Fashion for the female has always had a place in the development of the art of crochet. But crochet has also had a large role in the creation of fashions for the home. For many people who learn to crochet, their first project is not something to adorn their body but something that is more likely to adorn the family room sofa: an afghan.
I have been curious for some time about why an afghan is called an afghan. When I was small with limited knowledge about world citizens and their names, afghan meant a crocheted blanket, not a person from Afghanistan. The etymology of the word never meant much to me one way or the other.
As best I can tell, brightly colored fabric from the country of Afghanistan traveled home throughout the nineteenth century with various UK citizens that spent their time in the East. (Or getting kicked out of the East—check out the Anglo-Afghan Wars I, II, and III.) If you look at Afghani textiles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (coincidentally the time when interest in crochet was picking up steam), you will see large pieces of fabric with repeating motifs, some of which are square, with contrasting colors and textures. And in Europe these pieces were most often used as home decor, no matter what their original purpose was. Shawls and wall hangings doubled as throws, smaller pieces were used as cushion or tray covers; it is no great leap in logic to see an industrious crocheter at the turn of the last century replicating the parts she admired in the imported textile with her hook.
Soon crocheted afghans were all the rage. A clever crocheter could make something unique and lovely without ever having to leave her home country! And the word afghan came to represent any kind of crocheted blanket no matter how it was made or assembled, and people who had never given a thought to the country of Afghanistan wound up with afghans all over their homes.
I have noticed in recent years that many publications now refer to crocheted blankets as throws rather than afghans. I don’t know if the term afghan has become politically incorrect, or if the switch is an attempt to modernize our shared crochet language—afghans turn into throws, granny squares into motifs. But I prefer historical language to hip, so I still make afghans… lots and lots of them, one piece or strip or section at a time.
It amazes me today that so many crocheters make so many afghans—afghan patterns are among the most popular books and downloads. There just can’t be as many naked sofas and beds in the world as there are afghans being made. But then I look at my daughter with her two current favorites, and I get it. Afghans might be acquired during a specific point in your life, even birth! But they go with you from place to place, a little (or a large) marker of an earlier, perhaps simpler time.
When she was very small, my daughter picked out a pattern from a booklet and begged me to make her a ripple afghan in neon colors, with appliquéd lizards and cactus all over it. Of course I did it. In her mind, that blanket conjured up happy memories of a trip we made to Arizona—it was her desert afghan, and she loved it, even though the colors made me (and everyone else who watched me make it) cringe.
Five years later, her tastes are somewhat more refined (thank goodness), and that neon blanket doesn’t match a darn thing in her recently redecorated room. But she won’t take it off her bed. It isn’t that she doesn’t have a more color-coordinated bed cover, or that she really needs the blanket for heat, it’s that it contains not only my love for her in a general way, but a specific set of memories that she treasures. I can see that blanket getting packed for college and then for her first apartment—its worth to her far more important than its utility.
The other afghan she keeps near was made for her by my mother, who spent hours and hours working traditional granny squares like the ones that inspired me to learn to crochet so many years ago. Despite suffering from arthritis in her hands, my mother wanted to make something for my daughter so that her granddaughter would always have some Mom-mom love close to hand when she needed it. When my daughter is sad or injured or sick with a cold, that Mom-mom blanket is never far away. An afghan can be a woolly hug—and who in the world can’t use more hugs?