The Adventures of Happy Cow: Crocheting

My Mom taught me to crochet when I was eight and oh boy...the chains I made! I made enough chains to circle the Earth...or at the very least the living room. My first real project was an afghan when I was pregnant with my oldest. Counting by sevens must have thrown me because what should have been a rectangular afghan turned out trapezoidal. Oops. Nonetheless, I stuck with it.

Maybe it's the repetition, the counting...I don't really know what it is but it's calming. With all the kids and dogs I have, I need a LOT of calming. One winter I made sixty hats. Sixty...that's a lot of hats. Below you see a co-worker who everyone jokingly called "Evil-Ann". I made her this.

This hat was such a hit and so incredibly easy I started making more novelty hats. Frogs, cats, dogs, vikings...ninja turtles. It was fun making them and surprising people. But then some of my friends started taking orders for me. (Trying to be helpful of course.) I don't recall how many hats I made that year, it's kind of a blur. Fifteen dollars per hat. Fast and easy money, right? Wrong. I quickly learned I couldn't take the pressure. I started feeling like Monica, from Friends, with the Christmas Candy! I thought about starting my own old lady sweat shop. Surely some of the residents knew how to crochet...they could make the basic hat for me and I could add on the embellishments...give them something to do, help me fill the orders...it's a win, win! Yes!! Alas, I couldn't do it. Unless I wanted to wear the above devil hat all the time. I've since cut back on the orders I'll take.

My work of late is all charitable. As part of my yoga teacher training I have to practice Karma Yoga. This means I have to spend thirty hours doing something for the good of mankind. Not for myself. What better way to spread good Karma than to make hats for sick children? Now that's a win-win. Here's a sampling of my work.