Slugs not drugs

Getting hooked on crochet, which feels like meditation and medication

I used to think that my friend Nat was being a bit extra (as they say now, rather than over-the-top) with the amount of hand-crafted things she made for other people’s children. She always seemed to be crocheting a cardigan for a new-born or making jumpers for toddlers. I’d listen to my brilliant friend - truly, whatever she does, she smashes it out of the park; she is arty AND science-y, an increasingly high-flying emergency doctor who can spin wool, knit Fair Isle and make architecturally ambitious star bakes... telling me about the yarn-based projects that she had lined up, and think: chill out, babe. People already love you, you don’t need to festoon their offspring with self-made woollens. I told her this recently, not to be a bitch, but because I had seen the light, wanted to atone for my inner judginess and tell her that the crochet obsession in me honoured the crochet obsession in her.

It turns out that if you get hooked (boom boom!), all you want to do is crochet. And that there really is a limit to how many crocheted items any woman needs, or at least can fit into a modestly-sized flat. After I finally learned to crochet last year, after a few false and tangled starts (

Katy Wheatley

’s recent post, which touches on crochet rage, brought back memories of these difficult times), under the tutelage of my wonderful, patient friend Charlie-the-artist, I made a weird blanket, a snood that can stand up on its own, a bunch of granny squares and the world’s largest cardigan. I managed to complete a so-called beginners amigurumi kit (amigurumi is the Japanese craft of creating small, crocheted or knitted, stuffed figures resembling animals or other creatures. Note here the word small, which also, in my book, means fiddly) my stepdaughter bought me for Christmas, despite it coming with only a scant list of letters and numbers as instructions. I realised that crocheting soothed my brain when I was on my own, and when I was with other people, particularly in situations where things could get tense (cough, family, cough), having a hook and yarn meant I could legitimately avoid eye contact but still be sufficiently present to not draw attention to myself.

A Christmas miracle: I made this and at no point threw the whole lot out of the window

I made myself this scarf in one colour, then another, with chunkier wool. Then I made one for a friend, because it dawned on me that I only own one neck. This was the aha moment, the epiphany that made me see that Nat wasn’t giving away crocheted gifts just from the goodness of her heart - she was in fact a raddled addict desperate to get her next fix of a new crochet project. Now *that* I understood. As well as offering to make more scarves, I decided to cut my cloth - well, adjust my wool - and start using thinner yarn and smaller hooks. I made a bunch of tiny flowers but they didn’t feel very on brand. I’m lusting after this pattern for a lifelike octopus, but I’m not allowed to do that until the end of this academic year. And I probably need to find a child to give it to once it’s done.

I only have one neck, but I still made three scarves in a single winter

So rather than tackling the kraken when I should be doing coursework, I’ve been making slugs. I’ve been following a lovely little free pattern, created and shared by @loumarmit on Instagram. It helps me practise my counting, or at least practice keeping a tally of stitches on paper. It’s only in recent years that I’ve come clean about being absolutely horrible at counting, after I was a steward at a winter-swimming gala and made one poor contestant do extra lengths in 3-degree water because I can’t count. You have to do counting in crochet, and I’m leaning in while also writing down.

I now try to have a bag of yarn, hooks and scissors about my person at all times in case I have to sit through something stressful or boring and need to not run away or cause mischief. It works a lot better than drinking three bottles of wine, which was my old coping strategy, which very much did not guarantee a dearth of mischief. This week, though, disaster! (Mild peril). I failed to pack a hook on a visit home and, of course, all I could think about was crocheting and couldn’t get anywhere to buy what I needed. Surely there was something in the many drawers of my dad’s house that I could fashion into a crochet hook. And surely other people had found themselves hookless and had improvised. The internet showed me that this indeed was a rich seam of creative problem solving, and After a rummage, my options were: some very bendy wire, a knock-off Nintendo DS stylus or a chopstick. I did manage some crochets with the stylus, but in the end, my little brother unearthed a file and we gave the chopstick a glow-up. The delight with which I created a slug using it is off the scale.

In a burning world where it feels like everything is getting worse, making a DIY crochet hook is of embarrassingly little import. But I will make a case, in a very small voice, for the value in finding ways to self-soothe that don’t damage ourselves or others. When I make something with wool, when I embroider or needle felt, I think about the fear, sadness and rage that must have been experienced by countless other women through history, as they worked with fibre. The self-regulating that happens when you’re working on something repetitive and outside of yourself. I have the freedom to choose to make, choose what to make and when to make it, which is a monumental luxury most of my foremothers almost certainly lacked. But I do think about the potential soothing, or even anaesthetising effect of working with textiles (appropriately, crochet-pal Nat’s specialism is anaesthetic) may have brought them. I imagine how it might have brought scraps of comfort or protection to people. I recently read about this post on the effects of knitting on the parasympathetic nervous system, dopamine production, how it can lead to being in a flow state and reduce stress and high blood pressure. It struck so many chords with me, and explains the comfort I feel when using yarn rather than alcohol or drugs to change the way I feel.

I don’t currently use crochet in my artistic practice, but that’s not because of a hierarchy of worth (techniques that are seen to be “crafts” can get looked down upon in a fine-art setting). It’s because it’s so precious - I need this as a tool for when I’m not working. This is my medicine and my meditation, my acceptable addiction. Slugs not drugs. And if you’re in the market for a wool gastropod, I’m sure I could hook you up.

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I am the bearer of sad news. My beloved, albeit curmudgeonly, tortoise Nimrod has gone to the great big dandelion patch in the sky. I’d thought we were going to get old together, so I’ve been grieving his passing. There was a small ceremony of memorial, and he’s now buried under the new hedge. I’ve written about him here and here, and although he was in many ways unknowable, he was my companion through 15 years of highs and lows. Go well, my love.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

(Laurence Binyon)