Here is something you may not know about me, a part of me that I keep hidden and a relatively new passion of mine though it is quite an old art performed by women before me for ages…
I am a hooker.
January 24th started off like any other day during a New England winter – cold, gray, probably slippery and found me in a mood.
A creative mood, for a change.
I had spent the afternoon painting and was feeling the desire to continue with my art-making into the evening hours. My eyes fell on the ridiculous packaging I purchased some weeks prior on impulse with a Target gift card. It sported an all too cheerful pink, roly poly frog on the front of it. I squinted at its little face, sporting that tiny embroidered smile nestled amongst its sparkly rotund body. It stared back.
I heard in my mind the low whistle of an old fashioned Western stand-off – it was High Noon at the Crafty Corral.
I tore the package open, satisfied with the feel of the rip sliding across the top. I spilled out the contents – a darning needle, some pink yarn, a scant bit of white yarn, plastic eyes and backings, and a little card with a QR code.
It was time to learn how to crochet.
I confidently scanned the code and settled in with the adorable pink crochet hook that was included inside the bag. I had met the acquaintance of the faceless hands and voice of the instructional videos, and was determined to figure out how to turn a pile of yarn into Henri the Frog, the pleasant, amicable amphibian that graced the packaging.
It didn’t go well.
I am an impulsive person and decided that the annoying plastic paper clip looking things were in my way, so I removed them. And then learned quickly that they were there for a reason – to mark where my hook would go next as well as to help me make sure I have the appropriate stitch count as I worked my way in rounds to create said frog.
It was a rough start, to say the least.
After many fits and starts and resets and a fair torrent of curse words that would surely make Henri blush pinker than the yarn of which he has been created – I started to get the hang of it. To my absolute shock, I enjoyed it. I had never considered myself the type of person that would gravitate towards fiber arts of any type – though I come from a family of creatives – it never felt “right” for me. I persevered with Henri, and while my end result is what my students have dubbed “The Scary Frog Thing” – I was..in a word…”hooked”.
For the past month and a few days, nary a day has gone by where I haven’t spent at least a little bit of time working on a crochet project. I have made quite a few toy items to date, in the Japanese style of amigurumi – forcing yarn into tight stitches, soon filled with stuffing to create shape and structure. I have an array of sea creatures including jellyfish, an octopus, a few whales as well as some barnyard chickens, a snake, a turtle with a too small shell, a Yoda with beady eyes and no other discernible features and Princess Leia who looks great save for the fact that I couldn’t quite crochet her arms to a proportionate size. So she remains, as of this writing, armless. But she looks happy.
I was working today on a snake that will eventually be nearly as tall as Brad when it is finished and currently looks like something Captain Jack Sparrow could strap on as a peg leg and go about his merry way – when it struck me how…quiet it was.
I was surrounded by other noise – I had a podcast playing, and could hear the rattling of plates and Rocky barking at something known only to him out the front window. But as I moved my crochet hook through the yarn, I heard…nothing. As I clicked the stitch counter button, I also heard…nothing. And when I flicked open and then fastened closed my stitch marker or slid the scissors through the yarn tail at a quick snip, I heard…nothing. My pattern book pages turned in silence. I dropped several crochet hooks on my desk and they fell with a silent thud. I rustled through the bag of poly-fill, grabbing handfuls of stuffing to jam into the ever growing snake and it was as silent as a snowfall.
I glanced around the room at my craft materials, and snatched up my plastic lidded box that houses yarn scraps – I could mercifully still hear the clicking of the handles snapping open and closed. That provided scant comfort. The zippers on the yarn storage bags emitted a faint “zzz” that I could hear well enough, though hard to know if I was actually hearing it or if it was ingrained in my memory so I imagined I had “heard” it. I rattled the metal cart that houses my crochet books, it jangled faintly. I could hear the button snapping on the scissors holder, too, and the tight click of the container that holds my stitch markers.
And I could hear my thoughts, and my fears, and my curiosity, and my panic, and my eventual resignation that my hearing was changing. I took a calming breath, returned to my giant, unruly, and questionably fuzzy snake project and continued my creation. I immersed myself in creating something from nothing, reveling in the rare solitary time that I have carved out for myself each day since Henri invited me into his world.
I still can’t help but wonder – are there sounds that I am missing with the art of crochet?
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