As if cursing like a
sailor, cutting my hair short, singing off-key and wearing socks to bed wasn’t
enough, now I’m crocheting at night in front of the television just like my
mother used to.
She’d say it kept her hands busy while
she was trying not to smoke. In my case, it keeps my hands busy so that I don’t
reach into a bag of Fritos. I guess we all have our little habits.
Actually I tried to knit first, but I
found my stitches were so tight that you couldn’t pass a strand of baby’s hair
between them. Apparently even my knitting is uptight.
I remember crocheting with my mom and
grandma when I was a kid, and I wondered if I might be able to pick it back up
again. I asked my friend Sharon to help me get started, and then she reminded
me about a little thing called YouTube and I was off and running.
Since October I’ve finished two-and-a-half
afghans and half of a baby blanket. I’m still waiting for the other half of the
baby-blue super-soft yarn to arrive via UPS. At this point my great-nephew will
be in middle school before his blanket is done.
The very idea of using yarn in any productive
way has been a long time coming.
Danny, my son who is autistic and known around
these parts as Baby Jesus, loves yarn. Right now he has a basketful of yarn of
varying colors and textures in his bedroom. For years I couldn’t get past a few
rows of a scarf before Dan pulled the yarn loose and took off with it. Maybe
this is why my knitting is so tight. I’m probably still nervously looking over
my shoulder unconsciously.
Somehow this time around I’ve managed to
convince Dan that this is my yarn, and that his yarn is waiting for him up in
his bedroom. Maybe because he’s a young adult now, he’s finally gotten the
message.
He regularly breaks off a piece of his yarn that
measures about two-feet long and flicks it up in the air repeatedly. This makes
Dan supremely happy. The rest of us are okay with it, until he starts pulling
it apart one fluffy strand at a time and leaving it all over everything.
Crocheting satisfies my sense of nostalgia and
hopefully keeps people warm at the same time.
Now instead of worrying about Dan yanking my
yarn off the needle, I’m worrying about who gets the next afghan. I won’t be
satisfied until every family member has one thrown over their sofa. I’m loving
my new hobby so much that I’ve considered making one in shades of brown for the
UPS man.
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