Tag: handmade

The Yarn Box

Brenda Stratton

My interest in knitting and crochet as a child became more pronounced as I grew older. By the time I was in my early twenties, I left knitting behind and concentrated solely on crochet.

Before long, my yarn collection outgrew the space I had for it. I needed a dedicated place to keep it. Bags and boxes in a closet didn’t work very well because I couldn’t easily see what I had.

Plastic storage totes weren’t common in the 1970s, so Carl made a yarn box for me from tongue and groove lumber.

We had only been married a few years, so his tool collection hadn’t yet grown to the size it would become later. Working with basic tools, the woodworking skills he had learned in high school shop class, and the tongue and groove lumber, he soon got to work on it.

First, he asked me how I wanted it, and I gave him some suggestions. He drew up the plans and started building it.

Before long, it was finished. He added a coat or two of clear varnish, thoughtfully leaving the wood light in color to match the floors, cabinets and woodwork in our home.

You could compare it in size to a blanket box. At first, it held all of my yarn. But as my collection grew, I began keeping my favorite yarn in it and storing the rest in the basement.

When Dad saw it, he was impressed with the workmanship and told Carl so.

That meant something.

Dad had built and renovated houses, and he knew good work when he saw it.

It sat in our living room for years.

When my crochet design career took off, and my yarn collection exploded, we used it to store the assorted blankets that accumulated in a family of six living in the Midwest, where the winters get very cold.

It was his gift. Thoughtfully conceived and carefully made, it meant more to me than I can say.

He saw my yarn beginning to multiply, and without a word, he went to work and made me a place to keep it. That meant more to me than anything store-bought ever could.

That’s who Carl was. If someone he loved needed something, he quietly found a way to provide it. Sometimes it was a ride into town for one of the kids. Sometimes it was helping me finish supper after work. Sometimes it was a yarn box. Whatever the need, he simply showed up.

Forty years later, when we moved into our current home, we had to decide what we could reasonably bring.

My yarn collection had grown incrementally over the years, so it wouldn’t hold more than a small fraction of the yarn I had accumulated over 30 years of design work.

And, our kids all had homes of their own by this time, so I didn’t really have need of a blanket box.

Over time, the yarn box came to represent Carl himself. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the many quiet ways he took care of us.

I didn’t want to part with it, but there just wasn’t room for it.

Then, a solution presented itself that I could feel good about.

Our daughter, Liz, expressed an interest in it, so it went home with her.

Her father built it, and I know that means something to her.

Many years have passed, but the love continues.

Watching Mom Crochet

Brenda Stratton

Mom was sitting on the end of our black sectional sofa, the one with silver threads running through it, crocheting a doily. It wasn’t the first time I had seen her crochet—but it was the first time I really paid attention.

I sat down beside her to watch.

She was working with dark pink and forest green crochet thread, two of her favorite colors.

I wanted to understand how she formed the stitches that made the doily grow. Her quick hand movements—and the steady progress of the piece—fascinated me.

I watched her for a long time that day. And after that, whenever she sat down to crochet, I often sat beside her to watch.

I couldn’t figure out how she did it, but I wanted to learn.

She didn’t think my seven-year-old hands would be able to manage a tiny steel hook and thread, so she gave me a blue plastic crochet hook and a ball of bright pink yarn.

She taught me how to make a chain stitch. I used up most of that yarn making one very long chain.

She tried to show me how to turn those chains into something more, but I lost interest before I had much success. It would be years before I picked it up again.

Later, when I was about eleven, a friend taught me to knit in garter stitch. I made a lot of knitted headbands that year.

In my late teens, I picked knitting up again for a while—but I was never completely comfortable working with two needles.

It felt awkward.

That’s when I turned back to crochet.

I taught myself the basic stitches from a book and quickly realized that working with a single hook felt far more natural.

As I became more invested, I learned advanced techniques and began making hats, baby blankets, purses, mittens—even rugs.

Before long, I realized I could look at a finished piece and write a pattern from it.

That led to designing my own patterns.

Eventually, I became confident enough to submit them for publication.

The first few were turned down, but I was determined. Each rejection taught me something. I studied my work, paid attention to what publishers were accepting, and adjusted.

Before long, more and more of what I submitted was accepted.

That was the beginning of what became a decades-long career in crochet design.

Rose Garden, a doily I designed many years later. Mom would have loved this one.

In 2004, that path led me to accept an editorial position with a Midwest craft publishing company, where I worked for several years before retiring.

I have long since lost track of that first ball of bright pink yarn—but I still have the blue plastic crochet hook Mom gave me.

Over the years, I’ve collected many hooks—favorites I reach for again and again—but none of them compare to that simple blue plastic one.

That one holds the memories.

Memories of sitting beside Mom as she worked with a tiny steel hook, creating what felt like magic out of thin air.

I’ve often told people that Mom taught me to crochet, because she was the first to put a hook in my hands.

She always gently corrected me, saying it was the other way around—that I taught her by passing along what I had learned.

Either way, she was my inspiration in crochet—and in so many other things in life.

And to think… it all started with watching Mom crochet.