I've blogged about being diagnosed first with gall bladder disease then cirrosis, and the recovery from an operation to have my gall bladder removed other at "The Anxious Clown" blog but a huge, huge part of what helped me recover - physically and mentally - was discovering the joys of crochet and knitting.
It sounds completely barmy, a bloke in his 50s suddenly falling in love with those two crafts, eulogising about yarn, buying crochet hooks and knitting needles and basically boring the hell out of folk on a knitting blog while filling the house with sometimes weird and wonderful creations made of yarn, but the personal benefits of all this stuff have been incredible. Without being overly dramatic, crochet and knitting have basically stopped me from having a complete mental breakdown.
I've a busy mind, and when I was recovering from my operation, having spent most of 2020 in and out of hospital, I lost 2 stone in weight, a lot of muscle mass and was physically and mentally too weak to do much of anything except lie around the house in a complete brain and body lock. It was horrible. I have never been good at relying on other people, yet here I was half wasted away with my lovely wife and daughter taking care of me, whereas before I'd always been the one pitching in and taking care of them.
I couldn't draw. Drawing is my other passion in life, and I couldn't physically hold a pencil or draw anything worth a damn (I did persist but I could tell I wasn't in the right place for it). Videogames (another hobby) were also off the menu, again I couldn't concentrate or get my head in the right frame of mind for them.
Years ago I'd bought a crochet kit though, one of those terrible kits you get in Hobbycraft where they give you the world's crappiest cheapest yarn and a plastic crochet hook, a terrible instruction leaflet and expect you to just make the most amazing things you see on the box. That kit was something I originally bought for my daughter to work on alongside her but she fell in love with loom bands instead, and that was that.
I found the kit while tidying the house, and decided to give it a go. I had a lot of happy memories of watching my late Nan knit and crochet, her fingers a complete blur as she'd make these amazing creations seemingly in no time at all. I was always drawn to the sculptural aspect of crochet, the ability to turn a ball of yarn into a recognisable character, so that was my ultimate aim.
The first things I made were...terrible! No, they really were. I was reminded of them over the weekend as I'd crocheted a bird and an alien (and something unmentionable) for my family, and they were still proudly on display. It was amazing seeing the first things I'd made compared to the stuff I make now.
I also wanted to make a Baby Yoda. The patterns online were fairly ambitious, and for a beginner, very tough but I was determined. But before all of that, I spent hours with scratty pieces of yarn just practicing the things that are the core components of crocheting. Crochet stitches, double, treble stitches, increases and decreases, and of course the magic ring - which is where nearly all my patterns start. It felt like learning those techniques eventually meant I could actually read a real and proper crochet pattern, and understand them and if I have one recommendation to you, it's to do the same. Just work on the techniques, work with crap yarn because when you eventually switch to the good stuff you'll definitely be able to tell the difference!
As my brain and my body became stronger and my recovery continued, I felt like crochet was just one half of the puzzle. I wanted to learn how to knit. Now, starting with one craft and moving to something similar might sound easy but crochet and knitting might share some of the same core ideas, but the execution of those ideas is vastly different. With Crochet you've got just a simple hook and a yarn. With knitting you've got two needles, a ball of yarn and it's akin to learning to ski after you've spent all your time snowboarding.
I borrowed some knitting needles off my lovely mother in law, and got to it. For a LONG time I just could NOT keep the damned yarn on the needle (metal needles are slippery!), my stitches were too tight and of course, as documented on this very blog, when I did eventually learn how to knit I was wrapping my yarn the wrong way round the needle, resulting in lovely twisted stitches!
Now though, I feel like I can actually knit. I bought a book with 400 different knitting stitches in it (400! I mean come ON!) and have been working my way through it, mastering ribbing, cable stitches, open work, blackberry stitches (see previous post) and anything else I can put my mind to. I can actually knit things (I made a sheep for my mum's birthday, another huge plus side of knitting and crochet is you can suddenly turn a ball of wool into presents for your nearest and dearest!)
So why these things? Why did I take to them so readily and why (when most other hobbies bore the heck out of me) do I continue to wrangle yarn? Simply put, it's one of those pastimes that just takes you out of the world for a while. If you (like me) have hands that demand to be busy, and a brain that needs to keep ticking over in order to keep working, knitting and crochet are the ideal thing. I can knit rows while waiting for the ladies of the house to get ready (you can knit a LOT of rows while waiting for girls to put their faces on, get dressed, do all the things that they do when it takes you a mere 5 minutes to throw some clothes on and polish your head). It's also constantly challenging. There is always something new to learn, some new technique that you couldn't master, but when you persevere you find a way into, and then begin to make your work tidier and tidier.
I love both, I couldn't exactly say which I prefer (Crochet is great for fast and quick toymaking, knitting is slow and takes effort but you get some truly lovely results). But one thing's for sure, I'll be doing this until my hands stop working.
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