Today is Sunday ... besides the usual rituals of the weekend, this is a time when many men enjoy going fishing. Since I live in a lake community, everyday, actually, is a fishing day -- mostly for the male gender of our species. Don't get me wrong, we have females that fish too, just not as many.
And this role reversal is true with crocheting ... there are more females that crochet than males. But this is changing.
To the left of my Journal is a section called "Other Journals" ... if you scroll down you'll see that there are two crochet journals created by men. One is David's and the other is "that crochet guy's" ... it's been a long while since David has updated his journal, but you can still get a feel for the pride he has in his crochet abilities. And speaking of pride, "that crochet guy" has quite a lot of talent -- and he updates his journal fairly regularly.
Fortunately though, for others, men are starting to find the value in crochet; from it's calming effects to it's mathematical qualities. And since their numbers are growing, they have also started gathering and sharing their experiences, such as at the Yahoo! group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menwhocrochet/ . I think this is great. So in doing my part in encouraging men to crochet, I found this great website where they can learn to crochet their own fishing lures. (To get to the crocheted fly patterns, just click onto the image ... it will take you right to the website offering them.)
Can you see it? The guys all sitting in the middle of the lake with their lines out waiting for a nibble, (perhaps with a beer in hand) as they discuss techniques of crocheting their own lures. Oh, I just love the imagery!!
Have fun "getting hooked!"
2 comments:
Dee,
LOL I do enjoy your blog even though you may not know I view it. I saw this today and had to comment. I teach engineering and mathematics at the college level and often use my crocheting to show knot and graph theory examples to my students. I can't draw even though my career should demand I have a little ability to do so, but I can work up a sample of stitches faster to show the relationship between a vortex and lines faster than trying to draw out a legible picture on a chalk board.
I have also had "men" oin campus and in my classes as if I would crochet them items they like and instead of saying yes I say I will gladly teach them. Not many really stick with it, but I have been able to get a few to crochet a whole hat, scarf and such not feel this sense of shame.
My own sons are elarning to crochet and on a school field trip to Vermont there is a home stead there that keeps many textile examples from different periods. The most facinating I found was the examples of needle point samplers, knitted and crocheted socks and the like. These were school projects and home work for the children as this was from a time that predated chalk boards. All of the samples were made by boys. Girls in that period often didn't attend school and learned this arts at home, but boys were required to do them for school work.
I agree there are many men who take a sense of pride in thier art and they should. Military men need to know how to sew on buttons, cuffs, patches and the like, Doctors techincally learn to sew to place stitches in a patient. Crocheting was never an all Girls activity and I appreciate any one who tries to make anything for themselves, loved ones and charity...no matter the gender.
Keep up the blogging you keep me entertained :)
Umm.. isn't one of the historical theories that crochet was developed *by men* to make fishing nets? I mean, they already had a hook handy. (Early hooks weren't as sharp or made of metal.)
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