybe I wasn’t making a granny square after all but a doily—she was my early free-form influence. And then, my mother said I should rip it out and do it right—my first lesson in the importance of following the pattern if you want the project to look anything like the model. I ripped it out. Mrs. Gonzalez was fun but I had to live with my mother. But from that day forth, I really was Hooked for Life.

  Writing this book was challenging in ways that I was not expecting. When I’d written my previous essays, I have to say they came very easily. (Please don’t tell my editors this—I like to make it look difficult so they don’t feel bad about paying me for my hard work.) My process for first-person work is almost always the same: I sit down and blather out a first draft of whatever story I want to tell, then I go back and do some paring and fiddling. By and large, if I can’t dribble out a beginning, middle, and end in the first draft, the idea isn’t quite ready for public consumption and I flit on to something else until it is.

  This time, I made a list of things I wanted to write about, stories I wanted to tell, and I went to work. And when I went back and read over the early drafts, they weren’t as clever as I had hoped. They weren’t as glib, as funny as the other pieces. Some of them were downright angry—crocheters in general, and I in particular, can get so beaten down sometimes, feeling like the poor relation of our much hipper, trendier cousins, knitters. I wasn’t mocking my crochet obsession as I did with my knitting one, but I was defending it. Which is maybe very noble, but doesn’t make for a scintillating read.

  So I decided this book would be a celebration of what crocheting is to those of us who love it. Not an apologia to those who do not understand, for they probably never will. Not a defense of crochet, for it needs no defending. Not a history of crochet, because although we sadly need one, I am not a scholar (if you want to know why, read the essay on how I crocheted through school from eighth grade on). This book is a celebration of what is wonderful about the craft, nay, the art, of crochet. It includes a little half-cocked history, a sweet knowing smile at its foibles, and as always my tales of how my own life has been formed, row by row, round by round, by the work that I do. If you look down on crochet, put this book down. It isn’t my job to change your mind. But if you love crochet as I do, or at least have a yarny open mind, please read on. There is more to honor than to scorn, and I welcome you on my journey.

  Author’s Note

  Once upon a time, I wrote an essay that mentioned a doctor friend. I called him a vascular surgeon. After publication of the essay, he heatedly (although with a slight self-deprecating smile so I wouldn’t panic) told me that he was board certified in internal medicine and vascular medicine, and as such, was not just a vascular surgeon as I had so glibly christened him. I pointed out that inserting his full title would have wreaked havoc with my sentence structure, and since it wasn’t a medical book, he would need to get over it. He did. I think.

  In the further interest of sentence structure, where a personal pronoun needed to be used to refer to a crocheter, I used she or her, not he or she, or his or her, or whatever gender-inclusive combination that would have fit. It’s not that I don’t know that there are male crocheters. It’s not that I wanted to exclude the male readers of this book. It�
��s just that I find that dual-gender language clunky and I wanted to avoid it, and crocheters by demographic are overwhelmingly female. Please don’t hate me.

  Pattern Abbreviations

  beg — beginning

  ch — chain

  dc — double crochet

  dc2tog — double crochet two together, a decrease. Yo, hook through st, yo draw through st, yo, draw through 2 loops on hook, yo, hook through next st, yo, draw through next st, yo, draw through 2 loops on hook y°> draw through all 3 loops on hook.

  rep — repeat

  rnd — round

  RS — right side

  sc — single crochet

  sk — skip

  sl st — slip stitch

  sp — space

  t-ch — turning chain

  Part One

  Decorative Wristlets

  Decorative as opposed to functional, these pretty linen wristlets definitely celebrate form over function. But why not make something simply pretty for your clever, hardworking hands? Wear them with jeans and a sweater, or with your suits for a quick yet work-appropriate hit of pretty.

  Materials:

  137 yards DK weight (CYCA 3, light) 100% linen yarn. Model shown used one skein of Fibra Natura Flax in color #04.

  Crochet hook size G/6/4 mm, or size needed to get gauge

  ½ yard ⅜-inch ivory satin ribbon, cut in half

  Coordinating sewing thread and needle to attach buttons and ribbons

  Four ⅜-inch ivory-colored shank buttons

  Gauge: 9 sts and 4 rows = 2 inches in dc

  Note: Ch-3 always counts as 1 dc, ch-4 counts as 1 dc plus a ch-1.

  Ch 33.

  Row 1 (RS): Dc in 4th ch from hook and in each ch across. Ch 3, turn. (31 dc, counting t-ch)

  Row 2: Sk 1st dc, dc in each dc across. Ch 4, turn.

  Row 3: Skip 2 dc, dc in next dc, *ch 1, sk 1 dc, dc in next dc. Repeat from * to end. Ch 3, turn. (15 ch-1 sp)

  Row 4: Sk 1st dc, dc in each ch-1 sp and dc across to end. Ch 3, turn. (31 dc, counting beg-ch)

  Row 5: Sk 1st dc, dc in each dc across. Ch 4, turn.

  Row 6: Dc in 1st dc, *sk 1 dc, (dc, ch 1, dc) in next dc. Repeat from * to end. Ch 4, turn. (32 dc)

  Row 7: Sk 1st dc, dc in ch-1 sp, *(ch 1, dc in next dc) 2 times, ch 1, dc in next ch-1 sp. Repeat from * to end, ch 1, dc in 3rd ch of t-ch. Ch 4, turn. (48 dcs)

  Row 8: Sk 1st dc and ch-1 sp, dc in next dc, *ch 1, sk ch-1 sp, dc in next dc. Repeat from * to end, placing last dc in 3rd ch of ch-4. Ch 1, turn. (48 dc)

  Row 9: S1 st in 1st dc, ch 2, s1 st in 2nd ch from hook, *s1 st in next ch-1 sp, ch 2, s1 st in 2nd ch from hook, s1 st in next dc, ch 2, s1 st in 2nd ch from hook. Repeat from * to end, s1 st in last dc. End off.

  Fold the wristlet in half with the right sides facing and stitch the two sides of the ruffle (rows 5–9) together. Turn right side out before beginning row 10.

  Row 10: With right sides facing, rep row 9 in the opposite side of the foundation ch. Do not end off.

  Row 11 (button band and loops): Ch 1. Working down the wrist opening evenly spaced to the seam, 8 sc; working evenly spaced up the opposite side, 2 sc, ch 4 loosely, 3 sc, ch 4 loosely, 3 sc. End off.

  Weave in the ends.

  Thread one 9-inch piece of ribbon in and out of the ch-1 sps on row 3, stitching down with sewing thread at either end so the ends don’t pull out.

  Stitch two of the buttons onto the wristlet’s button band, opposite the button loops.

  Make a second wristlet to match the first.

  A Brief (and By No Means Complete) History of Crochet

  There is a fair amount of well-documented knitting history, with centuries-old fragments of knitted items on display at museums around the world. For crochet, not so much. You might think assembling a crochet history would be fairly easy. No matter whose theories you believe in regarding crochet’s origins, it is generally agreed that crochet in its modern form is not nearly as old as knitting, and a shortish history should be easier to compile than a long one. At least that was what I thought, until I spent several days at a major research library, buried in the oldest crochet books and patterns I could find. Granted, I am not a scholar by training or inclination; however, as I make my living as a freelance writer, I know how to gather cogent facts. But the idea I concocted that I could dive into some crochet book from the 1840s and there would be an introduction that talked about crochet’s history, turned out to be overly optimistic.

  So I offer you the details of my research and some amusing bits and bobs I picked up along the way Not to tell you that I have had a eureka moment and can provide you with a concise and witty history of the craft we love, but to share what I do know in the hopes that someone else will continue on where I left off, and that if nothing else, my search is an entertaining story

  One of the questions that has been burning in my brain, is why isn’t there a popular, definitive history book on crochet? And while I am not one to politicize every area of my life, I can’t help thinking that a lot of it hinges on my impression that in the days when each was new, knitting was something that men did and crocheting was something that women did. I found this quote that told me that I was not the only one to have this thought:

  In all ages women may lament the ungallant silences of the historian. His pen is the record of sterner actions than are usually the vocation of the gentler sex, and it is only when fair individuals have been by extraneous circumstances thrown out, as it were, on the canvas of human affairs—when they have been forced into a publicity little consistent with their natural sphere—that they have become his theme. Consequently those domestic virtues which are woman’s greatest pride, those retiring characteristics which are her most becoming ornament, those gentle occupations which are her best employment, find no record on pages whose chief aim and end is the blazoning of manly heroism, of royal disputations, or of trumpet-stirring records. And if this is the case even with historians of enlightened times, who have the gallantry to allow women to be a component part of creation, we can hardly wonder that in darker days she should be utterly and entirely overlooked.

  —Mrs. Henry Owen, Countess of Wilton,

  The Illuminated Book of Needlework, 1847

  The countess was talking about all sorts of needlework, not just crochet, but she does have a chapter on crochet in her book. No more tasty tidbits on its origins, though—I have to admit I was disappointed by that. I also had to note that while she lamented the lack of women’s influence on history, her byline identified her as “Mrs. Henry Owen,” not “what-ever-the-countess’s-first-name-happened-to-be Owen. “The poor woman churns out hundreds of pages and gets her husband’s name on the cover!

  The earliest books on crochet I could find were printed in 1846 but the timing could be just as much due to the increasing ease of book production and printing at that time as it is with crochet’s popularity. Meaning there weren’t as many books on any subject printed prior to the mid-1830s—the process was just too expensive. Early patterns were short and sweet, and often did not have much in the way of illustration. Some of my very favorites showed a line drawing of a hook at the beginning and then instructed the reader to get a hook about the size of the one in the picture, or started a round by stating the crocheter should make a starting chain about this big and go on from there. I have always thought that crocheters in general were very visually oriented and now I wonder if that is because our patterns have always been visual instead of text heavy. I can only imagine the confusion at the local yarn store (LYS), however, if we all went in there with pictures of hooks and yarn and asked for those exact supplies—now if we could just all agree to go metric instead of U.S. number/U.S. letter/maybe the metric size—but that is another story.

  So I am still hunting for crochet origins, and I find this:

  This pretty and useful fancy work first became fashionable about the year 1838, although it was practiced in nunneries as early as the sixteenth century. The stitch is so simple tha
t anyone can learn to work it; it requires less care and attention in counting than knitting, and can be more easily taken out if wrong. At the same time, the finer kinds such as Irish point, raised rose, and Honiton crochet are almost as beautiful as lace, and demand much skill and patience.

  —Knitting and Crochet: A Guide to the Use of the Needle and

  the Hook, edited by Mrs. Croly, 1887. Note Mrs. Croly still

  doesn’t have a first name, but at least it isn’t her husband’s!

  Nineteenth-century crocheters were the spiritual ancestors of today’s “threadies”—they made fine-gauge crochet in silk, cotton, and linen, especially lace patterns, to use as dress fronts and trimming for underclothes and fancy dresses. There is some speculation that the reason crochet developed when it did was because of the increasing availability of affordable commercially spun threads. Homespun threads are by their very nature a tad inconsistent in thickness, even when made by a spinner of exceptional skill. But since the ladies wanted lace that was both affordable and relatively quick to make, smooth consistent thread—and lots and lots of it—was absolutely necessary. Then, as now, several pattern books were sponsored by thread manufacturers to point out how wonderful their products were.

  A lot of what we recognize today as nineteenth- and early twentieth-century crocheted lace is known as Irish crochet. Irish home workers (and eventually those from other countries) were taught to make beautiful crocheted lace out of individually made elements or “subjects,” joined with a free-form sort of filet background into a dress front or collar, or other sort of fashionable garment piece. For many years, the purchaser of a piece of Irish crochet could not only stay in fashion but know that her purchase was helping a woman feed her family.

  Lest we think that at least Irish crochet has a straightforward history, I went on to read: