You’re a Millennial Crocheter? Come Back in 30 Years.

crochet

Nobody Likes You If You’re 23, and Especially Not if You’re a Millennial Crocheter.

Remember how I complained last time about how I’m hanging around in the wrong demographic? Yeah, not only do I crochet instead of knit, but I’m a Millennial crocheter, which means according to Google I don’t exist, which means I don’t exist.

I usually don’t notice these things until I start getting hit with advertising that’s laughably irrelevant to me. (Which is actually a nice change of pace from Google’s depressingly accurate advertising).

There I am, browsing for patterns for a baby piece I wanted to make, when I get an offer for one free issue of a crochet pattern magazine. Why not? I don’t know what to do with all this yarn anyway. When it arrives in the mail, the cover features an adorable colored thread doily. Into my lap falls some tear out advertisements for… a tiffany-style stained glass Eeyore hurricane lamp. And a porcelain wind-up musical baby deer that assures me will make “an en-deer-ing gift for your granddaughter!” From somewhere within this phantasmagoria of nick-knack hell, some indignant part of my subconscious not disabled by horror said, “Granddaughter? Why do they think I have a granddaughter??” Below, see the actual lamp:

Millenial crocheter
gaze into your nightmares.

This is the first time I realized that my favorite hobby may not be marketed to my age group. This had somehow not occurred to me at any point prior to this, up to and including all the time I spent in my church’s knitting ministry every week. We ate cookies and made prayer shawls and I was the only member who had any hair pigment left.

  There Were Signs.

I really should have noticed sooner. Like how, every time I walk into Michael’s, I walk out crying about how no one but those living off a comfortable retirement pension could possibly afford anything other than acrylic. And how they keep trying to sell me crochet hooks that are ergonomically padded to ease arthritis symptoms, light up in the dark, magnify the working stitches, and attach with a clip to my macrame reading spectacle’s lanyard. And in hindsight, perhaps my college roommate was calling me a loser not because I declined the invitation to go do body shots with the guys from Alpha Chi Ro, but because of the oversized shawl I was wrapped in and the granny square afghan I was working on at the moment I declined it.

 

Sudden Clarity Clarence
o.o

So, I guess I should just crawl under my maroon worsted ripple stitch afghan with my four cats and an oversized mug of chamomile tea while I wait for retirement age so that I can crochet when I’m no longer considered an anachronism…

BUT WAIT A MINUTE.

A survey released in 2011 by the Craft Yarn Council (yes, that’s a thing) indicates that the statistical age breakdown of knitters and crocheters is much younger than my grinning porcelain baby deer from hell would seem to suggest. In fact, a full 18% of yarncrafters were between the ages of 18 and 34. “Wait a minute!“ shouts that small but hopeful part of my brain. “That’s me!”

That’s right. Furthermore, 37% of the survey group was below the age of 45, and only 34% was above 55. The 45-54 year olds garnered 29%, the single largest age group sampled. That means that most crocheters are moms, not grandmas.

Furthermore, 89% of survey takers said that the internet was their first source for knit and crochet patterns, and that this was consistent across all age groups.

Therefore, Conclusion:

A.) I’ve been dealt a raw deal, and the distributors who are dealing selling me my fix supply of yarn should actually be marketing to me, and not making me feel any dorkier or socially irrelevant than I already do.

and,

B.) All the crocheting bitchez be online, and I can therefore expect this blog to go viral any day now. Come on guys, lets get hoppin’ with those shares! I’m not getting any younger over here and I’m still not famous!!

I’ll work on this potholder while I wait.

Millennial Crocheter

Oh, you crochet? Screw you.

crochet vs. knitting

Knitting vs. Crochet

Am I just a bitter, jaded harpy or does the world hate crocheters? Because when I look at patterns for knitting vs. crochet, I can’t help but feel like the world is giving me the finger.

I get the fact that I’m loitering in the wrong demographic, and therefore I can’t really expect all of the material aimed at crocheters to be useful or relevant to me. I mean, if you’re a four foot tall granny and you want to join Hell’s Angels, go ahead, just don’t expect them to make any leather jackets in your size. Amiright? So, I’m a twentysomething who’s taken up a hobby that used to be dominated by crotchety old biddies with nothing else to do but spend their pension on yarn, churn out baby hats, and wait for death. So, I don’t really have any business complaining about anything.

But here’s the thing. I keep seeing things like this:

 

 

That’s Lionbrand Yarn’s Knitted iPad Fair Isle Tech Vest. Isn’t it clever and pretty and adorable??

Here’s their crochet offering:

Awww! Isn’t it… uh… lame??

Ummm what?

What the hell?? And before you ask, this isn’t one isolated incident of one publisher releasing two patterns and making the knitting one a little cooler. I get this kind of knitting vs. crochet smackdown in my inbox Every. Damn. Week. My Lion Brand newsletters look like this:

12 New Patterns out this week! Knit yourself a delicate lacy hat, a trendy cabled scarf, or a cool entrelac afghan!! :D!!

Oh, and you crocheters? Here’s another cowl. Go hang yourselves with it. 

Same story, every time. Craft store shelves are lined with knitting books filled with gorgeous, on-fashion pieces and pretty accessories. Crochet pattern books are full of amigurumi and baby blankets. Well, if I make one more google-eyed crocheted toy I’m gonna puke, and my friends aren’t breeding fast enough to justify all these tiny pastel afghans. If you crochet, odds are you gave the hell up and just learned to write your own patterns a long time ago, like I did.

Why Do You Hate Us?

I have a hard enough time just getting people to acknowledge that crocheting is a thing. I once dated a boy for nine years, and not once did he ever use the word “crochet”.

“Hey, how’s your knitting coming?”

“Oh, you know, I’m still crocheting, as I was yesterday and will still be doing tomorrow, since that’s what I do, but yeah, it’s going great.”

“Cool.”

You know who else calls it my knitting? My mother. And she taught me to crochet.

I get that knitting is more popular and more widely practiced and that a great deal of our fabrics and textile manufacturing is still knitted. But I don’t know why. In my opinion and experience, crocheting is easier to learn, easier to master and much more versatile than knitting. You can teach a little kid to crochet. You can learn to change colors, direction and stitch pattern mid-row without ever wanting to kill yourself. Can you say the same about knitting? And, oh yeah, crocheting in a spiral is just as easy as crocheting rows, and doesn’t require any extra or different tools. Which is useful, since, ya know, humans tend to be roundish.

I actually did try to teach myself to knit, just to end the pain. It actually just brought a whole lot more pain. I am confident, quick and downright goddamn graceful with a hook in my hand. That’s not a word that can otherwise ever be applied to me. But as soon as you add another stick, everything goes to shit, fast.

Come on, crocheters. It’s not like I’m the only one out here. Am I right, or am I right? Helloooo? Anybody?

Great.