An Afghan to Warm the Heart

Mom loved to knit, and taught me how when I was young, just as she taught me how to sew and cook. When she retired, she surprised me and taught herself how to crochet.

It seemed strange - my mother knew a craft which she hadn't taught me. But it was great, she gave me all of her knitting things - needles and pattern books. I was worried she'd want them back one day, but she assured me she would never go back to knitting. "Knitting's too slow," she'd say. "Don't you want to learn how to crochet?" But I was content to have all of those new knitting needles to work with.

So, while I was knitting "Barbie-sized" doll clothes for nieces, Mom was crocheting afghans and sweaters. The funny thing is, for almost every project my mother made, she always asked me to add some finishing touches to it. If she made a sweater, she'd give me the buttons to sew on. When she made afghans, I'd cross-stitch the designs on them, and I was the one who would apply the stitched faces on the teddy bears. That's the way it was, and I got used to it.

Unfortunately, when my mother started on chemotherapy treatments, one of the side effects she seemed to experience, was a lack of concentration. This affected one of the things she enjoyed most - crocheting. She told me she had started to make an afghan for me, but she knew she wouldn't finish it. In fact, when she passed away, there were four panels done and one to go. My choice was to find someone who could finish it for me, or learn how to crochet myself. I didn’t want to entrust this task with anyone else, so there I was, faced with my last challenge from Mom: learn a new craft - without her guidance - and then finish one more project that she had started.

She couldn't have made it any easier for me, though, than if she had been there herself to show me how. With crochet hooks in every size you can imagine, a supply of yarn in all kinds of colors, and a huge box of pattern books, which of course included a great instructional book on how to crochet (probably the one she used to teach herself), I was armed with everything I could possibly need to master the craft.

My first crocheting project was a dinosaur for my son. I figured, how badly can you mess up a stuffed animal? It came out pretty cool and my son was happy with his new "stuffie." And, Mom was right, it was quicker to crochet than to knit. It was so quick, I got carried away. For almost a year I made stuffed animals, dolls with clothes and girl's purses (my friends had daughters, even if I didn't), hand puppets, finger puppets, baby booties, afghans, mittens and scarves, and anything else you could think of. If you could crochet it with yarn, I did.

After mastering yarn projects, I still felt I needed to perfect my new found craft before I could attempt the afghan, so I upgraded my craft to include crocheting with threads. I started weaving more intricate pieces; doilies and table runners. Working with the smaller needles and finer threads increased the dexterity in my fingers - and I know this for a fact, because my keying rates increased considerably at work.

Finally, I knew I was ready. After a year of crocheting anything and everything, I knew it was time to complete the afghan which my mother had started. So, out came the box that had been packed away in the attic, and before long, the one remaining panel was finished and stitched in place. It was so easy, I almost felt cheated, after all, I had prepared for a marathon and all I got was a little jog around the block. But that afghan, crocheted mother-to-daughter, will always have more value than just something to warm my lap with, for it was created in love and warms my heart.

*This essay was previously published in the "My View" column of The Buffalo News on December 2, 2003.

Story ID:	64
Written by:	Edie Suarez (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Basics2Bylines - A WNY Writers' Network
Story type:	Story
Location:	Lancaster NY United States
Year:	2003
Person:	Edie (Koch) Suarez