Crochet

I can’t do crochet. At the handcraft lessons in school my kettle holders were never nice and square like the other girls but more often than not of a triangular shape. My teacher shook her head, made tsk tsk sounds and pronounced me unteachable. After that I more or less stopped trying. But a while ago I was visiting Maria’s blog and there it was, the most beautiful crocheted basket and the best of it was that it came as a crochet kit complete with necessary material and “how to do it”. It was sold in a shop in Stockholm and since I was going to Stockholm this weekend anyway I might as well buy myself a kit. I mean how hard could it be? Me being that much older and wiser and my handcraft teacher long gone, probably doing the crochet thing up in the sky.

I don’t have an older sister. I always wanted one though. A sister I could gossip with about boyfriends and who would comfort me when I was sad and whom I could borrow clothes and make up from. And who could teach me things – like crocheting.

I stayed with friends in Stockholm and I usually pretend that my dear friend B is my “big sister”. She is the very best of “sisters”, warm, compassionate, very wise, and extremely funny and a joy to spend time with. Of course she did the “big sisterly thing” and promised both to help me find the shop and to teach me how to crochet.

This is the kit from Frosta design

Do you want to see what else I got?

White "poodle" wool yarn and cotton ribbon yarn. I plan to make a shawl out of white alpaca wool with these two mixed in.

I bought a bag at Afro art. It`s made of an recycled Asian rice sack.

And this fabulous postcard by Jan Stenmark that says “In the dream she could fly. In the dream she could reach and dust places she had never reached to dust before”

Back at B`s apartment I couldn’t wait to get started. I read the pattern, which is a novelty since I am known as the woman who made “do not read the fucking manual” into an art form. But to be honest that mostly applies to computer and gadget manuals. On the back of the pattern you could read this information:

Crochet is good for your health
You breathe calmer
Slows down your heart rate
More stimuli to the brain and your koncentration increases
Lowered anxiety and frustration

Let me tell you something. THAT IS A BIG FAT LIE !
After five minutes of crocheting I was a nervous wreck, an angry and extremely agitated nervous wreck at that. Working myself fast towards a stroke. I could feel my blood pressure rising with every wrong stitch. Poor B, she got the kid sister from hell. After I had completed half the pattern it didn’t look like anything near a basket more like a squashed beret so I decided that I had had it with this crochet thing. But looking at what I had accomplished I suddenly realised that I CAN crochet I just can`t crochet a basket. Come again? Well, I did all the stitches right but probably not firm enough, some turning out less firm than the others and therefore making the basket all uneven and wobbly. But who needs a basket right? So now I have started to make a bag instead and so far it actually has a square shape instead of a triangle one.

Way to go Jeanette!

When I was in Stockholm I also visited Liljevalchs vårsalong.

Liljevalchs is the Stockholmers’ own public art venue. The Spring Exhibition/Vårsalongen, featuring works selected by a jury, is an annual event. It was great fun. And very inspirational. They actually showed both some needle felted art and embroidery and I think it’s great that handcraft, used in a new way can be an art form for younger artist. Me, I think I am going for ink and Tippex art. Tippex, you now the white fluid you used, in a distant past to correct mistakes when writing on a type writer….. An artist had made a beautiful painting using those two.

Or I just might crochet something…. I could call it “despair”

Take care
Jeanette