Crochet lessons

In the days before children, I read a lot of books. Evenings stretched out ahead of me like a contented cat and I would curl up on the couch with my favourite fiction. I would knock off a book in a week. Sometimes two.

Nowadays, I’ll be luckily if I’ve read three pages before I’m called upon to referee Xbox Wars or rescue a Lego superhero from oblivion, otherwise known as Down The Side of The Sofa. Even when the children are playing quietly in the same room (that one time), I can no longer concentrate on a book while they’re around. I save the reading for bedtime when, ironically, I will fall asleep after reading three pages.

Once the hard labour phase of parenting had passed, I realised I needed to find an alternative sitting-down pastime. Something I could do while still ‘being around’ the children. Most of the time they don’t need me to play with them, they just want me to be nearby.

My sister is an epic knitter. Her needles click at the same speed as an Andy Murray serve, and she rattles off beautiful cashmere socks and intricate scarves at a dizzying pace. I have tried, but I can’t make head nor tail of the patterns and I can’t even cast on which is kind of important if, y’know, you want to knit something.

One day my sis appeared with a WIP (that’s work in progress for all you yarn virgins) that was unlike any of the things I’d seen her work on before. It was chunky, modern and in vibrant colours. ‘It’s crochet!’ she said, like I was some sort of halfwit. To be fair, she often speaks to me like that.

In a show of patience with her little sister unprecedented in nearly 35 years, she sat down and taught me how to crochet. In stark contrast to knitting, crochet begins with a simple slipknot. The basic stitch was relatively simple to pick up.

I was hooked. Haha, I made a crochet funny!

I watched YouTube tutorials to learn new stitches and techniques, scoured the internet for blogs and pattern sites (Attic 24 is my favourite), built up a ridiculous yarn stash from Wool Warehouse and the frankly awesome Dundee shop Fluph, and I was soon off and running, starting off with baby hats and moving on to blankets, scarves and then amigurumi (the Japanese art of crocheting small, stuffed animals).

I am astounded by how much I have learned in just two years, and it’s much more than simply How To Crochet.

Lesson One: Patience

I have always had lots of patience for other people, but almost none with myself. Crochet has taught me to go slowly, to be methodical and to react reasonably when things go arse over tit, which they do. Often. Look at this Unicorn for instance. Isn’t he beautiful? Hours and hours of painful single crochet, resulting in blisters, to make this fella. From the side he is perfect.

From the front, not so much. This is what happens when you fix the safety eyes on without paying attention to how the head will attach to the neck…

Lesson Two: Perseverance

The average baby blanket takes me around 10 hours to complete. More than once I have been due to visit a lovely bundle of fluffy new baby goodness the very next day and not yet halfway finished a blanket. It is so very tempting to dump the thing in the bin and drive to Mothercare, but the reaction you get when your handmade gift is opened is worth every single minute, every tail-end darned in.

Lesson Three: The joy of creating 

If you’ve had the sort of day where everything you touch has gone to shit, you can rely on crochet to make things right. A rose or a string of heart-shaped bunting takes 15 minutes to complete and you have turned your day the right way up. You have made something. You have won.

Lesson Four: Peace

Far too much value is placed on busyness in the 21st century. Although crafts such as sewing, knitting and crochet are considered ‘cool’ right now, there are still plenty people who will scoff and sneer at a pastime so homely, something traditionally associated with ‘housewives’ and ‘grannies’. Frankly, those folks can ram it sideways. Sitting in peace and quiet (or even surrounded by chimp children who treat your furniture like gymnastic apparatus) hooking repetitive stitches has a soothing effect on your mind and soul. You cannot check Facebook as you keep count of rows. You cannot conjure up a list of things you have to do, or worry about the things you haven’t done. It’s also impossible to watch programmes with subtitles, so if you’re into Nordic Noir you might want to give crochet a swerve.

Lesson Five: Pride

Look at the stuff I have made! Stuff you can wear! Stuff you can cuddle! Stuff you can hang on your wall! Stuff that will give your children nightmares (that poor little Unicorn). The sense of achievement that comes from spending hours hooking a blanket, washing it in non-bio, snipping off the ends and squeezing the squidgy, sweet-smelling softness before wrapping it in a big bow is surely unmatchable. I feel as if I might burst with joy when I see another stripy elephant go off to a new home. Well actually, I want to keep them all and have a herd on the shelf but our house already looks like a crazy old lady lives here so it’s best to let them go.

When I decided to write this post I gathered together everything I have crocheted so I could take some photos. I was blown away as I set it up on the chair. Almost twice as much has left the house as gifts, too.

I made all these things. And you can too.