I'm here, and I'm mad

But what are you mad about, Mad Crocheter?

Oh, come on. Don't tell me no one reads Kerouac anymore!

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved. The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

But back in the real world...

My family dubbed me the Mad Crocheter last Christmas after watching me crank out a hat in an hour. Sure, they'd known I could crochet -- my grandmothers taught me. But it was only about a year and a half ago that I picked it up again in earnest. And I'm told that I'm fast. Thus, the Mad Crocheter. Kinda like a Mad Scientist, but with less earning potential.

And I am mad for crochet. Sometimes I'll be sitting on the couch with my husband and the cats, him messing with a video game, me crocheting, and out of the blue I'll interrupt the comfortable silence to declare, "I love crocheting!" I love the feel of really nice yarn running through my fingers. I love making something with my own hands. I love doing something that my grandmothers taught me and, though they're both gone now, feeling the connection to them coming down through the years.

But... (isn't there always a but?)...

I AM a mad crocheter. I'm mad that I can't pick up a new crochet hook in my favorite LYS's. I'm mad that Debbie Stoller sold me on Son of Stitch and Bitch by calling it "45 projects to knit and crochet!" when it was more like "41 projects to knit and 4 to crochet!" (Though this is better than what I had actually predicted to my knitting group, which was "42 to knit and 3 to crochet.") I'm mad that there are a zillion wonderful patterns out there for knitters and so few for crocheters! I'm mad that the knitterati write books where they pretend to like crochet so they can get at our money! And most of all, I'm mad that we crocheters are apparently willing to put up with being thought of as second-best!

*deep breath*

Can you tell I spend a lot of time hanging out at the Crochet Liberation Front?

Now that I've got that out, let me say that personally, I've run into very little of the knit prejudice against crochet that's fairly easy to find on the Internet. I'm the only crocheter (so far!) in my weekly knitting group, and the lovely ladies there have never tried to make me feel yarn-inferior. Though frequently when hanging out at the yarn store, knitters often look... puzzled, I guess, as to why I insist on crocheting, especially when they could teach me how to knit in no time.

And the answer is, I love crochet. I truly do. For me it's not just a way to add pretty edging; it's the main course. Call me sentimental, or a creature of habit, or just plain lazy if you want, but there's something about crochet that satisfies my soul, and isn't that why we play with yarn in the first place? Someday I may get bored and take up knitting, but for now, I want to see what I can do with crochet. I think we've barely scratched the surface, and now that I'm on Ravelry and seeing what other crocheters are doing, I'm really excited to see what we can do when we put our heads together. We're more than potholders and ponchos. It's time to share that news.

(And for the lovely ladies in my knitting group, I hope you enjoyed the alternate point of view, and pretty please don't beat me up when I get to the coffee house tonight.)