Crochet
A friend breathed patience
across my knuckles until
tension turned beauty.
I used to suck my thumb, as a child, and gently tug at or sniff my favorite blanket. It was a green, yellow, and white crocheted lovey, made by my grandmother before anyone could guess at my gender and prescribe a favored color. I carried it everywhere.
Over the years, even when I was able to put away the thumb habit, I still found some comfort in fingering and worrying the little holes in the weave. Eventually, the blanket became extremely tattered and unraveled, and I lamented not knowing how to make or find another one to buy. My Memaw passed away before teaching me or my sister to knit/crochet, and during one of my many cross-country moves as an adult, the remaining bits of the blanket disappeared.
I went to the store to try to find a similar style of blanket. The ones at the store were, obviously, not the same. Occasionally you might find one that looked knitted, but those were usually a chenille, soft... but not the type that would feel satisfying for my fingers to poke through, not the type that would pill a little bit and allow for the habit of pulling tiny little fuzzies off of the threads. (This neurotic tactile habit, I learned, was key to self-soothing for me. From childhood trauma and some assault in my young adulthood, I was diagnosed with C-PTSD. In subsequent years of extreme emotional stress, I discovered I did not self-harm if I had a blanket to regularly, absentmindedly tug/pick/unravel.) My boyfriend went online to see if he could find someone to make me a blanket of the type for which I was searching.
"Holy shit, Bunny," he came back, shell-shocked. "They're all like 100 dollars."
"I only need a small one," I'd say.
"Yeah, they're all expensive."
"Maybe one day I will just learn to make my own."
I bought whatever blankets I could find, sometimes at Goodwill or flea markets, washed them, and loved them to death. I felt guilty, some. Someone had spent their time making these blankets, and here I was, ripping them apart and destroying them slowly. One small blanket would be unraveled completely within 3 to 6 months, depending on how stressful my life was. People who knew me very well (roommates, family, my closest friends) knew to expect to see pieces of yarn or "fuzzies" on my bedroom floor during a crisis. We referred to them as "roses" or "spiders." Like, "ugh, I need to pick up all the spiders." Or when I felt particularly self-conscious about it, I would smile and sarcastically say, "What, you don't like all my pretty roses [on the floor]?" Sometimes I wonder how many people have bizarre coping methods like mine. In the end, I decided not to be ashamed, because it worked. If I have to take meds for anxiety, I will (and have), but if a crocheted blanket will do the same work for me, why not? Fewer side effects... just a messy room sometimes.
Still, I felt some guilt and sadness when the blanket was "done."
So last summer, a coworker/friend of mine told me she could crochet and would gladly teach me. "I dunno," I responded. "I'm pretty clumsy. My grandmother tried to teach me and my sister once, and she just didn't have the patience. We couldn't get it."
My friend laughed, came over with various WIPs (WIP is "work in progress," I have since learned) and yarn and hooks, and in one afternoon, she had me start a corner to corner blanket. I actually understood, and though my loops were kind of loose, I was absolutely doing it. I surprised myself by bursting into tears. My friend didn't ask why; she just hugged me. I will always be grateful for that.
Anyway, I know now why they are expensive. On top of the yarn costs, there is a LOT of labor and time involved even in one relatively small throw blanket. I've made (and even "used") a few now, and I plan to allot time over the next week to figuring out how to do make other things, like baby dresses. I've made hats/beanies, but they bore me. Same with scarves. I wonder if I couldn't make some really pretty baby sets. I guess I will let you know.
