The Making of "The Gift"

Click here for "On this Day", which contains the gift.

You know…
I’m of the school of thought that everything begins with WORDS.

Words give birth to thoughts, and eventually thoughts produce action, and actions produce the direction in which one’s life goes, and-

Uh, flip the record… this isn’t a “food for thought” post…
But this is a post about the creation of the “Tay.ar.i” afghan.

So...

Back in August of this year, me and Cowgirl Cre were chilling in the cubicle area…

“Cre, you remember that blanket I made for Carter [a girlfriend of mine] a few years ago?”
She frowned. "The one with all them damn squares?”
“Yeah, that one. I’ma make that for Tayari’s birthday.”
Cowgirl raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, I got enough time. Her birthday is on November 30th.
Cowgirl Cre shook her head. “Girl…”
“I can do it, teacher!”
"Girl... that there is more than a notion!"

Now, I guess I gotta go back and explain some things…

Cowgirl Cre taught me how to crochet back in 1999. She’s been crocheting since she was 10, I believe. I was living in New Orleans at the time, and would drive or fly up to Atlanta to visit. I happened to be staying with her and her man Timmy-Tim that weekend, and we were sitting around drinking and half watching TV at two o’clock in the morning when…

I noticed a small multicolored ball of yarn on the floor.

Now, I am not sure if it was there all the time, if I was drunk and happen to see it, or if it rolled out from somewhere. I think that she move a bag and it rolled out. It was attached to something crocheted

I DO remember pointing and saying… “Hey! Teach me how to do that!”
And we spent an hour or so working on it. She broke down how to roll my skeins of yarn into balls. She showed me how to start, and got me started on a bootleg blanket. People who know me well know that I am EASILY frustrated, and she handled my impatience well…

“No Lee, let me show you again,” she’d say, as she take the yarn and needle from my hand.

Let’s just say, I got it. She went to bed, and I fell asleep working on it.

I woke up, and continued working on it. I had a small monstrosity of a blanket started, measuring approximately 1 square foot by the time she woke up.

“Go on, girl,” Cre said.

**Lee cheesing hard like Celie**
I think I went back to New Orleans, bought more yarn, and just kept working at it. Then I started doing something crazy: I ran up on some crochet books and started
reading. One excellent book was Crocheting in Plain English. I must've read that book at least three time, LOL.

So let’s just say, whenever I saw Cowgirl Cre, I would verbally assaulted with my newfound knowledge..

“You know, Cre, I was reading this book, and it said BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.”

“Cre, I read this book that was really interesting. You want to read it?”

And the kicker…

“Cre, the way you showed me how to do the corners was all wrong. I read we suppose to do a chain 3 followed by the three double crochet group, and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.”

Cre never fretted. She'd just shrug her shoulders. (Something like that would have pissed me off!)

Her reply was always the same, no matter what I said:

“I don’t care, Lee.”

I didn’t understand why she didn’t care. I was learning so much. Why didn’t she care?

“Look,” she said. “You have a Ph.D. I have a Masters degree. You have to go read and research and all of that. Me… I really don’t care. And that’s the difference between the two.”

All I could do is nod and accept it. There was no discussing it in depth with her.

Afterall, she crocheted for enjoyment. I think getting all “scientific” about it would, uh, kill her joy very fast.

Anyway, over the years, we have crocheted together. And I must admit, those have been some of my most memorable good times. And we get much done when we do that.

So back to the present. Last August I was excited.

“I’m going to make that blanket for Tayari!”

Cowgirl Cre just shook her head.

Now, to understand why, let me fill you in on the blanket itself.

I have around 40 to 50 pattern books, and the blanket I made is from a book called Granny Delites. The actual name of the afghan is "Colorful Granny", and it is shown below.




This is what's called a "scrap" blanket, as it is made using the scrap yarn laying around.

I HATE SCRAP blankets...

One word: TACKY!!!


TACKY TACKY TACKY TACKY TACKY TACKY!!!!


Scrap blankets are some straight ugliness. Tacky to death. Of course they match everything, but, I don't know... I don't really see the point... just throw the spare yarn away. Or be bootleg like me: take the unused yarn, if you haven't broken the packaging, and take it back to Wal-mart and cash it all in! I do this once a year, and get back up to 60 bucks...
Otherwise, throw it out!!

I thought the blanket was tacky, but with the right color combinations, it would look good. I made it a few years ago for my friend Carter... She looked through my books and picked that particular one for me to make. We went to Wal.mart, and she picked out some strange colors- tan, country blue, and some other weird creamcolor- it was bizarre, but it came out nice... And she loved it.

But I had other plans for the Granny I would make for Tayari...


stay tuned...