Guilty pleasures.....hooks and patterns

November 26, 2006....Ahhhh today I confess my guilty pleasurs! Totally off the glass topic, I'm a crochet addict when not in the glass studio! I've mentioned this before but today I'll come clean! Along with hording glass, I'm hording crochet patterns!

My mother taught me how to crochet many years ago when I was a kid. Mom didn't know how to read a pattern like she never followed a recipe - crocheting was all trial and error and figuring out what looked good. I think she probably had memorized a few patterns taught to her like the granny square or an afghan pattern and the rest of her work was done in a combination of the stitches from those memorized patterns.

A few years back, I decided to pick up the hook again and knew I needed to know how to read a pattern. So off I went to JoAnn's and signed up for a crochet class. Within a class or two, I had the knack of pattern reading and was so pleased that I started buying every pattern book I could get my hands on! Ponchos, shawls, shrugs, sweathers, mittens, hats, purses, scarves....you name it! I have a pattern for it!

Here's my latest guilty acquisition....Japanese Arigumi crochet dolls and Hello Kitty pattern books. I won't tell you how much I spent for a pattern book that's written in Japanese! But there aren't any English books like this and I have a hankering to crochet some dolls! (Darn that Crochetville!) I believe or hope that between the international crochet symbols and the pictures, I can figure out the doll patterns. Otherwise, I have spent alot of money for some great crochet eye candy!

Crocheters who make dolls are really sculptors at heart. Crocheting 3D objects is sculpting with yarn. Funny how most of us go into the yarn shop and don't see a 3D object when they look at skeins of wool and acrylic. Doll makers do.

My mother was able to crochet dolls without a pattern. That's the reason for the Chilly Willy picture. I loved Chilly Willy - you know the penguin that cried ice cubes?! He was soooo cute! Mom made me a Chilly Willy once without a pattern....hat, scarf the whole penguin! I'm pretty sure I still have it in the basement somewhere. Kewl she could do it without a pattern!

I'm sure that after I do a few, I'll memorize the pattern just as I've done with the mittens I've made this season. I've made so many, I no longer need to look at the pattern to make them. Then I'll be able to crochet just like Mom!