Cultivating Crochet: A Christmas Expression

By Jessica Mordy

Learn to cultivate crochet with six Christmas projects. Jessica Mordy shares four Christmas patterns of coasters, runners and placemats to celebrate the holiday. With the step-by-step instructions and photographs, these Intermediate Christmas projects are for everyone. Enjoy the celebration.

Cultivating Crochet: A Christmas Expression by Jessica Mordy, October 2021, Copyright 2021 by Jessica Mordy

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781678140816

Book preview

Cultivating Crochet:

A Christmas Expression

A picture containing indoor, green Description automatically generated

By Jessica Mordy

Copyright 2022 by Jessica Mordy

All rights reserved.

The written instruction, patterns, and projects in this volume are

for personal use only and may only be reproduced for that purpose.

ISBN 978-1-6781-4081-6

US Digital Edition:  February 2022

For Jeff Daniel Marion, who imprinted on my spirit his humanity, sprinkles of his wisdom to shimmer my soul.  I will delight upon hearing your chuckles in the mist of those mountains, always knowing that my path, in its roundabout way, also leads to the summit.  Bless you, my unfair weather friend and mentor.

Introduction

It wasn’t in an after-school program during elementary school, though I was a fourth grader.  I learned embroidery in those programs, creating a tiny pillow stitched with a teddy bear holding a flower.

It wasn’t at the library.  I checked out books on space and books that qualified for the Book-It Program.  I wanted my personal pan pizza. 

It wasn’t in an art class.  Instead, it was at home in the living room with Days of Our Lives blaring.  My little brother and I shouldn’t have listened to the neighborhood scoundrel.  It was otherwise.

After observing my brother hanging from the porch, dropping one story to the ground, the babysitter Pat walked out the front door and around the side of my two-story house.  Having climbed onto the roof with a homemade parachute, I jumped, rolling as I hit the ground.  Jessica, inside now.  My sentence was two weeks.  You could have broken your neck.  I was to sit on the floor every day.  I could have been fired.  Don’t listen to him again.

She leant me a hook and gave me a ball of yarn.  It keeps you busy.  It’s not that bad.

My chain stitch stretched the length of the couch.  Each must be the same size, then we build with a single stitch.  My potholder wasn’t square.  It’s all in the turn.  Remember to chain one.  Pat moved onto a new employment opportunity.  She didn’t see my square.

Like a Beatle, I picked up a stitch here and there.  Mostly, I created what worked for me.  Seeing a crocheted fabric, I looked at the stitches and figured out how to make my stitches taller, bubble out, or breathable.

In high school, I crocheted after school while I babysat two kids, ditching the single stitch for the double stitch.  I crocheted while waiting for my karate class to begin, noticing how to texture my project, hooking the front loop instead of the back or both to change my expression.  I crocheted while watching TV on the weekends with my brother.  It’s not that bad.  He had no coordination.

In college, I bought only Caron Simply Soft yarn and created my own beanie design in a day.  I gifted many beanies to my friends.  Make a scarf like mine with the crochet books from the library, said Charlotte.  "I’m too lazy to use a