Finding Comfort in a Crochet Needle: How I've Kept My Sanity

I’ve been involved with the fiber arts since before I was five, when I started tying hemp jewelry macrame style to sell at music festivals. In middle school I had a short stint with knitting but found the needles to be extremely restricting so I never moved beyond scarves. I found crochet just before the first Anarchaforko, much to John’s dismay who was horrified that I took up a new time consuming hobby when I was at literally the most busy I had ever been in my life.

What he didn’t get until later was that it was my way of coping with the fact that I was extremely busy. Everything I was doing was either for the house, the farm or the fork and there was virtually no time for leisure or myself. So I made it happen when I started crocheting. It was a way to keep my hands busy when thinking, a way to calm myself down when having anxiety because it was something I could while sitting still that was still productive.

I basically quit crochet this year when planning for the fork happened and went all in. I was kept busy with things like designing the Anarchaforko website from scratch. I was in my free time looking at crochet patterns on Pinterest, never doing any of them because I just didn’t have the time. I was determined to make the fork happen.

Then the murder happened and Anarchaforko died. With it basically all of the responsibility I held before save for the task of keeping myself out of the grasp of government and possibly cartel. I was advised to go into hiding and the first thing I said was “I’m gonna need some yarn”.

By some chance the person I happened to have been staying with for that day had a getting started crochet kit for a friend who had left Acapulco that I had given to him months before. I ended up stopping for more yarn and honestly especially in the first two weeks that’s what kept me sane. I don’t even remember what all I made but I remember I had hook and yarn in my hand constantly. Anyone who saw me after Anarchapulco often saw me working on something, like the purse I made with like 10 custom pockets.

It was my way of staying productive in a time where I really couldn’t do much of anything. Most of my attention was to planning things like traveling to see my lawyer or going out to see friends in random locations, always looking over my shoulder. I had to consider things like how to park the car in a way where I could escape easily from cops or how to escape a house upon entering if things go wrong. Those were the things on my mind so I honestly needed a way to stay sane.

If there’s one thing I’ve heard repeatedly from those that care about me especially recently is that I am handling things too well. They’re right. In a lot of ways I’m still having issues with things like so anxiety so crochet still plays a pretty constant role in my days. I’m 1/3 of the way through a king sized blanket if that tells you anything. I’ve also made a poncho, vest, shirt, shawl…..you get the idea.

At the end of the day everyone’s got their coping mechanisms. Some turn to drugs, some to food, I’ve instead turned to the crochet needle, or many for that matter. I’ve purchased a few wooden ones even and intend to start experimenting with borosilicate glass crochet hooks.

At the end of the day it kept me productive when I couldn’t do anything. Now its more something I do in my free time, less something I do to get by. The hours I’ve spent sitting and crocheting have allowed me to really stew over what I’ve been through.

So if you’ve seen my crochet work or even seen me working, now you know why. Thanks for reading.

This was originally posted at highlyfunctionalgrowth.com.