Crocheting the Memories of My Life

 

     Learning how to crochet, for me, has been an ongoing experience since I was a little girl when I  learned the craft from my grandmother. Crocheting is a very old art form that has been handed down from mother to daughter for many generations. Sometimes skipping a generation or two but always making a raging come back. Beginning to learn any hobby requires a little thought on the part of the person learning the hobby. I remember first having to tell Grammy that I wanted to make a ribbon for my hair and it was from that first learning project that I learned a hobby that created some memories that were to last me a lifetime.

      To begin to learn my new hobby, I first had to talk to my grandmother and find out what would be best to start with.  In my case, I wanted to learn how to make ribbons for my hair. Grammy had showed me how to make them every morning, laughing when for some reason my eyes couldn’t keep up with her flashing crochet hook. Crocheting has one needle verses knitting, which has two. The hook in crocheting is identical to that of the one in  lace-making except in lace-making, or tatting as it is also known, you need the Hubble telescope to see the end of the needle and the threads. In crochet the needle is at at least 7 or 8 inches or so depending on the maker and can go to a foot or more. It has a small hook on at least one of the ends to catch the yarn and pull it through the loops held on the shank of the needle.

     Now that I had decided to learn to make ribbons, I then needed to know what else I would need to make them. The crochet hook is the first thing that came to my mind that I needed. It could be made of any materials from plastic to aluminum or anything else in between, and ranged in sizes from A to Z  with the standard size being G or H. For my purposes, a hook size G, made of aluminum,( which is my preference for crocheting simply because it slides through the yarn most easily), is the only equipment that I needed. As far as materials go, I would need a ball of yarn.  Yarn can come in as many colors as are in the rainbow, it really depended on what color my outfit was. My standard outfit was jeans and a tee shirt/sweatshirt.  So, for a color, I  chose a medium blue. Yarns also comes in many weights which is how one tells which one to use for what, the lighter weights are for decorations, children’s and baby clothes. The medium weights are for adult clothes, Afghans and crafts, and the bulky weights are for sweaters, shawls, and rugs. This is a very general guideline and can be subject to the whims of the pattern creator.

     Patterns, in crocheting, are the same as in sewing or anything else really. They are a way for the crocheter to know how to create the item desired. They number in the gazillions and can be as old as the paper they are written on or the thought in your mind. There are only a handful of stitches in crochet but it is the difference in how they are put together that give us the differences in the patterns. For the making of my hair ribbon I only needed two stitches; the single stitch(SC), and the double stitch(DC). I first started by knotting the yarn onto the crochet hook. By looping the yarn over the hook and drawing it through the knotted loop I have started my basic stitch. I continued drawing the yarn over the hook and pulling it through the loop on the hook.  I made this row of single chains about 30 stitches long. This was  called my beginning row or the starting row. When I have about thirty stitches in the chain, I crochet three more single chains and then poke the head of the hook through the middle of the third chain from the shank of the needle. I pull my yarn over the hook twice and draw each loop through the loop on my hook separately. I pull the yarn over the hook again and draw the yarn through all the loops on my hook. That is my very first double chain and I do one more double chain in the same chain stitch as the first DC. I continue putting two DCs in each SC for the next ten stitches. The pattern changes and I only do one stitch in each of the single stitches. Then it tells me to do that for ten stitches. The pattern changes back and I do ten more of the double stitches in each single stitch. Next I do one more row like the second row and I am done. There are loops and curls that have formed on the ends of the ribbons almost as if by magic. I tie the ribbon on my ponytail. My hair was then tied back with a uniquely-mine little hair bauble that I had made myself. This was the very basic pattern that I began learning to crochet on. As my head grew I had to add stitches to the pattern.

     As stated earlier, by varying the number of times you pull the yarn over the hook or the number of times you pull the yarn through the loops, you can vary the stitches. As I practiced and learned more variations of the stitches I have created heirloom quality Afghans for kids, toys for them to play with, accessories for my daughter’s outfits, and decorations for the holidays, all for the cost of a skein of yarn or two and some hours of my time. I now am at the point that my own granddaughter is asking me how to make the ribbons for her hair and I look forward to handing down to her the art form that I learned from my grandmother and seeing all the ways she can create the memories in her life.