A Hooker's Lament

NOTE: My friend Julia at AberrantCrochet wrote a blog post today, and my post today is an amalgamation of a reply I posted to her blog post as well as observations I made while planning out my "to do" list for when I attend the NY Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend.

Today I am coming up with my game plan for attending the New York Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend. I'm browsing through the vendors and classes available. Sadly, there are no vendors (other than a rogue vendor who does Croshirret, which I refuse to learn because I have enough fiber related obsessions at the moment), and there is only one crochet related class available. The solitary available class is for freeform crochet, a technique I adore, and the instructor is a lovely lady of whom I am an acquaintance.

Each year that goes by, less and less appeals to me, as a crocheter, at these events. Sure there's the obvious: yarn and fiber. And food. And of course, seeing my friends that come in from out of state for this annual event.

What I see, as a crocheter, going on at NY Sheep and Wool is problematic and inconvenient, and I'm sure I'm not the only crocheter who is frustrated by this.

In general at wool/sheep/fiber festivals, as well as our local yarn shops, I'd say outright there is an OBVIOUS PAUCITY of training/classes available to intermediate-to-advanced crocheters. 

WE are the overlooked majority.  This is not to say I fit the stereotype that persists that crocheters are "cheap," as I have paid people for their time and expertise to either show me how to do a technique or help with comprehending the text in patterns that woefully lack charts for us visual learners. I also have lovely mid-to-high end yarns in my stash, of which some knitters might be jealous.

The modern day reality is that most crocheters are no longer learning these skills from our mothers and grandmothers and aunts. I dare say the majority of us who are learning these techniques are doing so out of a love and interest in the craft, more so than for economic gains/profit, or as a means of tradition or cultural identify (i.e. Irish lace, Turkish Oya, etc).

It's distressing for intermediate-to-advanced skill level folks to be pretty much left no recourse but to hunt down obscure classes, which seem to be more "niche" than norm (subtext: specialized techniques vs broad and basic how-to).

For instance, I want to learn Bruges, Irish Lace,  more specific Tunisian techniques, the finer points of Hairpin and Broomstick Lace.

I know of ONE class in NYC which happens usually on a week night, once a month (I believe at Cooper Union?) for either Tunisian or Broomstick (this doesn't help my cause, unless I want to take a day off to go into the city to accommodate the class time).

I've even looked into the (most local to me) chapters of the International Old Lacers, and even the classes or workshops they offer tend to be more bobbin lace and needle lace, leaving crocheters with nothing that would appeal to us and our chosen textile art.

There comes a point in time where the end user/consumer has to strike a balance: How far is too far to drive, or how much is too much to pay to learn the things we want to learn?   For example, in order for me to learn Tunisian entrelac in the round, I had to drive from downstate NY to Manchester NH to attend a class held at CGOA's Chain Link; I've driven over an hour to NJ and elsewhere to learn other techniques, too.

With the current trend of brick-and-mortar yarn shops closing up due to the economy, it's astounding that they are letting a silent majority, an as-yet-untapped REVENUE STREAM languish, all because of either outright ignorance  or yarn store owners/managers willfully opting to perpetuate 19th century textile biases (for instance, knit lace was desirable and for the wealthy; whereas crochet lace was for the working class and poor) for what amounts to be no other reason than over-inflate the presumed superiority of knit vs crochet. Like Rodney King, I want to scream out, "Can't we all just get along?"

Old habits die hard. Perhaps crocheters have mistakenly gotten the reputation for being "cheap" because crochet had almost always been associated with the poor/working class? That's one theory of mine. But like I said, that's a 19th Century textile bias. Last time I looked, we are now into the 21st Century. Times people change. Circumstances change; however, the loops on the hook do not. They are timeless and beautiful.

If the world could finally accept that Galileo was in fact correct, that the world was not flat; why is it crocheters just can't get a fair shake in the fiber arts community?

Historically, this type of thing has happened before, not just or necessarily with the "textile biases" (which is something more symptomatic of a larger issue: obsolescence, perhaps?). 

Things, cultures, languages, and people all die off. It happened to Esperanto. It happened to the Mayans (though one might argue they didn't disappear into thin air, but assimilated), and it could very well happen to crochet.