Twenty-Third Birthday : The Aftermath

So, yesterday at 8:30 pm, est, I turned twenty-three. My family, Mom's side, had a small, but lovely party for me. Much to my delight, thanks to heavy hinting on my part, I received my new camera ( a nikon coolpix), Donna Koohler's Encyclopedia of Knitting and two sets of bamboo knitting needles, one straight pair, one straight set. Needless to say, once we were back from the restaurant and the cake consumed, I was busy re-teaching myself how to cast on.

Drake, the male best friend, and I sat in the guest bedroom for the better part of the night watching "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon," which was pretty entertaining by the way as I taught myself how to knit and purl with the German Method. I'm not sure how I feel about knitting now, though.

Either crafty-ness skips a generation, or my family is just not inclined to it. Mom knew how to knit a tiny bit, she was the one who taught me first, though she was more of a cross-stitcher. Oma (bio-dad's mother) was taught how to knit and crochet in school during WW2 and knit socks for the German army as part of her assignments, though it my life, I've never seen her pick up a hook or set of needles. As a wee one, I would read my battered, hand-me-down copies of the Little House books, fascinated by the stories of Laura Wilder sewing, quilting and knitting as a daily necessity. I would sit and create my own, tortured, lumpy, ten stitches wide little scarves made from a horrible assortment of yarns haphazardly knotted together, feeling a great solidarity in doing something "old-fashioned." Crochet didn't feel right in my hands for years, Mom taught me to knit and crochet during the same summer, though the only crocheted swatches I produced were declared "backwards knitting" by my mother, so I was probably doing something akin to Tunisian Crochet.

I could make chains though.

Oh Lord, could I make chains. I loved the look of a nice even chain stitch, they made me think of little braids of hair. Since I had no idea of how to turn my work and use the chain to start a piece of...well, anything, I made the chains my work. I would produce MILES of chain, then would filch unused embroidery floss from Mom's sewing basket and would proceed to sew the chains together into little circular mats. Years later, during another hot and boring summer, I taught myself how to REALLY crochet, and haven't looked back since. I still find bits and pieces of my oldest, and unfinished projects, either in my stash or tucked away in boxes, my very first afghan is still in our linen closet, nearly falling apart because i didn't know how to properly seam back then. In an unhumble way, it makes me proud to see my progress with crochet, I have three hats I made in three consecutive years, and I can see that the most recent one is by far the best, but I also remember making each of the others, remembering at what point I stopped caring about how long it was take to finish something, just so long as I finished it. Somewhere, I lost the desire to use big hook and bulky yarn only for the sake of finishing something quick and I'm quite happy to leave that girl behind.

Crochet taught me patience. And I've taken more away from this one fiber handicraft of dubious origin than I have from the overwhelming majority of my college classes. Somedays, I think that's profoundly beautiful, others, its simply sad. Most though, it just seems fitting.

I've been crocheting so long, hardly a day goes by without some hooked work passing through my hands, that I dream about it. It feels natural in my hands, rather, my hands feel natural doing it. When standing in line, I'll find myself chain stitching my hoodie, or jacket's drawstring with my fingers, or really, anything long and twistable. When the big knitting craze of the early 21st century hit, I became a right little elitest, my voice laced with disgust when someone asked "what are you knitting?"

"Its not knitting, its crocheting."

Now, as I make painstaking process though Koohler's book, I begin to wonder if crocheted socks are really THAT bad, since that at present is my sole motivation for learning to knit. I remember the pride I felt at my college's stitch and bitch group as the knitters work curled over on itself, while my crocheted squares and scarves could use the finest of unblockable materials, so perfectly flat and straight they were. Now, I feel like some sort of horrible, adulterous wife as I frantically try to smooth my maiden square of stockingette stitch. My sari silk purse lies in progress in my work tote, balefully looking at me.

Traitor.

Traitor, I hear echo in my own mind. As Keats put it "Do I wake, or do I sleep?"

g.o.