When Knitters Crochet

After learning how to knit, almost a decade ago now, I thought, “crochet looks like fun. I’d like to crochet too!” And so I asked my grandmother to teach me how to crochet. Instead she gave me a book and a hook and told me to “have at’er.”

And that is how I learned how to crochet.

Knitting is my main passion, but every once in a while a very good friend gets married and I think they deserve an afghan – something best served crocheted – or I find a pattern that I just can’t resist. The Tannery Falls pattern in the newest Pom Pom Quarterly issue (in reality I want to do every pattern in this book) was just what I needed for this summer.

And lo and behold, this happened:

knit *cough* crocheted *cough* in Punta Yarns Montoya Beach light in white and Quince & Co’s Sparrow in nannyberry

That, my friends, is an almost completed Tannery Falls body all in crochet. Victory is mine! I did have to rip back about 5 rows because mysteriously one edge was starting to go on a diagonal….but since then it’s been pretty smooth sailing.

There’s that old myth that you can only like one: Star Wars or Star Trek, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. I mean, yeah, I do have a preference for Star Wars, but I also enjoy Star Trek, and the Beatles will always win my heart over the Stones but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy Get Off of My Cloud. When it comes to knitting and crocheting though, I will have to admit that some people are just meant to be knitters, and some are meant to be crocheters.

I enjoy crochet every once and a while but it definitely doesn’t give me the same satisfaction and inner calm that knitting does. However, my sister for example, does not like knitting – finds it tedious and when I tried teaching her one day, at the end of the row she exclaimed, “what do you mean you just do the same thing on the way back!?” But wouldn’t you know it, she’s now a crocheter and loves it. Who knows why the crafting gods decide what they do.

Either way, I’m about 1.5 rows away from the body edging, which then means I can soon sew up the seam and then pick up for the yoke. So exciting! Something about this summer, guys, it’s an adventure in summer handmades.

Now if only I can stay focused enough – now that I’m back, the madelinetosh fingering I left behind in June keeps calling to me to be wound and made into a Sunwalker shawl.

You don’t need a new shawl right now, Victoria, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t!