Friday, November 22, 2013

Yarn on the Go



Somehow when I was a kid I didn’t have much of a sense of wonder. Everything was just sort of there. But I seem to be making up for now and and am amazed by a lot of things. Even with all the times I’ve flown, it still seems magical that I can get on a plane in L.A. read a magazine and crochet for a while and then get off the plane in a totally different place. I think mail is amazing too. Maybe not junk mail, but a real letter or in the old days a manuscript I hoped somebody would want to publish. The letter or manuscript would go from the confines of my head and carry my thoughts out into the world all the way to somebody else’s house or office.

I think crochet is fantastic. I can take a couple of skeins of yarn and turn them into a piece of something. Not only that, but I create peace and relaxation for myself. I like to think that whatever I make has some special vibrations put into them by me.

My characters in the crochet series are always crocheting shawls for a shelter or blankets for cops to carry with them to give to innocent kids caught in the middle of bad situations. So when I heard about a woman on a crochet list that I’m on who’d committed to making 30 lapghans and was over her head and needed help making them, I offered to make one.

I’d never made a lapghan and the only requirements were that it be 36 inches square. I came up with my own pattern which was really a giant granny square. All the while I was making it, I was thinking about who was going to get it. I had nothing but good feelings as I did the stitches and hoped that somehow those feelings would get imbedded in the yarn and go with the lapghan.

It’s finished now and ready to be mailed. It will leave Los Angeles and go somewhere in Indiana, probably by plane with the next stop a nursing home. Maybe it seems silly, but I can’t stop thinking how wonderful it is that something I had such pleasure in making is going out into the world and ending up on somebody’s lap to keep them warm. I hope it makes them smile. I tried adding a photo of the lapghan, but it wouldn't upload. I'll try again a little later.

4 comments:

Planner said...

Congrats on making your first lapghan and for the gift of warmth and pleasure you are giving someone. You're making the woman who committed to contributing 30 lapghans happy, too.

Your being able to post your story on the Internet is magical as well!

Betty Hechtman said...

Planner, unforunately the picture still won't upload.

Linda O. Johnston said...

It's so wonderful, Betty, that you can be creative in so many ways--and not only that, but you both entertain, and help, people with what you create!

Betty Hechtman said...

Thank you, Linda. I still can't get the photo to upload. I must be doing something wrong.