Table Of ContentHooked for Life copyright © 2009 by Mary Beth Temple. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
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E-ISBN: 978-0-74079033-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008936237
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This one is for my mother, Doris McCabe, who put that first hook in
my hand. Thanks, Mom.
Contents
Introduction
Author’s Note
Pattern Abbreviations
Part One
Decorative Wristlets
A Brief (and By No Means Complete)
History of Crochet
If It Exists, It Must Be Covered in Crochet
Doily Mania
Crocheting for a Cause
Afghans
Edging Your Way Along
Everything Old Is New Again—
the Toilet Paper Roll Cover
How to Get Gauge
Crochet and Beverages—Mix with Caution!
Felting
Scrumble Fever
Amigurumi
Part Two
Links in the Chain Scarf
Greetings from Mount Yarn
Speaking in Tongues
Crocheting in Public
Crochet on the Runway
The Crochet Time Warp
How Small Is Too Small?
No Brain Cells Required
Crocheting and Babies—
You Can’t Have One without the Other
The Great Finishing Fake-Out
The Day I Ran Out of Yarn: A Horror Story
It’s Possible I Might Sort Of Be a Yarn Snob
Crocheter vs. Stash
Too Much Yarn
The Secret Life of a Crochet Designer
Passing On the Yarn Gene
Part Three
Goth Princess Toilet Paper Doll
Crocheters, the Silent Majority
Ten Things Crocheters Would Like to Say to the Rest of the
World, but Most Times Are Far Too Polite To
Crochet Needs a Good PR Agency
Granny Gets a Makeover
I Am Not a Hooker
New Ideas for Enterprising Yarn Store Owners
The Center-Pull Skein—
Modern Convenience or Urban Legend?
Attention, Prop People Everywhere: Crocheting and
Knitting Are NOT THE SAME THING!
Crocheting in the Closet
The World Wide Web of Crocheters
Too Pretty to Use
There Is No Wrong Way to Crochet
Finish or Frog, or the Fine Line between
WIP and UFO
What’s That Again?
The Real Crochet Olympics
The New Crochet Reality Show
Dishcloths—Fancy, Fad, or Failure of Imagination?
You’ll Never Walk (or Crochet) Alone
Proudly Multicraftual
Acknowledgments
Introduction
learned to crochet when I was in the fifth grade. I wanted to make a
I
granny square because my mother was making some for an afghan for
the living room and it looked like fun. She gave me a skein of royal blue
acrylic and a hook, and she showed me how to make those 3-dc shells.
Having the attention span of a flea at that age (and actually I am not
much better now), in the middle of round two I ran across the street
with my hook and yarn to show my friends how cool I was. I sat on their
porch and carefully finished the round—3 dc, ch 1, 3 dc in each space—
and went on to work rounds three and four in the same manner.
Well, if you know how to make a granny square, and I have to assume
that if you are reading this book you do, you know what happened. It
got all oval and ruffly and didn’t look like a granny square at all. That
very day I was introduced to two very important concepts in crocheting.
My neighbor Mrs. Gonzalez said that while it might not look like what I
was expecting, it was still very nicely done so maybe I wasn’t making a
granny square after all but a doily—she was my early free-form
influence. And then, my mother said I should rip it out and do it right—
my first lesson in the importance of following the pattern if you want the
project to look anything like the model. I ripped it out. Mrs. Gonzalez
was fun but I had to live with my mother. But from that day forth, I
really was Hooked for Life.
Writing this book was challenging in ways that I was not expecting.
When I’d written my previous essays, I have to say they came very
easily. (Please don’t tell my editors this—I like to make it look difficult
so they don’t feel bad about paying me for my hard work.) My process
for first-person work is almost always the same: I sit down and blather
out a first draft of whatever story I want to tell, then I go back and do
some paring and fiddling. By and large, if I can’t dribble out a beginning,
middle, and end in the first draft, the idea isn’t quite ready for public
consumption and I flit on to something else until it is.
This time, I made a list of things I wanted to write about, stories I
wanted to tell, and I went to work. And when I went back and read over
the early drafts, they weren’t as clever as I had hoped. They weren’t as
glib, as funny as the other pieces. Some of them were downright angry—
crocheters in general, and I in particular, can get so beaten down
sometimes, feeling like the poor relation of our much hipper, trendier
cousins, knitters. I wasn’t mocking my crochet obsession as I did with
my knitting one, but I was defending it. Which is maybe very noble, but
doesn’t make for a scintillating read.
So I decided this book would be a celebration of what crocheting is to
those of us who love it. Not an apologia to those who do not understand,
for they probably never will. Not a defense of crochet, for it needs no
defending. Not a history of crochet, because although we sadly need one,
I am not a scholar (if you want to know why, read the essay on how I
crocheted through school from eighth grade on). This book is a
celebration of what is wonderful about the craft, nay, the art, of crochet.
It includes a little half-cocked history, a sweet knowing smile at its
foibles, and as always my tales of how my own life has been formed, row
by row, round by round, by the work that I do. If you look down on
crochet, put this book down. It isn’t my job to change your mind. But if
you love crochet as I do, or at least have a yarny open mind, please read
on. There is more to honor than to scorn, and I welcome you on my
journey.
