Saturday, January 05, 2008

Woolly goings on

The crochet revolution is upon us. I'm fairly sure that none of the boys travelling to Canada to spend their winter in a ski resort suspected that they'd be spending it crocheting like maniacs; in fact, when we first moved into our house and Andrew sat on our sofa crocheting his latest beanie, I seem to remember we all laughed at him. However, when said beanie (or toque, which is pronounced toook) was finished, it seemed less funny. Impressive, in fact. Gravy - with his certified beanie addiction - asked him to teach him how to do it and within hours he was hooked*. Chris followed suit and Zander, despite being initially scathing about the prospect, fell into line not long after. Now you literally can't walk anywhere in the Beaver without tripping over balls of wool and getting crochet needles stuck in your socks. We are practically drowning in beanies and Gravy could probably wear a different one every day of the month without repeating himself. In what I consider a stroke of genius, Zander's first beanie has 'Beaver St Massiv' woven into the band.

At the moment we have 2 English guys sleeping on our couches - JK and Matt - who I fully expected to laugh at the boys' sissy ways; instead they confessed that they were both knitters and a crochet/knit-off has now begun.


Personally, I'm delighted by the whole thing. Though I have not yet taken the plunge myself - far too impatient for that kind of nonsense - I could watch the others crochet for hours; I find it highly relaxing. Plus I have benefitted from the revolution with a lovely black & white beanie that Zander made for me, gawd bless his cottons. Only after I tried to steal one of his other toques I'd taken a fancy to, but still. Please observe and admire his handiwork.

In other news, I went to the Employee of the Week dinner the other night. I've got (yet another) horrible virus** - swollen glands, achy muscles, fluctuating
temperature - which put a bit of a downer on it but I dosed myself up with ibuprofen and managed to last through the delicious buffet and until the chocolate fountain, which was pretty good going I thought. When a couple of the managers got up to talk about each of the winners in turn and started going on about some girl who had done amazing things and gone out of her way to make the guests happy, it took me quite some time to realise they were talking about me! I got a trail sign with my name on it and a really lovely turquoise mohair cardigan as a prize. Then I hitched a lift with one of our big bosses back into town to collapse into bed, leaving the others to take advantage of my free drinks...

*see what I did there?
**what is it about this bloody country that makes me ill all the time?

3 comments:

Jenny said...

I want to learn to crochet. Or should I say re-learn. I used to do it as a child (amongst all the other makey-crafty things) but have completely forgotten how to. Maybe if I came to Canada I could learn to both ski and crochet??

On another point, I'm sure your mohair cardi prize looks lovely, but your not actually going to WEAR it are you (oooh, itchy, scratchy!) ??

Mia said...

I could teach you to ski (with a little help from my friends the instructors) but I'll leave the crochet lessons to the boys.

As for the cardi, fortunately it's only about 10% mohair so as long as I wear it over something long sleeved and have the neck open, it'll be okay I reckon!

Anonymous said...

Well done for being employee of the week!!! Can you get the boys to make me a new hat please?!! Toni xx