Friends and Scrumbling - Not Scrumbling Friends

S

One of the amazing things about growing older is when you realize, not the number of years that you have been alive, but the number of years that you have had certain friends in your life. This weekend I had a visit from one of those fabulous friends. This is Molly. Isn't she beautiful? Great smile, right?

Molly and I have been friends since high school. We knew each other in junior high, but our senior year, we became inseparable. If one stumped a toe, the other yelled ouch.










We were indeed an pair. Molly was beautiful, and popular. She was Homecoming Queen. She knew about clothes and hair and make-up and boys. (I wish I had better pictures of that time. I'm sure I do, somewhere.)

I, well ... let's just say we were an unlikely pair.

But over thirty-five years later, here we are. My mother used to say "It is only by the Grace of God that children survive to become adults." Molly and I put that Grace to the test. Daily. One would be hard pressed to find a stupid, careless, dangerous behavior that we did not attempt. I can even remember some of them.

But we aren't kids anymore. When Molly got here this weekend, and I asked what she wanted to do, she said that she wanted to learn to "scrumble". As a kid, I'm sure that would have meant something illegal. But when I googled, I got this. "A small piece of freeform crochet or knitting that can be joined to make a larger piece of freeform work." Crochet or knitting ... I can do that ... right?

Then I found these pictures. OK, maybe my mouth got ahead of my ability again.

Molly wanted to crochet. I've done that once. I taught myself how to do a chain stitch. It didn't turn out so well.  But of course I wouldn't admit that I didn't have any idea what I was doing. Sheesh.

Scrumbling Sample Prudence Mapstone

Scrumbling sample Prudence Mapstone

Now these are really pretty. But there is no pattern. There are no rules that tell me how many to cast on, or what kind of stitch to use, or how many rows to do. For someone who spent so many years breaking rules, I really like rules. No rules are for creative people. Rules are for the creative wanna be.

But Molly is creative. She always has been, so this felt like it could be a good mix.

I dug through my knitting yarns and came up with a a lot of left over pieces. There were more than I'm showing here, but you get the idea.  

I found a size 6 crochet needle in my bag (one should always have one) and set to work trying to be creative. 

As I said, I only know how to do a basic chain stitch, so that doesn't leave a lot of options. Reading comments about "scrumbling" it was clear that you mixed not only yarns but also stitches. Well, it turns out, if you don't know what you are doing, it can look like you have mixed stitches!

After a few fits and starts, we finally had kind of a knotted mess of crochet stitches. Sounds bad, but in this case it works. It gives you something to work off of. We came up with a pattern ... kind of. Crochet three chains stitches and then crochet them back into the main piece. As this happens, the main piece grows and you start making shapes. If you forget and do a long chain, no big deal, you just link it back in and it makes a new shape. 

It all sounds confusing, and at first it just looks like a mess. 

But as it goes on, it gets to be fun and interesting and impossible to mess up. That is the piece being displayed on the back of the adorable Diddy, Molly's fourteen-year-old long haired chihuahua. 

So Molly left with a nice start on what I think will be an beautiful afghan. And I may seriously plan on doing my own "scrumbling" soon.  

Wine glass from Designs by Lolita

Oh yeah, we also figured out that "scrumbling" works really well when accompanied by wine. We may not be kids, but aren't dead yet!

















Jeannie