The Cats Are Not Helping!

I sometimes have to wonder why I do some of the things I do. Why on earth am I spending ridiculous amounts of time crocheting a baby blanket? Why don’t I just pop into Babies are Us, grab a readymade and pre-packaged blanket, with the only effort required on my part being to try to prise my credit card out of my purse and then suffer the anguish and mental exertion required to recall my PIN? Well, the obvious answer is that I love my brother Moon and his lovely wife M and I want to pour that love, through my nimble fingers, into a beautiful, handmade and personal gift. I want that precious little baby to be wrapped in its warmth and softness, to cuddle him in a way that I cannot, to feel my love across the miles that separate us. But is that really the whole truth?

Obviously not.

You see, I am the kind of person that needs to know that I can do something if I want to. It’s not that I really want to be able to crochet, more that I want to be able to say, yep, I can do that. It’s not that I want to sit around all day, like some little old lady, crocheting bright orange and brown squares to make a crocheted blanket that I can then leave to my great grand nieces and nephews, it is not that I want to be able to crochet a tea cosy that I can then give to my senile old neighbour who can then walk around with it on her head, since she seems to think that it is a hat. Oh no, nothing like that. I just need to be able to prove to myself that I can do it. One of my lasting memories as a child was the time spent with my Auntie Gert as she tried to teach me how to crochet. Now, I was a very patient child, willing to sit for long periods of time, to not give up on something just because I couldn’t get it straight away. Generally speaking, I could pick up new skills pretty quickly, but crochet (and knitting, if I am honest), appeared to be beyond me. Why, oh why could not I not get the hang of it!?! Ah yes, the old cackhandedness strikes again. Trust me, if you are left handed, don’t try to learn how to knit or crochet from someone who is right handed. It just doesn’t work.

So, did I just give up? To be honest, yes. That is, until the first child appeared in my extended family. Now, the challenge was back. I needed to make something, I couldn’t just buy something. So, how did I finally conquer my crochet nemesis? With a mirror, of course! I just went and bought a how to crochet book, propped it up in front of a mirror to get a left handed view and, voila! I knew I could do it. And once I have proved to myself that I can do something, I never need do it again. Take Sudoku. Mr. DBM likes to challenge his brain on a continual basis. Me? I just like to show that I have a functioning brain once in a while. So, once that fiendish Sudoku was done, so was I, and I have never done one since. Why bother? I know I can, if I want to. The challenge is gone. The same is true for the Travel IQ Challenge. I should warn you NOT to go to this site if you are the competitive, addictive type, unless you have hours to waste! Once I conquered all the levels, that was it, I was done. Now the same would probably be true of the crochet, if it wasn’t for the fact that relatives keep having babies............

So, the project – one baby blanket.

Things did not start well – apparently, if you buy wool in skeins, the first thing you have to do is wind it into a ball. Why on earth not just sell it as a ball to being with? Why on earth didn’t someone tell me!?! If you don’t, you end up with one mahoosive, convoluted, tangle of wool and it will take you the rest of the evening to untangle it. Now, I could have just said “Sod it!” I could have just chucked that ball out and started again. But no, I could not be defeated by a ball of wool. But no, I had to prove to myself that I could untangle it. What is wrong with me!?! Who really cares if I am the master untangler of all things tangled? Why oh why can’t I just give up on something that really isn’t important?

Anyhoo, I did untangle it, eventually, despite the facts that my cats were not helping - do they ever? And now, the blanket is started – when is that baby due again?