Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

I have a new yarn nemesis. We could have been friends, but I fear, due to my own waywardness, it is too late now. It all started so well, too . . .

A bit ago, I entertained myself while my mother-in-law went to the eye doctor by taking myself off to the yarn store. I don’t get to that particular yarn store often, so I wasn’t sure what they had and was excited to see. Imagine my delight at finding perfect little poofs of yarn. They came in pretty colors that were wound as center pull balls, so I wouldn’t even have to ball them up. Perfection!

Look how cute they looked! Freaking adorable! And they were silky, too!

I had such plans! I knew that a merino silk blend, as this is, with a reasonably secure ply would show off my stitches nicely. This yarn simply cried to be a pretty scarf, a nice mini-shawl, a cowl so liquid with drape it nearly melts off the neck. Grab me a hook! I’m ready to start. So I grabbed a hank for something for Adia and some more for something for Hannah. I hauled my prizes home and promptly deposited them in the stash where they could watch me work on other projects for a while.

But they kept calling in their silky little voices, so I pulled them back out. This was the beginning of the rivalry.

First, I started a project for Hannah. It veritably flew off the hook! It was going to be a large rectangular wrap. This was the first part of my failure. I did not estimate the amount of yarn I would need well at all. Math, right? It’s a monster. By the time I figured out I didn’t have enough yarn, the little poofs had sat in my stash so long that not only was the shop sold out of that yarn, but the whole line had been discontinued. They honestly weren’t even there that long! Things happen fast in the yarn world apparently. I did find some more yarn online, but the whole dye lot thing scared me. I would have had to frog the project anyway to mix the dye lots, so I just frogged it and started a new project.

It, too, went well for a while. Until, that is, I decided that the edge increases looked off putting and clunky. It went well beyond something I could block to prettiness without distorting the edges to make it lay flat. I frogged it again right up to the point where the yarn broke, so I put the unfrogged bit in a bag to be a problem for another day. I did start another little bit of shawl with the salvaged yarn. It’s sitting in a UFO pile right now considering its crimes while I try to make my peace with it getting the better of me twice already.

Enter Adia’s poof of yarn. Adia really, deeply wants a cabled sweater. Cables are my stitch nemesis. I have tried many times to do cables. I just cannot make them go right! One stitch is too tight; one is too loose; I accidentally cross something the wrong way; I fail to count properly (you knew that was coming). There is always something that messes up my attempts at crocheted cables. Despite this, I decided to use this yarn to make Adia a cabled cowl. It could be a sort of learning experience for the sweater to come. If I worked a few inches at the neck and then ran increases, I could make it cover her shoulders a bit for warmth, and I could learn how to increase in a cabling pattern.

Brilliant. I am brilliant. Such a good planner am I!

I got out a hook of unknown size, but it seemed about right, and got to work. The weird, unlabled hook really should have been a harbinger for me of the horrors to come, but I couldn’t see it at the time, or perhaps I just didn’t want to. I started with a foundation double crochet row and worked a few rows of ribbing for stretch. Then I started with the cabling. The freaking horror, I tell you! I started and frogged that damn thing at least three times. Adia kept encouraging me. She was kind in the face of my utter failure. After the third time, she said perhaps cables were not my thing. I grumbled that she could be right.

I went to bed ruminating on why I can do complex shaping in lace for Hannah’s fitted sweaters but cannot even do a simple cable at all? Clearly, my mind works one way and that way does not involve cables.

I restarted her cowl in a fever of contempt for the yarn and the process. Need I even tell you that failing to measure saw me frogging the damn thing again? I have now started yet again with another attempt.

I’m not happy. I sat and watched stupid things on television for a while last night instead of working on the cowl. I am concerned about the amount of yarn I will need. I do not want to get burnt by that again. I am concerned about the stitch pattern. This yarn will give my stitches nice definition, I need to respect that. It is the perfect yarn for a textured lace, but Adia doesn’t do much lace. She prefers more solid stitches. I think the problem right now is that this yarn really, really wants to be a fashionable little mini-shawl (also known as a scarf with pointed ends) with a cute textured lace stitch. It wants to float around on the winter wind, shouting its perfection in form and stitch pattern to all who see it flouncing along. The problem lies with me. I keep trying to force it into a cowl shape with cables or solid stitches while the poor yarn screams no!

It reminds me of Hannah learning addition. She got a problem wrong, and I gently talked her through the right answer. She listened, thought, and then told me I was holding the numbers back from being what they wanted to be with my stupid rules. My audacity with both yarn and numbers is unending.

I am holding this yarn back. I need to let it be, so it can express itself the way it wants to, then, with enough time, maybe we can all be happy as friends instead of nemeses.