An Afghan Story

Once upon a time there was a person who had just learned to crochet.  She wasn’t very good at it.  She pulled the loops through with her fingers instead of using the crochet hook, creating nasty blisters on her fingers.   But the crocheter enjoyed her new hobby.

Well, one day the crocheter didn’t know what to make.  She had already made several amigurumis (using US double crochets, she hadn’t learned that the stuffing would poke through).  So she asked her mother, who had learned to crochet before her, and had encouraged her to learn.

“What do you think I should crochet?” she asked her mother.

“I think that you should start making an afghan,” replied her mother.  The crocheter was taken aback.  She didn’t think she had enough patience to finish an afghan like her mother did.  “A granny square afghan.  You can make a bunch of granny squares, and then do another round when you’re done and join-as-you-go.”

“But I don’t know how to join-as-you-go,” said the crocheter.

“I’ll show you!”

So the crocheter started her afghan – the beginning of a very long process.  You see, this crocheter dearly loved to crochet, but she didn’t have the most patience.  It was much easier to give up on something halfway through than to stick with it until the end.  But she was also very determined to finish this afghan.

Around ten pink granny squares later, the crocheter grew – you guessed it – bored.  She was tired of three-double-crochet clusters and chain-spaces.  And she was especially tired of weaving in ends!  So the afghan was put aside for a month or so.

Then, seeing her mother’s beautiful afghans, she was re-inspired.  “I’ll finish it this time,” thought the crocheter.  “I’ll finish it this week!”  But she got put off by the slowness with which the afghan seemed to go.  So once again the afghan was put someplace else, and the crocheter moved onto other projects.

After many repetitions of the above process, the crocheter had made 18 granny squares.  She laid them all out and realized something: to make a large afghan like her mother’s, she was going to need more granny squares.  A LOT more.  So the crocheter decided to turn the afghan into a pillow.

As she was joining the squares into blocks of 9 (3 x 3 squares), her mother came in.  She encouraged the crocheter to keep going with the afghan, because if she didn’t, she would regret it someday.  As Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”  So the crocheter sighed and began to make more granny squares.  (Her plan was to make a 20 granny square center with lots of granny edging.)

Lots of granny edging!  The crocheter finished the afghan in a crocheting marathon, snipping the final end with a satisfied sigh.  The afghan was washed, dried, and proudly displayed over the shoulders of its maker.  (It wasn’t really a full-size afghan…more of a lap-ghan.)

The crocheter took a picture of it and emailed it to her friends.  She thought, “I am NEVER going to do that again!”

But a while later, the crocheter was checking out patterns online.  She saw this.  And she went digging for scrap yarn and her size I crochet hook to make one herself.

Later, the crocheter created a blog.  She’d always wanted one to publish her crochet patterns on.  But she was very particular about not revealing personal information.  So she wouldn’t tell her name or age, going only by ‘The Cogaroo’.

P.S.  If you want to check her blog out, you can click here.  : )