Perusing patterns

The patterns in our lives tell a story

WIP: Annie’s Chaos by Wigglestickdesigns.com (photos by author)

When I saw this pattern in the process of creation (I follow the designer and have tested patterns for her many, many times), I KNEW I was going to have to make this afghan.

These pictures were taken with the crocheted piece spread out on my queen-sized bed. I still have 90 or so rounds to do before it’s complete. It will be another huge piece of maybe 11 feet across from side to side.

When I’m crocheting, I take pictures of my progress and save them to my Ravelry library. (Author’s photo)

I teach a crochet class on Saturdays at my local library. For free. It was pointed out to me that other places teach crochet classes, and for “only thirty dollars,” you too can learn the “basics” of crochet in a two-hour class.

Uh.

I have a belief that if you have knowledge, you should share it. Okay, within reason, I suppose, but this isn’t the first time I’ve taken up my crochet hook and taught strangers how to make things with yarn.

When I bought my house 18 years ago in a suburb far east of Phoenix, I taught classes at the local library out there. For four and a half years.

Again, I did it for free.

In my attempts to replicate the glory of sunrises and sunsets in Arizona skies, I’ve chosen mostly pinks, blues, and purples as the colorway. Author’s photo

Crochet has a community. Crochet IS a community.

What I’ve learned from teaching my ‘craft’ to others is that it’s something shared while still being individual. We can all make the same thing, and everyone will differ in some way.

In fact, I tell my students that mistakes are actually good things, so that their souls don’t get trapped in the item they’re making. I don’t know where I heard it, but hey, even after 50+ years of crocheting, I still make mistakes and have to “frog” my work occasionally. (Rippit, rippit!)

Working the pattern with small touches of unexpected colors, like an almost “neon” lime green peeking through. Author’s photo

The two outer rounds of this afghan had to be ‘frogged’ a total of 9 times because the stitch counts were off. After the last time, I decided I would “make it up” on the following round with increases.

The truth is, I probably missed some stitches in the dark teal round that surrounds the lavender colored ‘popcorn’ stitches. But I was not going to rip all the way back to that color.

It is what it is.

If I hadn’t told you, would you have even known?

Long ‘cardigan’ made for my friend, Diane. She sent me a photo of the pattern after I had already started this as a gift for her birthday. Author’s photo

My friend Diane has been crocheting for quite a while, and her favorite color is green. Any shade. She’s also a Taurus, born on May 2nd, so it’s a given that we will both try to do things for the other that have some note of creativity in them.

In the case of the long coat-cardigan-whatever it is, she had sent me a photo of the pattern with the words, “Isn’t it pretty???”

Funnily enough, I had already started the long coat for her birthday because she had mentioned it a time or two previously.

I thought about fixing the photo, but decided to leave it to show the construction of the long coat. Author’s photo

I had paid $8.99 for the pattern online, and while I have no issue supporting designers, it’s hard to know who’s a real designer and who is using AI to ‘create’ these patterns.

Upon receiving the pattern, I realized I had been taken for $9. It’s so poorly written, and there’s only ONE PAGE that actually has directions. The rest of the 20-page document reads like someone’s spaghetti recipe.

“Basically, you create a number of panels and make it to fit your body.”

Anyone who’s ever tested or used a crochet pattern knows that this is an absolute shit way to describe how to create something crocheted.

But the whole document reads like ‘suggestions.’

The pattern called for 5 panels like the one in the middle. Doing so would have made this into an actual blanket, rather than a long coat. Author’s photo

Fortunately, I’m smart enough to know how to look at something and know how to make it work.

I have always lived by patterns. The patterns of my crocheted items, the patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

While my fingers fly on this keyboard, I feel the pressure as the keys give way under my words.

The men in my past held patterns, too. Aside from my ex-husband being white and my ex-boyfriend being black, there was little difference. Both are the same age, they share the same birthday month; they wear the same shoe size, have the same build, are the same height, and in most ways, they are the same man aside from their race.

I recognize my patterns, too. I realized what was going on, and this is why I’m still single seven years after kicking my boyfriend out of my life. Obviously, my picker is bad.

Unless you are specifically talking about my crochet. And in that case, I think I am a good “picker.”

I’m drawn to mandala patterns. They are beautiful, and the significance of what they represent speaks to my soul.

More than anything, though, I’m drawn to the beauty of the colors. The textures in the crochet pieces that I’m most drawn to include numerous stitches that undulate and change.

In the case of Annie’s Chaos, nearly every round is a different stitch. It keeps me engaged, and even my ever-chaotic mind is quiet. I concentrate on the stitches, the repeats, the pattern, and the way it evolves in my hands.

Crochet does something for me that nothing else has ever been able to:

It breaks a pattern.

Let me explain.

Times are really tough right now. Like, really, REALLY tough. With every waking breath, there’s some new horror in the United States. I have fought a deep depression that started in December of 2020, and I have only started to feel light in my heart again after five and a half years.

In these past five years or so, I’ve concentrated on making things with my hands.

Crochet has quieted my mind. It produces something beautiful out of something so ugly as what’s current in everyone’s face.

And occasionally, I will find joy in the process.

In 2023, I traveled to Scotland for two weeks, and when I got home, I set to work on this “beast” to enter into the state fair.

I tested this pattern for Nickie Chapin, the owner and designer of wigglestickdesigns.com in 2023. This is displayed on my car because it was well over 11' feet across.

It won “Best of Arizona.” The highest title available for the crochet entry portion of the home crafts division. I not only created this afghan from a pattern, but I also tested the pattern for the designer.

Listed on her website as one of the “Beasts,” Pasta Mercy was a true labor of love.

For over 200 hours, I sat on my bed with hook and yarn in hand and thought about Glenfinnan and the train trestle; Stirling and the castle where my ancestors originated, and the 21-hour flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to Edinburgh, Scotland.

I had started 2023 in some kind of desperation. I knew that my depression had full hold of my heart and mind, and creativity had alluded me for a period of time.

But stepping onto the fertile and green ground of Scotland changed so much for me.

Gothic architecture greeted my eyes everywhere we went. The repeating patterns on the castles and buildings, the gothic arches on nearly every building around me, and the iron fretwork at the top of the brilliant stone buildings in every place we went, inspired me.

Scotland breathed life into my lifeless lungs.

I’ve been to many places: Mexico, Canada, all over the United States, and never felt like it was home.

But taking my shoes off at St. Andrews, walking in the grass and then down on the beach in the sand, my whole body shuddered.

I was home again in a place I had never been.

One day, I hope to break the pattern of just accepting life in these United States and move to Scotland to live out the rest of my life.

Oh, and Annie’s Chaos? I’ll be entering her in the Arizona State Fair this year.

It’s time.