Stitch-by-Stitch

Crochet found me in a dark time in my life. I was working at a bar that was the last to close in our small town. Inevitably everyone made their way there at the end of the night when they were the least reasonable and the most intoxicated. It was not quite so bad, until they opened the casino and cut my bouncer as well. That brought in a whole new crowd and even later hours for me. On top of the late hours at the bar, I also cut hair a couple times a week at a local salon. Keeping in mind, that this is all while I was also going to school full time taking prerequisite courses for the nursing program. It was a full-time load filled with science courses which include labs and fast-paced tests. And in the mix, I began dating a man, who all too soon became my fiancé.

I will leave the dirty details of that relationship for another story. As you can imagine, I was stretched thin and the prospect of having a steady man in my life to help ease the burden seemed all too good to be true. As our relationship began it seemed great, but as it progressed his true form began to show. If we were sitting down to watch tv at night, he would become snide and angry if my attention was focused on my phone. To prevent the fight, I switched to reading… which has been known to consume my attention. He would be talking to me, and I would not even hear him if I was caught up in the middle of a good book. For him, that just would not do. But I am not a person who can sit still to save my life. I needed something to do with my hands, especially if I was going to sit through his mediocre choices in tv shows.

Stressed, a little lost and horribly overwhelmed is where crochet found me. I left the house on an errand with a friend, not wanting to fight. My friend needed crafting supplies, so I was wandering around the craft store while she waited to get some fabric cut. I soon found the yarn aisle and let my fingers brush across the skeins of yarn softly. There were acrylic and wool blends, rough cottons, and the baby soft yarns. The textures seemed to ground me, and I began paying attention to the different, beautiful colors. When I was younger my mom tried to teach me to crochet, and I had wanted to learn, honest. But the hours fighting with the yarn became dull when I could be outside playing with my brothers, and I had soon given up. Perhaps, this was the solution I needed to be able to sit still in the evenings.

I picked out a warm soft wool blend that had ocean-based blues and browns. Six skeins, a how-to book, and a 10mm hook later, and I was ready to teach myself. When we checked out my friend laughed because she did not take me for the crafty type. I went home and began the journey into crochet. Between the how-to book and YouTube, I was able to patch together the proper way to chain, then turn and do a double stitch. Looking back, it was nowhere near a proper stitch, but it held and that was how we were doing it! The following weeks the tension lowered in the evenings as I was able to ground myself in the steady motion of looping the yarn through itself and around the hook. The yarn goes over, poke through, the yarn goes over, pull through two loops, the yarn goes over pull all the way through, repeat. Stitch-by-stitch I found peace in the progress I was making, even as I sat in front of the tv with him.

Because I am a tall girl, I made the base chain of my afghan ridiculously long, and soon I was buying more skeins of yarn to keep it going. December of that year I moved across the state with my boyfriend on the promise that I would be able to focus on school and not work. Oh, how young and dumb I was. When he let me down and I had to go back to work I would come home at night and work on my afghan. Letting the calming rhythm soothe my nerves and ease my mind. It would be ok; I would get back into school one day. This was not the end for me. The afghan was growing and even though we were now engaged, so were the problems in our relationship.

It was at this point we went on a six-week road trip. I did not want to haul around my growing, extra-large afghan so I needed another project. At the store, I had found a lovely knit pattern that I loved, but it was not a crochet pattern. I worked with my grandma, and she found crochet books from her mother that I could use as a resource. Together my grandma and I meshed the colors of the knit pattern with a zigzag pattern my great-grandmother had used. During the many hours on the road the next six weeks, I let my hands glide through the stitches while riding in the passenger seat. Falling into the stitch-by-stitch rhythm as he drove. Awkward silences were dampened by my fingers staying busy and kept me from going insane. I met his family and friends across the country, a blessed break where he would put on his best behavior. They looked at me funny when I told them I was crocheting as we drove. He would call me a granny and roll his eyes. But I refused to be ashamed of the little bit of peace and happiness it brought me. By the end of the trip, I finished the afghan, and it was beautiful! The zigzags of greens and blues and greys stitched neatly together. I was so proud of it!

The relationship soon escalated and then dissolved. As I said before we will save those dirty details for another story. When he did finally leave, on top of the debt and emotional trauma I was left with, he did the one thing he knew would really hurt me. HE TOOK MY AFGHANS. Not just the first one I had taught myself on, now king size, which any craftswoman will tell you is special. This is the piece that taught you the hard lessons of the craft even though the result was not perfect. No, he did not stop with that. He also took the zigzag beauty I had written out with my grandmother’s help and my great-grandmother’s pattern. I was devastated. Hours upon hours of my work and pride stolen out of my life. He had taken a great many things from me, but this was a personal blow that hit my core.

In the years that have passed, I have created several more pieces. For friends, family, and for myself. When I need life to slow down, I turn to crochet and slow it down stitch-by-stitch. When I feel like I am not making any progress, I pick up my project and watch it come together before my eyes, stitch-by-stitch. I just completed my first year of a two-year nursing program; putting me one year away from completing that particular goal. It has been quite a long detour, but I am one year away from being able to say he did not take that opportunity away from me. When I am stressed, and things are not going my way I can still turn to my crochet projects and find peace and comfort in the process. He may have taken my afghans, but he can never take my ability to crochet and create new projects away, or the inner peace they bring me.

And this is how crochet saved my life, stitch-by-stitch.

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