Hooked for Life

by Mary Beth Temple

  Irish crochet did not originate in Ireland. A clever Frenchwoman of the last century, Mlle. Riego de la Blanchardière, succeeded in imitating, in crochet, the old Venetian Needle-Point Lace, and this was introduced into Ireland by some English ladies anxious to help the peasantry, impoverished by the potato famine of 1846. The cottagers not only learnt to make the new patterns, but added to them, and improved them, and, ever since, Irish crochet has been a valuable cottage industry in Ireland.

  —Mary Card, Book of Crochet, Number 3, 1925

  Ms. Card—at last boasting her own first name—went on to say, “The art has now been brought to perfection, and is practiced in perhaps every country of Europe, each adding something of grace, beauty, or ingenuity to the common fund of designs.”

  Mlle. Riego de la Blanchardière was not shy about taking credit for the invention of Irish crochet. In the introduction to her 1886 book The Irish Lace Instructor she writes:

  I am but continuing what I did when the industry was first started, having aided them far more than is now generally known. For I may claim that all this class of work owes its origins to me [sic] early books, as Crochet Lace did not exist before the publication of my first one on that subject, which appeared in 1846, about the time of the dreadful famine in Ireland. With the help I then gave, the poor of that country soon learnt my ‘new lace’ as it was then called; Schools and Classes were formed, many ladies of the highest position then as now devoting their time to teaching and selling the work, with so much energy and kind feeling that the enterprise for a long time was a great benefit to those who were, and still are, so much in need of assistance.

  Mlle, was quite fond of the patronage of ladies of the highest position, and had a selection of letters that she included in her book just to prove she hobnobbed with the best of them.

  Fashion for the body was primary, but then, as now, some crocheters spent most of their time crocheting fine fashions for their homes. Home decor items of the period were still light and airy: tray cloths, doilies, edgings for napkins and hand towels. Larger projects included curtains and valances, tablecloths, and bedspreads, all finely wrought in thread, and all taking up the kind of time that none of us seem to have anymore. I can’t imagine squeezing in the amount of hours to crochet some of these lace pieces must have taken to make.

  Wool crochet, or crochet with yarn, seems to have become popular in the early twentieth century. “Now that every grown-up is making woolly things, the little girl will want to be doing likewise,” wrote Flora Klickmann, a popular and prolific needlecraft author of the time, in 1915. The 1925 edition of Weldon’s Book of Needlework agrees:

  Of late years there has been a great fashion for garments in crochet of all sorts, and this fashion shows no sign at all of dying out. Besides ties, shawls and dressing jackets, we now have children’s dresses and hats, and ladies’ dresses, cloaks and coats and skirts carried out in a variety of charming stitches, while the jumper [British for “sweater”], above all, maintains its supremacy. Crochet in wool gives a charming soft effect, and many crochet stitches look particularly well when carried out in this medium.

  There were not a lot of photographs of garments on models in the early twentieth-century books I found, but one of them had a beautiful shot of a woman wearing what I would call a shrug. I was quite surprised as I thought this was a relatively recent clothing development, but there it was in black and white called a “hug-me-tight” in the caption. Wristlets in fine silk were also popular patterns—and I had thought the craze for fingerless gloves was a recent one, too!

  The popularity of crocheting with yarn at this time also lead to the early days of crocheted afghans. The Depression fueled the afghan craze to some extent, as an afghan could be made up of scraps from other projects, and using every readily available material was a thrifty way to beautify your home when times were hard.

  The separation of crochet and knitting does not seem to be much in evidence in its early days. Although I found several crochet books in the stacks, I found much more material in books on both crocheting and knitting, or about needlework in general. Ladies did all sorts of needlework, and several large nineteenth-century tomes provided instruction in knitting, crocheting, embroidery, needlepoint, and even macramé and tatting. In such books, knitting and crochet went hand in hand in several garments—I started seeing combination patterns for garments in yarn as early as 1915.

  To crochet and knit during the 1940s was almost a patriotic act. Making garments instead of buying them during the textile-short years of WWII was much encouraged. The 1940s also brought us the pineapple craze. “Decorative as well as delightful, the pineapple is the all American favorite design,” wrote Elizabeth L. Mathieson in The Complete Book of Crochet in 1946. Grass-skirted maidens danced around in the illustrations for everything pineapple. I am guessing that the desire for pineapple patterns took root around the Hawaiian shirt craze that began in the 1930s, when Hollywood stars from Ginger Rogers to Bing Crosby wore their Hawaiian garb with style and panache.

  Then, of course, came the 1960s and ‘70s, when it seems as if crocheted fashions took over the world overnight. Wildly colored shawls, skirts, and ponchos were seen on hippies and hipsters across the United States. This was a homegrown revolution—the flower child didn’t want to buy her clothing from an impersonal store, she wanted to make it herself. Although looking back on some of those trends now, we might laugh… it seems sort of silly to talk about living off the land while crocheting with 100 percent acrylic in acid trip-inspired colors—I think the beginning of today’s crochet pride can be seen during this era.

  It might also have been the beginning of the divide between knitting and crocheting. Did those darned long-haired hippie-freak free love loud-clothing-wearing crocheters scare the knitters? I remember the craft magazines I found in my mother’s closet had all sorts of projects in them, in a variety of techniques, knitting sharing photo spreads with crocheting and embroidery. Back then, such women’s magazines as Woman’s Day and Family Circle also published needlework patterns in every issue. My particular favorites were the ones showing the best-selling patterns to make for craft fairs and bazaars.

  And speaking of craft fairs, crochet has often had an impact on the economy one way or another—from nineteenth-century bazaars for charity, to Irish crochet, to hippies in the ‘70s selling their wild creations at the local head shop, and right up to today’s independent pattern publishers and Etsy.com sellers. The author of Beetons Bazaar in 1898 had some advice for the sellers of crochet that still applies today:

  They should endeavor to sell as much as possible without annoying people. To be teased and worried to buy irritates most people, and does much harm to the cause. The medium between persecution and diffidence must be aimed at, and when attained, great results may be expected.

  Words to live by in the business of crochet!

  What’s coming next? Who knows? But I hope as crocheters live the history they are making, they take time to take notes. I don’t want the rest of our history to disappear into the sands of time with its beginnings.

  If It Exists, It Must Be Covered in Crochet

  I do not know where, historically, the crocheter’s deep-seated need to cover inanimate objects with crochet was born. It might have been during the Victorian era. Crochet’s first big heyday occurred during a period of time in which home decor was fussy to the point of near-clutter, when there was a cover for anything from a leg of lamb to a table leg that had anything to do with any part of the body—anything at all that might in the longest stretch of the imagination be remotely considered carnal.

  Tables had doilies, upholstered furniture had antimacassars, and cases and covers were made for everything from sewing needles to lingerie to items whose original purpose is shrouded in the mists of time. No surface left unadorned, no small item without its proper covering. The Victorian crocheter never ran out of projects to make for her home, which served the dual purpose of keeping her personal domain in
style and showing off her accomplishments as a needlewoman.

  I believe the toilet paper cover craze is the spiritual descendent of the Victorians. One couldn’t possibly leave something as pedestrian as a roll of toilet paper out in the open for the world to see—how vulgar!—and yet it needs by its very nature to be close at hand. So cover it in crochet so that it is decorative as well as useful! Does toilet paper actually need to be covered to perform its function? No. Does it need to be protected from the elements by a thick coating of yarn? No. Does any crocheter anywhere actually think she can trick you into thinking that what you are looking at is really not a spare roll of toilet paper? Probably not. But it is there, and so it must be covered. Afghans, when you think about it, are just sofa or bed covers, right?

  What amuses me to no end today is the enormous number of patterns available so that the crocheter can cover with crochet all of the electronic devices within a 500-yard range of her hook. IPod cozies, laptop cases, cell phone covers… we are now covering up items our Victorian ancestors never even dreamed of. I almost understand the electronics-covering rationale—a cell phone could in fact get dropped or scratched, and a crocheted cover might protect it from damage. But as fast as we blow through electronics, I have to think by the time your laptop gets scratched up due to lack of a crocheted cover, you will be ready to buy a new one anyway.

  Makes one wonder what the crocheters of the future will be making covers for, doesn’t it? I can pretty much guarantee they will be making covers for something…

  Doily Mania

  The lure of thread is powerful. For those who feel its call, there is nothing like it. You are the master of the tiny hook and the delicate thread; you can carry around a month’s worth of crochet in the palm of your hand (unlike, say, an afghan junkie); you can use your crochet to beautify yourself and your home. And you will never be bored with your work because thread projects have endless stitch and pattern variations. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a threadie. I need my Finished Object (FO) gratification way quicker than a thread project can provide me with my limited threadie skills. What I don’t quite get is the proliferation of doilies. Some of us, my friends, have what I might call a doily problem.

  I think there is something inherently beautiful about the contrast of a delicate piece of crocheted lace against a polished wood surface. A doily centerpiece on a dark wood table? I am so there. The problem, for me, comes when the doilies proliferate—now there are two on the sideboard, one on each shelf of the glass-fronted china cabinet, and a few more on the table. Next thing you know, the doilies have marched into the living room—tacked with pins onto the backs and arms of all of the upholstered furniture.

  At least this practice is rooted in purpose. In the olden days, fashionable men used a gooey substance called Macassar oil in their hair to give it gloss and sheen. It also gave the furniture a big old grease stain should someone so anointed lean back in his chair. So the chair doily, called antimacassar by the Victorians for just that reason, protected the furniture—it could be washed and freshened up much more easily than the upholstery could be.

  The doilies-on-furniture craze lasted well past the era of Macassar oil, and I have noticed the look is sneaking back into the public eye. It is a very pretty, vintage/retro sort of look. But beware, you will be chasing those doilies all over the house because by and large your guests are not sitting in your chairs sipping tea and nibbling cucumber sandwiches—they are acting the way people in the new millennium act. The Victorian hostess didn’t have to deal with folks throwing things at the television during an election year or the Super Bowl, kids running through the room to check in, or Cheetos dust. Unless you are planning on hot-gluing those lacy bad boys down, they are going to migrate.

  Doilies can be very pretty in the bathroom, too—edging a shelf or under a soap dish. And heck, if you are doily crazed, pretty soon you are going to run out of flat surfaces to cover in the main rooms; you’ll have to expand your search for an area that could benefit from a bit of lace. Just be on the lookout for those heathens in your household who might dry their hands or wipe off their makeup with the closest thing available, even if that thing is not a towel or a tissue. Until you nip that little issue in the bud, you will spend more time washing and blocking your doilies than crocheting new ones. However, if you have a doily addiction, this may be a good thing.

  When all horizontal flat surfaces have been ornamented to the doily maker’s satisfaction, it’s time to cover the vertical flat surfaces, the walls. Intricate doilies can be framed in such a way that each and every perfectly executed stitch can be seen and admired, yet since they are framed you neither have to chase them around nor worry that someone will damage them. On the wall, the doily looks like what it is—a cunningly wrought piece of artwork. In fact, I often prefer doilies on the wall to ones hidden under other objets d’art. I get that doilies serve a useful purpose by protecting that highly polished wood from some object that might scratch it. But what makes me nuts is that if you place something like a candlestick on top of a six-inch doily, you can’t see the pretty pattern in the center anymore. You spent many happy hours making a gorgeous lace circle, and all anyone can see is the scalloped border. I won’t say that’s a waste of time, because I know you had a good time making it. But if a piece of crochet is displayed, I want to see it, darn it!

  When the wall space too becomes crowded, it might be time for a bigger house. If that is not an option, it might be time to switch to a bigger project that will take more time to complete. I hear that king-size thread bedspreads will soon be all the rage…

  Crocheting for a Cause

  What cause? Well, pretty much any cause. I do not know what it is in my nature that makes me react to any tragedy in the world by picking up my hook and some yarn and making something for someone somewhere, but I do know that I am far from alone in my reaction.

  One thing that makes crochet such a natural fit for charitable giving is the speed with which you can make something useful. I made a chemo cap the other night for a local hospital that worked up so quickly it drew a few startled looks from the ladies at my Sit and Stitch night. “Didn’t you just start that?” one of the other members asked. Yup, started it, screwed it up, ripped some out, finished the cap, and all in about an hour and a half.

  Actually, if I may digress as I sometimes do into my half-cocked ideas about the history of crochet, there seems to have been a relationship between crochet and charitable giving practically since its inception.

  I found a book printed in 1898 that taught the ladies how to run a charity bazaar or “fancy fair” to raise money for others.

  The idea of organizing a bazaar in the occasion of subscribing to any charitable institution has become a great feature of the present age. It affords opportunities to many idle people of pleasantly exerting themselves, discovers and brings forward obscure talents, promotes intercourse and amusement, and frequently ensures most advantageous results.

  In other words, crocheting for a cause gave otherwise idle hands purpose and meaning, and the money raised for a good cause went to, well, a good cause. The author went on to lament the preponderance of antimacassars, pincushions, and tennis aprons (whatever those are) and went on to propose almost four hundred pages of other items that could be crocheted or knitted or sewn or painted so they could be sold. There were hints on crocheted items from bookmarks to petticoats to baskets to rugs—anything for a buck, so long as that buck was going to the needy.

  The potato famine in Ireland brought about a different sort of charitable endeavor. Women were encouraged not to crochet items for others, but to buy crocheted items made by women who would otherwise have little or no income of their own. The maker and the purchaser were joined across thousands of miles by the slenderest of threads—but connected nonetheless.

  Contemporary crocheters make thousands of items for all sorts of charities—blankets for Project Linus and for pet shelters, warm hats and scarves for those who need
them, clothing for hard-to-fit premature infants, soft hats for those who lose their hair due to the ravages of cancer and its treatment. You can make any sort of crocheted item that appeals to you and find someone, somewhere, who needs it—you get the pleasure of your craft and of doing for others, and the recipient knows not only the warmth of the item but the warm feelings it contains. In this transaction the human element is as important as the fiber one—the maker has given from the heart as well as from the wallet, and the receiver knows that someone cares enough to make something for them with their own two hands.

  Comfort, both physical and spiritual, is the name of the game for items crocheted for charity. Whether they are in the same room or on opposite sides of the country or planet, sometimes a group of people tied together by a crochet group online or in real life, get together to provide comfort to someone who has suffered a loss by making an afghan as a group project. Crochet is the perfect craft for a joint effort, because it is so much easier for each crocheter to make a square and send it to a central location for assembly than to pass a piece of knitting around and have everyone work a few rows. Like participants in the quilting bees of the past, we can come together and make the work of keeping people warm go more quickly. We take pleasure not just in knowing that our work will be appreciated, although that is a lovely feeling, but in the fact that we took care of business together. We draw strength and companionship from one another, and pour it into our work, until that comfortghan is positively vibrating with fond feelings. This finished project warms people from within and without, everyone who touches it, no matter what their role.

  I once read a post on an online bulletin board in which a poster said that charity crochet was a stupid idea—a way for crocheters to pass off shoddy, second-rate goods and to pretend to themselves that they were doing good, when they should just write a check instead if they felt strongly about a cause. And that post still bothers me a few years later.