Crocheting, again, naturally

While at the store a couple of weekends ago Adam and I went down the “Discount Aisle” as is our habit when we're looking to kill time. Usually we just marvel at the random junk that's still on the shelves and keep going. Adam loves to visit things, but he hates to buy. It's an endearing habit. Now. When we first got together I wanted to smother him with a pillow. Or punch him in the nuggets.

This time he surprised me, though, and encouraged me to buy a skein of sport weight baby yarn in a brightly colored variegated pattern. It was about 8.5 ounces and only five dollars. (That's fairly good deal.) When he put it in the basket he said, “You can make something for Nora.”

See, it hadn't even occurred to me to crochet anything for the baby. I tried when I was pregnant with Mazzy and I was never able to finish the project. When Mazzy died I found the bag with the incomplete project in it and sort of lost my composure. My brain went to this place where I was so angry with how many things I was never able to accomplish as a mother, including the blanket I had planned for her.

There I was, in the store, debating on whether I should mention to Adam that I never finished Mazzy's blanket (I'm a failure) or if I could actually finish a project and be excited about something.

I decided to just keep my mouth shut and we went home. I surfed around the Internet and found a cute little ripple blanket that could be adjusted to the small amount of yarn I had bought. (As a general rule of thumb you need at least two skeins of yarn to successfully complete a blanket pattern. Sometimes more.)

The whole thing started out well. I was rather excited because I was zipping through the start of the blanket with such confidence. I've been crocheting since I was a kid, but I've never been very good at it. The idea that I would pick a pattern all by myself and work the pattern without outside help was a bit intimidating, but I wanted to challenge myself. At some point I have to become independent, right? Well, and it was a matter of pride. I wanted to do this for Nora. I wanted to prove that I am different, now, that I'm not as easily overwhelmed and that I'm capable of doing what I put my mind to accomplishing. Completing this baby blanket would prove that I was, once again, worthy of being a mother.

Big goals for such a little baby blanket, right?

I was able to follow the pattern until it got to the “finish in rounds until you get your desired size” part of the whole thing. Remember when I said that I'm not very good at crocheting? Part of my lack of skill is that I don't know certain things instinctively, like how the lady who wrote the pattern totally expected me to know that working in rounds means increasing the stitches bit by bit. Now, I've improved because I did realize that I should increase – after I had done about six more rounds on the damn thing.

Once I solved that problem I realized that there was another problem with the pattern. I had to get online and look it up to make sure, but I realized that there was a difference between what was written down (by me and therefore wrong) and what was on the mind of the pattern maker. This was after I had pulled out the previously incorrect six rows and had done another eight rows. I pulled those rows out and I went back to it.

At this point my hands and back were aching. I had been at it for two days, despite the fact that the pattern claimed that the blanket would work up in three hours. They were, obviously, not talking about someone like me.

I took another few days to finish the blanket; doing my best to work slowly and handle the pain in my hands and back. When I was able to finish off the edges and present my finished blanket to Adam I had this whole happy, prideful thing going on inside of me.

I learned something through this whole experience. I've learned that I am stronger and more determined than I give myself credit for being. No matter how many snags and frustrations that came up in the process of this pattern I didn't give up. The whole process was like some metaphor for my life and I have a renewed faith in the future.

When did crochet become a visual aide for how I feel about life? It's true, though. All of the starting and stopping that I've had to do to make this blanket a reality is the same as working through any stumbling block to a goal.