Simplest Scarf

-

 


The very first thing I ever crocheted looked something like this. I think. Maybe. I remember it was shades of purple (my favorite color), and it was a simple scarf (Mom taught me). My memories of age 11 get muddled up with my dreams and fantasies, however, and it might be that the first scarf I crocheted looked less like this finished project and more like a bungled mess of purple spaghetti. 



In the summer of 2019, my brother and I traveled together to visit our childhood home of Sitka, Alaska. We hadn’t been back in over 30 years, and it was a delightful adventure for us both. All the things that looked exactly the same as how we remembered, and so many things that were completely new and different. We were excited like school children to see that our old favorite Ben Franklin store was still there on the main street downtown, still selling the same kinds of items. And I was particularly excited to see that they had an expanded crafts section in the back - filled with yarn!


I purchased a skein of what I thought was the color scheme I first used so many decades ago. Not caring that the brand didn’t exist back then. And I smashed this special skein in my overpacked luggage, bringing it all the way from Alaska. Not caring that I can get the exact same yarn here in Colorado. It was the memory that counts, the connection to Mom and Sitka and learning to crochet. It makes perfect sense if you let yourself get just a little bit sentimental.



Purple Medley + Memories of Mom = Simple Lovely Crochet

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Candy Cane Ruffle

-
Image
  This sweet piece is my first public showing! 🤩 In the Visitor's Center office  😄 on the  first floor of the CSUP Library! 😎 I'm pretty sure this officially makes me a crochet artist now.   🤔  With my work on display for all the people to see.  😍   I can't stop grinnin'.  😁   There is a happy backstory to this colorful yarn. It is the "free to good home" kind of yarn.   😄 Kenny, one of our university librarians, keeps a lost-and-found assortment of items on a shelf behind the front desk. He called me over one morning and handed this odd ball to me! 😋 It was rather rumpled -  loose'ish and a teeny bit unraveled, and had no label on it. But otherwise perfectly good. Clean, brand new , just lost. Needing a good home. Well, it found one! 😍 Of course, I gladly accepted this little Christmas gift , because I knew immediately what I needed to do - make something sweet and bring it BACK to the library for decoration. 😎 Aw, look how fantasti
Read more

Gran'zilla

-
Image
I love this sweet beast of a piece! 😍 Granny Squares Galore? Godzilla Granny ...  It was difficult to decide what to call this gorgeous monster. 🤩 And it is impossible to get a sense of scale from the photo above . Don't be fooled by the cute poms, and the candy colors. No little baby blankets here, this thing is as big as The Beast . 😎 To get a good look at how big it actually is, I tried draping it over a chair ... but that just made it look like a piled up crash site, with poms and ruffles. 😂   So, I tried giving it scale by arranging it on the couch. But that didn't really work either, because now it just looks like a train wreck . With poms and ruffles. 😆 I absolutely loved making this friendly monster. Here's a photo album of the process ,  including several delightful poses, plus me sitting on the couch. 😁  All the yarn for this piece was actually a kit. But, I ended up not doing the kit piece. I just did my own easy granny square collection. 😎 Then,
Read more

Ruffle Monster

-
Image
This beautiful beast was inspired by Inara, my brother’s niece by marriage. She calls me “Aunt Becky,” even though I'm not actually her aunt in any legal or blood way. Oh, how I love the sound of her sweet voice saying a label that I’ve hardly earned. Extended family is so special, it’s hard to describe, and harder still to explain to people who don’t have as much as we do. Frank’s in-laws became part of my extended family, along with our 22 first cousins (some of whom are almost like siblings to us), and their 45 kids (many of whom are like nieces and nephews to us), all of which I delight in using to confuse my students. Frank’s wife, Kelly, died in 2012, which for some would mean the end of in-law relationships. Instead, a beautiful thing happened, a new closeness. Shortly after Kelly’s funeral, Frank told me that his sister-in-law, Rebekah, had said to him, “You are still uncle to our kids, you will always be their uncle.” Also, Frank later told me that he has become better fri
Read more