Proud To Be A Hooker

There are many many objects that hold my fascination. Tins, enamelware, jugs, fairy lights, wisteria that actually flowers, pastry that isn't crunchy and a tiny bit too solid, dogs that can be walked off the lead....and granny blankets. Lovely luscious, multi-coloured, multi-patterned, granny blankets. I tried knitting 2 years ago, with grand designs of making a patchwork blanket, but I can't work out how many stitches x rows makes a square, and then my casting off row always looks a bit loopy in comparison to the rest.....and so I made a couple of scarfs, and I quit when I looked at a pattern and realised with great sadness that they were written in a different language that didn't suit my impatient character. So I've spent money on them, because I wanted so desperately to be cuddled up in them, sitting on my rocker at the front of the house with a book, and tea in a china cup. 

I love my bought blankets, but they make me feel like a fraud, because I didn't stitch them myself. 

My job means I get to chat and drink tea with lots of old ladies on a regular basis, and I've had 3 different granny's attempt to teach me to crochet. Unsuccessfully. They went too fast, like some kind of yarn superhero, and thought it was surely obvious which hole to poke my hook back into. Errrr......

I got a 'how to' DVD given to me by the last 99 year old exasperated granny who tried to advise me. No joy. I threw my hooky toys out of the pram. 

Then came the push I needed. My cousin, who learnt to knit with me, and didn't master even the scarf, learnt to crochet, and sent me a very proud photograph over the www of a perfect, glorious, granny square. My competitiveness took over, and this became personal. So. Vodka. Hook. Wool. YouTube. And this happened.

And then this......

I bloody got it! It made more sense than any knitting shenanigans. With the old needles, if I dropped something, I struggled to fix it. If I put it down (to fetch more vodka), I couldn't work out where I was, or how many blasted rows I'd done (hence just looong scarves), but the hooking....I understood.

And it grows miraculously fast, which suits impatient Josephine to a tea. 12 days of obsessive hooking later, and I had completed my very own GRANNY BLANKET! Aside from giving birth to my girls (pain relief free I might add), this could be my very most proudest achievement.

One rugrat loves it, and has took up the hook herself and produced a beautiful square with absolutely no swearing or vodka. The other rugrat eyes it with the same look of despair she wears every time I bring home more junk/treasure. I told her that when I'm dead, it'll be her prize possession, and she'll hold it tightly and marvel at the love of her Mother in every stitch. She nodded.

If I can do it, anyone can do it, honestly. Again, though, I'm kind of in the same 'scarf' scenario.....I now need to progress to patterns, which again contain strange shorthand and language that makes me feel inferior, and a bit not clever, and let me know I'm a long long way from becoming a proper, fully fledged hooker. I want to make a tea cosy. I'm stocking up on earplugs for the family in prep.