Crocheted Cuteness and Friendship Symbiosis

I enjoy crocheting (and to a lesser extent knitting and sewing), but I have a difficult time maintaining enthusiasm for projects that drag on and on. So I make baby clothes. And hats. And dishcloths. And blender scarves. Those all give me something productive to do while I’m watching movies (because heaven forbid I just sit down and watch a movie) but don’t take so long to complete that I’ve got to watch all three Lord of the Rings films plus the entire Harry Potter series before I’m done.

Here’s my latest completed project. Like the sweater I finished in August, this one is from Easy to Crochet Cute Clothes for Kids by Sue Whiting:

This particular sweater took me through A Single Man (twice), Inglourious Basterds, The Lightning Thief, 2,000 Miles to Maine (about Appalachian Trail thru-hikers), and the David Rakoff memorial shows on “Fresh Air” and “This American Life.“* I actually don’t crochet that slowly, but I screwed up one sleeve three times and had to keep unraveling it and crocheting it again. The subtitles on Inglourious Basterds also slowed me down a little. (I find it challenging to read and crochet at the same time.)

This little sweater is for the in utero daughter of a friend in California. I am pleased to announce that she was thrilled to receive it. Unbeknownst to me (until yesterday), she loves getting hand-made sweaters for her kids. Turns out our friendship is symbiotic.

When it came time to wrap and mail this gift, I even went all-out and hemmed the edges of a piece of flannel to make a furoshiki fabric gift wrap that would double as a receiving blanket.

Yeah, it looks kind of like a diaper, but I folded it that way so I’d have a little pouch to put the card into. I got the idea from the book Wrapagami by Jennifer Playford, and it seemed fitting to use Japanese gift wrapping techniques because this is the friend who taught me how to make onigiri and to roll sushi.

Frankly, it all came together so swimmingly, I’m not entirely convinced it was me who did it all. I hope I haven’t spent all of my homemaker capital, though; I still have a kangaroo costume and a lion costume to sew for my kids for Halloween.

*I highly, highly recommend these memorial shows. I love David Rakoff’s writing and his work on “This American Life.” I’m a little surprised at how emotional I am at his passing. I blogged a review of his book Half Empty a while back, if you’re interested in checking that out. It appears that I’ve actually mentioned him in five blog posts, not including my 2010 “Year in Books.” You can find them here, I think, if the link works like I think it should.