Life With haRVey: My Teacher's Teacher

Learning to crochet with my teacher right next to me - Alyssa, not Dexter.

My daughter writes:
When Gramma was teaching me to crochet, my goal wasn't to learn how to crochet. That was secondary. The real draw of learning to crochet for me was that I got to spend time with Gramma. Plus, Gramma crocheted, and Gramma was (and continues to be) awesome. Therefore, it only stood to reason that because Gramma crocheted, crocheting was also awesome.

At first, I really wasn't into crocheting. It took awhile for the awesomeness of crocheting to dawn on me. However, I was fascinated by the stories that Gramma told me while we were working and I adored that she was right there if I ran into a problem. She helped me navigate all of the loops and confusing strands of the work, and showed me exactly how to use my crochet hook to pull the yarn through it all. Sometimes she would look at my work with a frown between her eyebrows and an, "Oh dear," on her lips.

But I knew it was going to be all right because the "oh dear," was always followed by, "Let's see what we can make of this." She'd take the work from me and, somehow, in her skilled and weathered hands, calloused by pens and crochet hooks, paint brushes and cooking utensils, the "oh dear" I had somehow made righted itself with a tug and gentle explanation. There was no reprimand or condemnation, just a settling of the work back into my hands and her face close to mine as she quietly corrected my error.

Gramma taught me more than how to crochet. She taught me that even if you make a mistake, it's okay. You pause and consider without condemnation, just observing to "see what we can make of it." And then you go back and pull out the mistake and continue on with the work. Even if you don't catch a mistake right away and a single crochet ends up in place of a half-double, it's okay, because it'll all even out in the end and what seems catastrophic at the time isn't if given enough space to breathe.

The first thing I ever crocheted was a bright yellow dishcloth to match the curtains in Gramma's kitchen. It was lumpy and uneven and didn't look a thing like it did in the book. But Gramma told me that it was the most beautiful dishcloth she had ever seen, and that often, it doesn't come out looking like it does in the book because no one crochets in exactly the same way. And that's exactly how it should be because that's how it is; that's how all the stitches fit together in the work.

When I crochet now, twenty years later, I still spend time with Gramma, and if I make a mistake I can still hear her telling me that it's okay, to just "see what we can make of it." The result is always beautiful and often, in the right Light, it's even better than what I was expecting.