Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Well, here we are for another project update. I swore less this week. Well, I swore at my projects less this week. I swore at the television plenty. Oh, the subtle and non-subtle horrors of the times we live in.

I ended up ruining the yarn by frogging the messed up center section. Read: it is so hopelessly tangled and snagged that it is just going to sit and think about its sins for a while while I figure out its final fate. Composting is not unreasonable but I wonder if it could be re-spun, perhaps. Anyway, it’s a mess. I ordered more yarn and, while I waited for it to come, I worked on other projects. It was a joyous time! I really need to finish this shawl. 

The last couple of projects, even stretching back into fall, I guess, have been things that I made for other people or because someone specifically requested it. To be fair, everything I make is pretty much for other people, but this particular group of other people did not include my daughters. It feels weird to have sent several projects out into the world knowing I may never know if they are used and loved or cast aside and left for the moths. I hate moths.

It felt nice this week to work on projects that will be for my daughters or that are all about my own creativity. Those projects will take precedence soon and then for a long time. I think I need to refuse requests for projects for a while, though I did promise to make my dad a sweater, so I guess that needs to be done soon, too. But then I will focus on other stuff and stop accepting requests/making things to make people feel better. 

So what did I work on? Let me show you. I had soooo much fun!

I was making a swatch for Adia’s new sweater that ended up being reworked a bunch of times. I started with linked doubles, tried half doubles, went back to linked doubles, tried and stayed with moss stitch. And then I got fed up with making a stupid swatch and abandoned it to make a swatch-cowl.

Behold the magnificence of my swatch-cowl! It has two repeats of Marguerite stitch to start, and then I will work in moss stitch until I have 9 grams of yarn left to work two repeats of Marguerite stitch on the other side. In the end, I get a swatch and a cowl, which is infinitely better than just a stupid swatch. I know swatching is necessary and important but so is exercise, and I don’t like that either. Okay, I didn’t swear as much this week, but I felt very whiny.  

In other news, I believe the lichen forming on this chair is trying to send a message. If so, it has become sentient at the worst possible time. The poor thing. I hope for its sake that those are actually stains and not sentient lichen hoping to take its place in our world.

I made more of my little squares. I love little motifs. They are quick and colorful and happy. Weaving the ends someday will be slow and miserable, but whatever. I’m still back and forth about what these will finally be. Hannah has to write an artist’s statement for one of her classes this week and it made me wonder what I would write as a crocheter’s statement. Sadly, it made me realize how little I work in what would be my chosen way. Perhaps I need to fashion these squares into something that reflects my personal aesthetic. 

I made more little circles. One each day as a protest that I and my family and our people are still here, dammit. We have survived today, we will survive this whole national mess, and we will be here to vote the bastards out.

This is my baby right now. This project has everything. It’s lace. It’s the perfect shade of blue, which is nearly purple but still blue. It’s made with a super soft alpaca silk blend of lace weight yarn. It has a quiet, repetitive stitch pattern that only involves counting to small numbers. It’s big enough to cover me as I work it. It has very few ends compared to some of the monsters I make. I love this project. It is exactly as I wish to work. Bliss.

And, yes, I restarted the center section of the wrap for my mother. See how dutiful I was? Such a good monster am I.

I still have to make my dad a sweater and make a wedding gift for my cousin’s son, but then, with all the power I have in me, I am going to work on the things that make me happy and that I want to work on. Dammit!