Fearless Crocheting and Handspinning…

Crochet…

I am a life long crocheter, it’s part of my family heritage and traditions. It is precious to me, and my identity of who I am; a creative being.

Crochet is my connection to the women in my family, both past and present, it is a skill and artform through which generations of women in my family have expressed themselves. I learned from my great-grandmother, Lydia, and connect to my grandmother Grace who was deceased long before I incarnated in this body, and a skill which I have passed to my daughter and partner in crime, Sara.

I can make anything with some fibery goodness and a hook. My passion for the craft was further enhanced by my learning to handspin yarn 8 years ago. Learning about fibers, and how yarn is made taught me more about my creative self, and how to improve my skills as a handworker. My blog The Secrets of Yarn (poor neglected thing that it is ) details some of that, and my knowledge base about fibers, and I started The Crochet Liberation Front HQ Group  on Ravelry.com in 2007 as a joke which became a movement with it’s own website, and blog, and a collaborative effort book entitled The CLF First Ever Book. (Yes, there are more to come, but read about those in their proper place!) Who knew crochet could be even more fun!

I am also a proud member of theCGOA, Crochet Guild of America.

Hand spinning…

More important than the craft itself, is how I “fell” into hand spinning. This is a great story, and it’s 100% true.

I moved to Camano Island, in March 2001. A month later I was volunteering for a local community center reading to children enrolled in the ECAP program. My son was 4 years old at the time, and a bit squirrely (aren’t most 4 year olds?), we had arrived about 20 minutes early for the reading time, and I knew he couldn’t sit still that long, and then again through the story time, so we went for a little walk up the street.

I saw the local craft store owned by a lovely lady named, June, and she had toys in the store to occupy children while “mom” browsed. As I browsed through her eclectic crafting treasures, a little gray haired lady was paying for some paint, and as she heard me call my son’s name, Yousif, she turned to me and said, “That’s an Arabic name, isn’t it?”

I was a bit taken a back, most people mis-hear his name as Yosef, or Joseph, it was strange that an American heard the name correctly.  I turned to her and smiled, and said, “Yes it is.”

“Oh are you Arabic?” She asked with a big grin.

I laughed and shook my head to the negative, “Nope, just dark complected, my former husband was Arabic and African, though you can’t tell it from Yousif’s blondieness.” (People often think I’m from the Middle East or Mediterranean, but I’m from old French/Spanish stock, well German, Irish, Norweigian, and “other” too)

“Oh, I was engaged to a Jordanian when I was in college.” She said with a sparkle in her eyes.

We conversed about the romantic nature of Arabic boyfriends and shared our experiences briefly, then she handed me her card, and on it was a spinning wheel, and a little sentence about her hand spinning and fiber art work.

I nearly shouted in joy, “Oh you hand spin? I’ve always wanted to! Ever since I read Sleeping Beauty!”

Ann laughed, and said, “I’ll teach you, just show up at my house.” Then she pointed at Yousif, “Children are always welcome in my house.”

It was time for us to leave, and I tucked her card away in a safe place and left to read to the children. It took me a month to screw up my courage to take her up on her offer to teach me to spin.

That, as they say, was the start of a beautiful friendship!

On our first lesson day, we sat on her porch, and Yousif crawled straight onto her lap and started playing with the wrinkled skin on her elbow. I was most mortified, not everyone is tolerant of tactile, young children, and before I could admonish him, she said, “It’s ok, I’m old and have wrinkled skin…of course he’s fascinated! I was when I was small…”

I fell in love. Someone who loved children, believed in their saftey, and caretaking as much as I did…

As we began the process of me learning to spin, I made the mistake of saying, “I don’t know how good I’ll be at this, I’m not good at things like this. I’m not a very creative person, in fact I don’t have a Creative BONE in my body!.”

Ann looked over the rim of her glasses and muttered, “Hmmmphf! We’ll see about that!”

I owe Ms. Ann Hopkins for showing me how very wrong I was…

My learning to handspin opened up a world before unknown to me…I was in my head before, academic, cerberal, and studied (nothing wrong with any of those things) but the physical world was often beyond me!  She showed me a new part of myself, yet undiscovered and certainly unfed through my youth.

I can say I am very creative, and artistically gifted now. Not bragging, facts is facts, and I owe Ms. Ann more than I can ever pay her back for this wonderful gift.

As my awareness of my physical creativity grew so too did my spiritual understanding…