Does this look like a pumpkin? The crochet instructor said we would all go home with one we made ourselves!
Doesn’t knitting and crocheting sound like a perfect pastime for aging persons? Keeping your fingers agile, your mind active, your giving spirit open – I mean, do you know anyone who knits anything for themselves? It seems to always be projects for sharing, which makes it a perfect new project for me to tackle. Plus it shouldn’t be hard – people have called it an active meditation. It all adds up to the perfect sounding hobby for me!
I’m never looking for perfection or mastery when I try creating something with my hands. As I sat at the Pumpkin Crochet class a few weeks ago, I was reminded of a teeny flop I had experienced when an Indigenous friend tried to teach a group of us how to bead. Not sure what was she expecting when she breezed into the office after work – by which time all of us were exhausted. She set itty bitty beads on thin strands in front of us, into which we were to glide our needles. This was coming from an award-winning bead artist who created full regalia for her husband and children. Her expectations may have been a bit high, especially since it took most of us much of the allotted time to get even the first bead onto the needle. She had given us all a square of fabric with the outline of a heart, which we were to bead. I had just made my way around the right ventricle when she came by for inspection and muttered, “Oh, I thought we’d be further along than this.’
I felt the same way when the crochet instructor held up the end of a ball of yard in one hand and the little hook in the other and stated something like, “Working in blo, sl st into second ch from hook.” I’m not kidding – there were handout notes and that’s also what is written – and everyone seemed to follow like that sentence made sense. Nonetheless, we were told we would leave the class with a completed pumpkin craft, so onward I plodded.
When she came by on her rounds to inspect everyone’s stitches, I was taken right back to elementary school in the mid 1960s when our principal, a former nun, lined us all up in the gym each morning to inspect our nails. I began sort of folding my fingers around my wool to hide the evidence of my crochet short-comings, and soon enough she was sort of side stepping quickly past my little post. Although she did mutter at one point, “The basic objective is to get better with each row.”
This made the others around me start to share their angst with the situation. “Yeah, well some people can’t be taught,” the lady across from me said, giggling. “Apparently you can’t – look, she’s choking it,” her neighbour said, pointing in the direction of her friend’s strangled looking cluster.
Their kibbitzing continued good-naturedly and soon enough others were joining in. “I don’t think my hook is working.” “Who invented this? Like, who thought let’s get a bent little stick and make a bunch of random knots.” “I don’t know – I couldn’t have done a chicken,” making reference to a different crochet class that was also being offered. “Mine is a cat toy, not a pumpkin.” “Well, mine is a Timbit.”
The biggest laugh, though, was during the stuffing phase when one entire side of my ‘pumpkin’ was sort of missing. It was somehow held together by a couple of stray strands, leaving great big gaps where stuffing stuck out. “Thanks for the laughs,” the gals said, as I stuck my cinnamon stick ‘stem’ through the top of the thingy I just invented.
Yup, if nothing else my monthly self-challenges leading up to my 65th birthday are keeping me generously supplied with reasons for laughter. I’m still feeling pretty sure that it’s when I stop trying new things that my open mind, which I treasure, may begin to close. Whether I’m successful at them or not, I still believe the premise that seniors need to consider looking for ways to use a different part of their brain through new activities. That said, I couldn’t have done a chicken, either.