Freestyle Craftiness

Lavonne was an unremarkable person, in appearance. Neat and organized, she looked exactly like the reference library desk and surrounding encyclopedias that formed her workplace domain. She had a maternal face that had probably never worn any makeup and long brown hair that had never been tinted or bleached. Her smile was her most visible adornment, and she made me feel good to be there in my otherwise routine job as reference library assistant.

Lavonne lived alone in an old Victorian house that had long ago been portioned into apartments. She loved to entertain, and one memorable weekend we were all invited—the eight of us who worked with her at the university library—to come over for tea and dessert. I brought some cookies, which turned out to be unnecessary since Lavonne was a cupcake queen and had already set out several varieties of beautifully frosted and decorated little cakes on her antique sideboard.

But first, the tour. Lavonne knew that once we set foot inside the high-ceilinged old painted lady, we would want to poke around the various levels, the antique-laden kitchen, and the small warren of interlocking rooms. I found myself noticing the many needlepoint pillows and throw blankets casually decorating the armchairs and couches. They were unusual, jewel-like textiles with inventive color patterns. By the time we entered Lavonne’s bedroom, with both bed and loveseat covered with afghans, I knew that Lavonne had another life as the creator of these vibrant textiles.

“I am a crocheting maniac,” she confessed, laughing. But it wasn’t only that she made so many of them or that they were so beautiful. What was remarkable about these crocheted masterpieces was that they followed nothing that could be called a set pattern. “I just make it up as I go,” she said, offering me an afghan to hold.

My hands and eyes said “wow” at the same time. The crocheted fabric was made up entirely of free-form spirals; whorls, huge circular shapes that attached themselves to other, smaller offshoots. Each yarn segment had been allowed to go its own way, and then a new color of yarn would be attached and allowed to fill in and on and on until a bed- or couch-sized art nouveau creation had emerged.

I, who had groped my way through the culturally prescribed handcrafts and even managed to finish a few wearable rectangular scarves, had never encountered anything so astonishing, imaginative, and original. Freestyle crochet. She hadn’t asked anyone’s permission. She had just started doing it. Lavonne pointed to a small section of blue. “I started crocheting here and when I ran out of that yarn, I attached another color and began working it in a different stitch. Eventually the piece just grew into the size I wanted.” With each new attempt, she got better at attaching the sections in ever more appealing and clever ways. Indeed, the more recent afghans had advanced into wildly intricate three-dimensional shapes curving around each other and gliding off into brilliantly hued digressions. Lavonne had invented an entire genre of making something by hand, weaving entire new worlds with only odd pieces of yarn and a number 10 crochet hook. I felt like I’d downed two glasses of champagne—fast.

I mentally tore up every rulebook I’d ever owned after that afternoon at Lavonne’s. I began to dig into the world of the made-by-hand with new relish. If crocheting could, in the right hands, become an adventure sport, so could anything I might do or make. That was a rule I decided would fit nicely into whatever I did next: the rule that you don’t require rules. You can learn from others, but you don’t have to follow them exactly to the letter. Handcrafts would never be the same! Color possibilities grew brighter from that day on.

“Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through.”

—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass