So Far, 53 Years
We sat side by side on the steps of my childhood home, my best friend Julie and I. We were both 12 years old and Julie was teaching me how to crochet. Crocheted scarves were very in at that time so we thought it was quite cool that we could make our own. We would wrap them around and around our neck over our CPO jackets. Since double crochet was the only stitch we knew and was all that was required for our scarves we made a lot of them.
I soon found that it wasn’t just the comeraderie developed over making these scarves with Julie that drew me to crocheting. It also turned out to be a form of therapy for me. It kept my mind occupied so I could forget all my troubles and as you know 12 year old preteen girls have many troubles. I became addicted to the rhythm of the stitches, my hands in constant motion, my mind at ease and focusing on only one thing - the next stitch. Julie and I got faster and faster and could soon talk while we crocheted giving us that much needed time to discuss the latest gossip, the latest fashion, the latest crush that all 12 year old girls need.
Soon scarves weren’t enough anymore. I needed to feed my crocheting addiction with something a little more difficult so I started crocheting afghans.
My first afghan was a deep rich brown I made for my mother. Unfortunately back then the same color of yarn could have different dye lots and therefore each skein might be slightly different. You needed to buy all of your yarn at the same time lest you get a different dye lot causing your afghan to be multiple shades of the same color. Not having enough money to buy all of my yarn at the same time, my first afghan was several shades of the same brown color. In addition, being new to making afghans, my first turned out quite lopsided. It was in fact rather pitiful if I’m going to be honest. But my Mom, my Mom pulled that afghan out of the box and exclaimed at its beauty. She was smiling and laughing as she wrapped it around herself up on top of her head cozying into it. Just her reaction made it more beautiful than I could have imagined. As I made more afghans and my crocheting improved I realized how much I loved taking a ball of yarn and creating something beautiful out of it.
The first three afghans I made for myself mostly because they were damn ugly and I thought no one else would want them. But by my fifth afghan I was getting pretty good so I gave that one to my boyfriend followed by another to his parents and then to various family members. One day not long after I finished those first few afghans I declared to anyone who would listen that I was going to make 100 afghans before I die. I’m not sure why this seemed important to me or why I thought this would be a noble cause I should undertake. But I have never wavered from that lofty goal.
In college I got a bit distracted from my afghan project. I needed money so I decided to crochet things I could sell. At the time crocheted objects were no longer popular so I had to think outside the box. That’s when I started selling home made “weinie warmers” and many of my friends’ boyfriends got one for Christmas. They came in three sizes - Large, Larger and Largest and sold for $6 a pop. With my new business I made enough money to get by but I fell behind with my afghans.
Once out of school and working I had more time on my hands and once again started making afghans. The friends started getting married so I made afghans as wedding gifts. Then the babies started coming and I made one for each of my four baby boys as well as anyone I heard was having a baby. I liked the baby afghans because they took much less time but still counted as one whole afghan on my list of 100. My number was rising but by the time I was 30 I had still only made 20 afghans. At this rate I would not reach 100 until I was 102 years old.
My goal was further threatened the next 5 years for I had four sons to raise and all that extra time I had for crocheting afghans was suddenly gone. It wasn’t until 1995 when my last son was in first grade that I started up again but at a much slower pace. I was getting worried. I had now branched out to giving them to nieces and nephews, more friends, children of friends and of course my boys when they left home and then their girlfriends. By 2018 I finally hit my halfway point of 50 afghans. Seeing as it took me about 49 years to make 50 afghans I knew I had to pick up my pace. I pressed on.
At one point my Mom requested that I teach her how to crochet. She was a quick learner and we loved to compare patterns and talk about who would get our next afghan. Sometimes as we sat together and crocheted our most recent projects we would recite “Love Love Love” while we crocheted and laugh over how we were crocheting love right into the afghan. But every once in awhile we would have a particularly difficult pattern or notice a mistake five rows back and our “Love Love Love” would turn to "Shit Shit Shit”. Again we would laugh and say perhaps we should not mention exactly what was crocheted into this particular afghan.
One of the things that I collected while making so many afghans were balls of left over yarn - every color you can imagine. I had boxes and boxes of scraps and just couldn’t bring myself to throw them away as I hate waste of any kind. And so I started making round afghans with the scraps and giving them to the residents of the long term care facility where I worked. Since it was Covid and we were in lockdown, I had plenty of time to work on them and in those two years I made 17 round colorful afghans to give to our residents. I am currently at 80 afghans and have 20 more to bring to life to accomplish a goal I made so many years ago. I have no doubt I will get there.
I have taken a photo of every afghan I have ever made save for that very first one I gave my Mom. Written on the back of each photo is the date I made it and the person who received it. I have a small album with exactly 100 pages and when that album is full I will know I have reached my goal. I can remember crocheting most of them and as I flip through that book I see stories. Stories of my friends past and present, my family, my boys, stories of weddings and births and baptisms. I have stories about the ones that were so difficult I almost quit and of course the ones that are my favorites. I remember the looks on people’s faces when they opened the box and saw the afghans, the smiles, the laughter and how they immediately pick them up and wrap them around themselves looking warm and cozy. And it makes me smile.
So perhaps this is why I made this promise to myself 53 years ago - to make 100 afghans and bring on 100 smiles and warm the hearts of 100 people. Perhaps even as a clueless, self-centered 12 year old I saw the joy on my Mom’s face with that first afghan and thought to myself “I want to see that 99 more times.”