Saturday, September 5, 2009

What's So Great About Perfect?

I have my DVR set to record anything with the word crochet in it. I’ve gotten some weird shows like the medical mystery show where a woman got a crochet hook stuck in her foot. I do get the occasional Knit and Crochet Today Show which seems very randomly programmed. I like those shows as I have learned some interesting techniques, but most of all that there are numerous ways of doing the same thing in crochet. Things like how you add a new color of yarn.
This time when I checked there were two episodes of a sewing show, both of which were supposed to include something about machine made crochet. I watched both shows and boy did I feel out of touch with the sewing world. I was thrilled when I got a sewing machine that could go in reverse instead of having to turn the fabric around. These women had some kind of plastic tables that sat on their super computerized machines and they used something called a serger that had about four spools of thread.

On the first show, a woman demonstrated how to work with an embroidery pattern on her computer and then send it to her sewing machine. Then suddenly the machine produced this little square that had a little motif in the middle and sort of looked like thread crochet. She used it to decorate the front of her jacket. Her little square was perfect. No wobbly stitches or corners a little off kilter.

In the second show, a woman showed how to use her serger to add a layer of crochet like trim to a towel. She had already done a perfect monogram on the towel before doing the trim. To say the trim looked like thread crochet was a stretch. But the loopy row was perfect just like the monogram.

What struck me about both examples of machine made crochet was they were cold. So they were perfect. Who cares? When you make it by hand there is just something extra that a machine can’t replace.

As an example of hand made versus machine made or nature made, I finally finished my cactus. If I didn’t screw up the picture should follow.

6 comments:

Ellen said...

I'm a bit divided on this one. I work with both hand tools and machines, and am a real fiend for symmetry and order.

May I suggest that there was also art and creativity in those perfect squares-with-motifs? It just happened at the computer, instead of on the fabric.

Betty Hechtman said...

Ellen, yes I would agree that those squares were definitely an art form.

Camille Minichino said...

Nice cactus, Betty. The stitches look knitted. Is it a special crochet stitch or are both knitting and crocheting involved?

[I get a "perfect" crafts piece about once a year!]

Joanna Campbell Slan said...

Betty, that is adorable.

A friend once told me that only God is perfect, that a lot of artisans purposely add a flaw to prove that their work has the human touch.

We just moved into our new home, and I found myself admiring the stain on my white sofa. It's a reminder of the young exchange student we had who dropped grape juice on the piece. To others, it might seem like an imperfection. To me, it is a happy memory of other days when my son was younger.

Linda O. Johnston said...

What a wonderful cactus, Betty! And you taught me something. I didn't know that DVRs can be set to record anything with a particular word in it. If I tell mine to record things with "pet," though, it'll probably blow up with too much stuff.

Betty Hechtman said...

Camille,
It is all crochet with part done in the back loop only.

Joanna,
I have heard that some people purposely put in a flaw. I don't have to worry about adding one since they always show up on their own. Good luck in your new home. It must be a relief to finally be moved.

Linda,
If you entered Pet, your whole disk would probably be filled before the day was up.