Crochet Your Way to Mental Health

By Bob Wire, 9-13-09

	Caption: I'm going to make the most badass weightlifting belt anyone's ever seen!

Sometimes it’s all a guy can do to keep from blowing a gasket in this hyped-up, sped-up, messed up modern world. The stress of trying to earn a living in our gut-shot economy, piled on top of the constant worry and emotional roller coaster that come with raising kids, can easily have a guy like me spiraling out of control like a dustbowl tornado spinning towards the nearest liquor store.

What I need is something that will provide some tranquility in my life; something to give me a stress-relief outlet without turning my liver into a charcoal briquette. It’s got to be something creative, something constructive, but not too complicated. Something that will keep my hands and mind occupied, but not a whole new source of leisure-related stress. You’ve probably figured out by now the obvious answer I came up with: crochet.

What’s that you say? Men don’t crochet? Well, I guess that memo never made it to the men who have been spotted going into Loopy, the new yarn store downtown. Opened earlier this month by Cindy Aten and her daughter Gini, Loopy is a haven and a well-stocked resource for those who enjoy crocheting, knitting, tatting, embroidery, and other ways of making toilet paper roll covers.

I have to admit, I first wandered through their doors because I thought Loopy was a new bar. Clever name, I thought. Very existential. Like a strip joint called Naked, or a payday loan shack called Bilk. But this place is an explosion of color, with skeins of yarn of every texture and color imaginable, even some that are not. I slowly walked among the shelves, mouth agape, feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Cindy approached me and enlisted my help in rolling a skein of yarn into a ball. I must have been in some kind of wool-induced trance, because the next thing I knew, I was standing with my hands spread, wrestling with a large coil of yarn while Cindy wound it into a ball on some kind of weird space-age gadget that oscillated and tilted back and forth, forcing the yarn to wind into a perfect sphere.

When I came out of my trance, I found myself sitting in a chair with a crochet hook. Cindy was showing me how to turn a slipknot into a chain stitch, and before I knew it, I was crocheting a growing rectangle of lime green yarn. I suddenly had a yen for a mug of chamomile, and an overpowering urge to read a Nora Roberts novel. “You’re a natural!” Cindy exclaimed. I asked her how difficult it would be to crochet a guitar case, and for some reason she smelled my breath.

“Okay then, I think I’ll scale back,” I said. “How about a hat band?” I showed her my battered straw cowboy hat, which I’d just reshaped by soaking it in a trashcan of water in the backyard. Cindy helped me pick out some reasonably masculine-looking yarn (I think the shade was called “Testosteroni”), along with a corresponding crochet hook.

While we were picking out my gear, my friend Tuire came in. She’s a hockey mom, meaning she’s a mom who plays hockey. “I play a game for a couple hours after work, and then I come home all wired,” she told me. “Knitting helps me wind down. It’s better than reading.” She ran her hand over some dense-looking Merino wool yarn. “Oh, my GOD,” she exclaimed, as if she were climbing into a mink-lined bathtub full of warm tapioca pudding. “YOU HAVE TO FEEL THIS.” I ran my hand over the taupe-colored skein, and couldn’t prevent a soft “ooooooh” from escaping my lips. This stuff was softer than a puppy feather.

Cindy rang up my purchase and told me they plan on giving classes, and maybe hosting some “yarn pettings.” Seriously. Yarn petting might sound like some cryptic entry in the urban sex dictionary, but let me tell you this: once you’ve had your mitts on some primo Merino, you’ll soon be back for more. I’m going to have the sexiest guitar case in town.

[Knit yourself a digital bookmark and put it on NewWest.net/BobWire. Now git!]

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