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CHAPTER 1
Voulez-Vous Crochet avec Moi?
When folks who were familiar with my previous Stitch 'n Bitch books, which are both about knitting, first heard that I was planning to write a book about crocheting, some of them were a little shocked. "Do you even crochet?" they'd ask, rather accusingly. How could it be that I, a knitter, was qualified to write a book about crocheting? How was it possible that any knitter could have anything of value to say to crocheters? Didn't I know that knitters and crocheters are like Sharks and Jets — they don't get along, they keep off each other's turf, they break into fights on the playground?
Yes, I know, I know. But have Tony and Maria taught us nothing? Can't we see that we're all sisters (and brothers) under the stitch? Sure, I'm a knitter. But I also crochet. In fact, I learned to crochet — and enjoyed it — long before knitting ever felt good in my hands. In the tradition I come from, if you enjoy doing needlework, you enjoy doing needlework in whatever form it takes. My Dutch mother and all the women on her side of the family were needle wielders of wide and varied skills: sewing, embroidering, knitting, and crocheting — they did it all. I grew up enjoying each of these crafts as well, and I've always wanted to learn more. After watching my Great Aunt Jo diligently tatting elaborate thread edgings onto her handkerchiefs year after year, I finally borrowed a book from the library and tried to learn it, too.
I particularly revel in the way that doing needlework inextricably binds me to my female relatives. With each stitch, I follow in the footsteps (handsteps?) of my ancestors, carrying on centuries-old traditions and paying respect to their wide and varied crafting skills. My connection is more than theoretical. Some of my fondest memories are of summer vacations visiting my mother's relatives in Holland, where, in the evenings, we'd sit together and work on our various needlework projects — my mother perhaps crocheting a lacy curtain, my Aunt Hetty stitching one of her gorgeous appliqué wall hangings, my grandmother most likely knitting socks, while I might be working away on a small counted cross-stitch project. Looking back on it, I suppose these idyllic get-togethers were, in a way, my first Stitch 'n Bitch sessions.
I don't remember exactly when I learned how to crochet. All I know is that my very first crochet project was a panda bear that I had found a pattern for in one of my mother's magazines. I must have been about eleven years old. I worked on that thing day after day, but unfortunately, my stitches were way too loose, and the panda turned out almost as big as I was, with a giant encephalitic head that flopped over and rested on his distended belly. Still, for years he sat, pathetically floppy, on top of my bed. To me he was beautiful; after all, I had created him. I was his mother.
While I was growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I enjoyed doing needlework the way some kids liked playing stickball. I never wanted to go out and play; I preferred staying in and making clothes for my Barbie dolls on my miniature sewing machine. I savored the wonderful feeling that came over me whenever I was engaged in a needlework project. And even today, it is the sense of calm satisfaction I get from needlework that has kept me drawn to it. Blissfully immersed in stitching, I feel peaceful and centered, my mind both fully relaxed and entirely focused, as I make satisfying progress stitch by stitch, row by row. The feeling is, in a word, delicious.
Yet, for many years, I forsook the ways of the stitch. Throughout the eighties and most of the nineties, while I was in college, then in grad school, and then starting my own business, I didn't make much time for needlework. That all changed when we decided a number of years ago to begin running craft projects in BUST, the women's magazine that I cofounded and still edit. We introduced the idea with a simple pattern for a crocheted kerchief. I hadn't crocheted in years, but, to test out the directions for that pattern, I bought myself some pretty cotton yarn and a nice crochet hook. I then needed to reteach myself how to crochet, and stat. So I dragged one of my favorite needlework encyclopedias to the beach one weekend, along with the yarn and hook, and set to work. The first few stitches went smoothly — I made a chain of loops, following the book's directions, wrapping the yarn around my hook and pulling loops through loops as if I was born to do it. Even the next row came quite naturally, as I followed the illustrations to reinsert my hook into each of those initial loops and pull up yet more loops of yarn, building a row of what's known as single crochet stitches into the original base chain of loops.
Then, on the next row, my book abandoned me. Now that I needed to make single crochet stitches into other single crochet stitches, instead of chain loops, I was on my own. Where was the hook supposed to be inserted into those stitches? I wasn't sure, so I just shoved my hook under a strand of yarn that looked to be about right and carried on my merry way — all the way until that kerchief was done. It looked okay, it fit my head, and we sent the article off to print. And I was excited about having become reacquainted with this simple, pleasurable craft. All the joys I had known as a child — the serenity, the satisfaction, and the centeredness — had come flooding back to me as I held the yarn and hook in my hands, and I vowed to keep at it.
It wasn't until a few months later that I realized that although the pattern was correct, I had made the entire kerchief incorrectly. While leafing through a tiny crochet pamphlet in a thrift store, I came across an illustration that clearly showed that I was supposed to insert my hook under two strands of yarn on every row after the first one. I had created a variation of the single crochet stitch known as single crochet ribbing, which was fine, but it's not how the thing was supposed to be made. Why didn't the book I was using bother to tell me something so important? Were beginners expected to learn this craft using such incomplete directions, or were these books merely intended as a refresher course for folks who already knew how to crochet? As I continued to relearn the craft of crochet, I felt, at times, like some sort of Sherlock Holmes, sniffing through book after book until I found the clue I needed to really understand how to make certain stitches or execute particular techniques. And time after time I'd run into conflicting information or outright misinformation. There was no single source that really showed me, clearly and unambiguously, everything I needed to know.
Shortly after my interest in needlecrafts was rekindled by crochet, I retaught myself how to knit, and that craft quickly developed into an all-encompassing obsession that threatened to obliterate everything else in my life. Still, I never turned my back on my hooks. Throughout my knitting career, crocheting remained my warm-weather fiber craft of choice. I would knit my way through fall, winter, and spring, then put the fuzzy wooly yarns and long bamboo sticks away in exchange for cool balls of cotton yarn and compact aluminum hooks. Summer would find me sitting on the beach, crocheting baby blankets, stuffed animals, bags, and afghans. The sand would easily shake out of my cotton work, and having a smaller area to deal with — just a stubby hook and a single loop — was much more manageable than working a large wooly item that would sit on my lap as I worked long rows of knitting off of lengthy needles. Besides, my preferred knitting method involves having one needle tucked under my armpit. Just think how well that would work on a hot, sweaty day. Yuck.
During those years, the knitting boom was becoming a worldwide phenomenon — more young people were taking up the craft than had done so in decades, and they were gathering to knit together in Stitch 'n Bitch groups, inspired by the one I had started at a café in New York City. Soon these groups were popping up everywhere, from Anchorage to Amsterdam, Cleveland to Canberra, Los Angeles to Liverpool. While some crocheters attended these Stitch 'n Bitch groups, they were in the minority. But as knitters advanced further and further in their craft, having gotten comfortable with the basics, then increasing their knowledge with every passing year, some knitters — who had once feared any project involving crochet the way a vampire fears garlic — were beginning to look past the points of their needles and toward crocheting as another way to expand their skills. At the same time crocheters themselves, unhappy with the lack of attention paid to their craft, were beginning to make a stand, and their numbers at Stitch 'n Bitch groups were on the rise.
Contemporary fashions added further fuel to the desire among crafters and noncrafters alike to hook up with a new hobby, as cute crocheted tops and bags began appearing in both chic boutiques and chain stores, and on fashion runways from Manhattan to Milan. Yet where were the patterns for items as appealing as these? As much as I enjoyed crocheting, I had a hard time finding ways to put my skills into action. Most of the available crochet patterns were for things that, while I could appreciate their beauty and the skill required to create them, I had no interest in making. While delicate lacy doilies looked like they'd be fun to do, I didn't really have a need for them, and bulky, patriotic-themed afghans weren't really my style, either. Patterns for sweaters and summer tops seemed to be few and far between, and of the ones I was able to find, most looked boxy and odd.
I was not alone in my frustration. Happy hookers — who, it turns out, outnumber knitters by three to one — were starting to come up with their own patterns, based both on items they'd seen in various shops and what they saw in their mind's eye. Some of these folks were selling their patterns on their own Web sites, others were sharing them with friends and family, and still others were keeping them to themselves, sometimes displaying images of their completed creations on various crafting and crocheting Web sites. It was exactly like what had happened among knitters a mere four or five years ago. I wanted to help get these patterns out into the hands of the many crocheters who, like me, were hungry for more up-to-date projects. And for those who were inspired to take up the hook after seeing what it was capable of making, I wanted to write up some clear and complete instructions, so that even absolute beginners could learn the craft from a book. The idea for Stitch 'n Bitch: The Happy Hooker was born.
THE YOUNGEST CRAFT MEETS THE OLDEST PROFESSION
A Brief History of Hooking
Compared to other fiber arts, crocheting is the new kid on the block. While weaving was already being done 20,000 years ago and knitting's been around for a millennium, crocheting is a mere 200 years young. Yet the history of crochet is, like a crocheted piece itself, complex and nonlinear, taking many twists and turns and branching off in a variety of directions at the same time.
There isn't terribly much agreement about when or how crocheting developed, but it is known that the first printed crochet pattern appeared in a Dutch magazine (my peeps!) early in the nineteenth century. Over the next few decades, crochet became well established in Europe as a way to re-create the look of fine laces that were available only to the extremely wealthy, making them affordable to a much larger portion of the population. Rich folks didn't like having just anyone walking around sporting fancy lace, however, so they put down crochet work as being something only commoners would wear, and claimed that crocheting wasn't as respectable as knitting or other needlework. It was a stigma that, 160 years later, crochet still hasn't quite managed to shake.
Eventually, though, the wealthy themselves found reason to take up the hook. As the appalling working conditions of lace makers became known to American women, they started to get interested in creating the work themselves rather than supporting the abusive practices of the lace-making industry. There was also another reason behind their rejection of foreign-made lace. In a book published at the time, a lace manufacturer admitted that he expected his workers to turn a few tricks on the side to make up for his not paying them a living wage. Soon lace, including crocheted lace, began to be seen as morally tainted — it's made by prostitutes! As Donna Kooler suggests in The Encyclopedia of Crochet, this may even explain how the word "hooker" came to have such wayward connotations. Women who wanted to be sure their lace was as pure as the white thread it was made of decided they'd better learn to hook it up for themselves.
Yet no sooner had crocheters taken up their hooks than they put them down again and opened up their wallets to help those less fortunate. During the Irish potato famine of 1846 to 1850, an economic disaster for the island nation, a group of Ursuline nuns taught local women and children the technique of thread crochet. This work, which was known as "Irish Crochet," was clearly sin-free, and it became incredibly popular. Shipped off and sold across Europe and in America, it was purchased not only for its beauty but also as a way for the middle class to make a charitable donation to the troubled Irish population.
Later on in the century, fueled by both the many good patterns and well-written directions that were being published in women's magazines and Victorian ladies' increasing amounts of leisure time, crocheting became a passionate pastime among them, as well as a beloved craft of American pioneer women. These crocheters worked up lightweight baby caps and lacy collar pieces, along with necessities such as capes and gloves. And as men's and women's fashionable hairstyles required the use of oily pomades, they began to make something else, too: little lacy pieces that could decorate the tops of expensive furniture while protecting them from the stains of pomaded heads. Thus, crochet became a pretty way to perform a dirty job, and from these humble roots the doily was born.
By the late 1920s, women were chopping off their oily locks, loosening their corsets, and crocheting scandalous lacy underwear, as well as modern cloches to wear atop their It-Girl bobs. It was a boom time for crochet, which would wax and wane in popularity over the rest of the century, often tied to the economics of the time. Since crochet work uses up so much thread, when times were hard and supplies were dear, such as during the Depression and the second World War, crocheting was kept to a minimum. Afterward, it would find its way back into women's hands, as both a relief and a luxury.
But perhaps at no time in the past century was crocheting more popular in this country than it was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it became associated with hippies. Simple open-work vests that could be worked up in no time became part of the uniform of the counterculture set, and minidresses worked in a riot of bright colors reflected the anything-goes attitude of the times. Crochet made for the perfect craft for hippies filled with a desire to live off the land and do it themselves. It was easy to learn, and the projects were so simple to execute, they could even be done under the influence of mind-expanding substances. Looking back at creations from that era, it appears that many of them were.
In the years following that wacky time, crochet kind of burned out, becoming irrelevant to all but those interested in wearing purple-and-green-striped woolen pants. Yet slowly but surely, it's been making a comeback, appearing on runways in the form of high-fashion frocks and in the mall in the form of mass-market ponchos. And when Martha Stewart was released from prison wearing a poncho a fellow inmate had crocheted for her, the craft came to be seen as even more of a good thing. Today's crocheted fashion incorporates every style of the craft that has come before it — from intricate Irish-crochet-inspired lacy tops to the simple tanks and wraps of crochet's hippie heyday. And it has found its way back into the hands of both women and men who are looking for a way to create something that is both beautiful and useful; something that can reward them with a feeling of satisfaction when it's completed, as well as a peacefulness while it's being made. Putting a modern-day spin on a centuries-old hobby, they are taking the craft in directions it has never seen before, creating clothing and household items and gifts and sculptures and mathematical models and wearing the name "hooker" with pride.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Happy Hooker"
by .
Copyright © 2006 Debbie Stoller.
Excerpted by permission of Workman Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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