I never learned to crochet as a child. My mother taught me how to knit and I knitted a few things for myself such as a legwarmer and scarf set in red, black and blue (quite retro today, I am sure!) and some simple clothes for my dolls. It never really went beyond that and I can’t remember knitting anything after the age of 12. When I became a teenager my older sister learned to crochet and I remember her making granny square after boring granny square. She never finished the blanket and I was sure I would never be interested!
Fast forward about 20 years and somehow I got the idea about 4-5 years ago that I wanted to crochet a hat. I didn’t have any yarn, hooks or skills, but a Japanese friend had a lovely crochet book (in Japanese) and I liked the hat in there, so I got yarn (cotton/silk/something) from Rowan and hook and started my hat following the pictures in the book. They only covered till about round 3, so I continued on my own making it up as I went along. I still have absolutely no idea which stitch I used!
Fast forward another 2 years and I decided I wanted to make another hat… different yarn (Noro), different colours, same technique – I had photocopied the pictures in the Japanese book. I somehow connected to making this hat in a different way and when I finished I decided I was going to learn to crochet. So I got a book (Erika Knight – crochet workshop) and another ball of yarn and set to work. More about this later.
Another year later I wanted to make a hat for my then partner. I got some lovely thick tweedy yarn and started improvising, but, alas, I hadn’t got enough, the yarn shop where I got it was too far away to go back and I couldn’t find it in any of my usual shops online. Hoping one day I would magically find another ball I sidelined the project (later to completely abandon it) and a couple of months later I improvised a classic beanie from very fine alpaca/silk yarn from Drops. It was quite a success and I fully intended to make another one and write down the pattern very soon. It is now almost one year later and I finally finished my first version for myself – and I like it. It’s still cold enough to use it and I am happy to move on from my first 2 hats to this one. Now I need to make a few more to perfect the pattern and I have quite a few variations in mind…. well…. we’ll see when that happens!
© SARAPHIR QAA-RISHI
