Posts tagged crochet

I made a shawl a few years ago from a single skein of yarn that was over 700 yards long (no knots! It was incredible!!). I loved the colors in the hank. I loved the texture of the yarn. I loved that I found a pattern that I could customize and use every last bit of this delicious find from a LYS. Wool, silk & bamboo: they called it Great Wall. It was perfect.

Until I finished it. The way the crochet worked up, it felt like it sucked the colors right out of the yarn. There was no lovely color pooling. There was no contrast. It was just a large blah thing that I had trouble pairing with any clothes I owned or could find at any store. Such high expectations! And then… So much time in the drawer. Here is the link to the finished product: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/inagaddadonita/sezession-i

So today, I did a sacrilegious thing.

Today, I found the weaved-in final end and carefully extracted it. I untied the slip knot that secured this giant granny triangle. And then I frogged the entire thing. All 700 yards. The hubs helped me wind it onto my swift, where it was bound into a hank. I submerged the whole lot of it in a sink full of cool water & soak and watched as all that crocheting melted away.

This is kind of a big deal. I rarely revisit things in my life that are finished. Whether it is a shawl or a project or a time in my life where you can’t go home again, I don’t like to go back. Sometimes it is painful, sometimes it is a reminder of a past failure, sometimes it’s just unpleasant to dwell there. With projects, I’ll give them away or donate them. Most of the time, I let the past lie in the past. I used to think that the fact that it was over was enough reason never to look back. Maybe that was hasty of me. Maybe before dismissing, I should reevaluate the raw quality of what I’m looking at. Determine if it is worth revisiting. Eventually, there will be something so good, it’s worth looking back at & putting time into again.

Hopefully, sometime after this yarn has unkinked, dried and been rewound, I can make something of this beautiful pile of fiber. When you have something raw that’s this beautiful, you can’t let it exist being mediocre.

Recently, my fiance and I adopted a rescue dog named Karma.  I think she’s really a sweet dog, deep down, but her past experiences have caused her quite a lot of distress and she has deep issues that we now have to deal with (none of which we realized, or were made aware of at the time of her adoption).  We’ve been trying to make the best of it and work through her difficulties with her.  It has turned into quite the project and has already taken quite a lot of resources, with no real progress unfortunately.  But we’ve adopted her and we’re trying to stay positive.

I should say we were trying to stay positive.  My fiance is still trying.  He’s also asleep right now.  I, however, am the one writing a blog at 5 in the morning, heartbroken.  

While we were out today, Karma hopped her crate across the floor to our bed and pulled a fourth of our afghan into the 1/2” vents in her crate and proceeded to shred it.  The afghan is now a memory.  

It’s just an afghan, right?  It’s replaceable?  Not exactly.

I made the afghan myself.  Crocheted it, if you want to get technical.  It was my first, and only to-date, grand scale project.  The final dimensions were 104”x104” and more than easily covered my queen size bed.  It took almost 25 skeins of yarn and nearly 6 months to complete. It cost over $200 in materials alone.  It was exactly what I wanted.  And maybe most importantly, it kept me grounded when I went through a difficult time personally.  Finishing this giant granny square gave me focus and gave me a goal.  It was something I was really proud of.

I never realized how attached to it I was until I was sitting on our bedroom floor, sobbing, cutting it away from the vents in the crate with a cardboard knife.  An hour or so ago, I woke up, looking for the afghan as the AC kicked on.  I rolled over, reached down and then remembered.  So much for sleep.

Has anyone else’s handmade labor of love ever met such an unfortunate end?  (I certainly hope not!) But if this has happened to you, how did you react?

And of course, how do I repurpose the remaining yarn?  I can’t just chuck it in the dumpster! (People will call the management about a hysterical woman standing at the container, sobbing and muttering something about a canine…)