What do You Call a Thingumajig?

Some call it a snake, others say it's a sausage: opinions differ.  But let me begin at the beginning ... or at least at the start of the latest chapter.

A few years ago, I decided I would make a cover for the armchair that has graced my home for the last twenty years.  I measured, schemed and drew up a detailed plan for its construction.  Then, having procured the materials and implements, I began, slowly at first, to regain my long dormant crochet skills.

The technique was there in the far reaches of my memory.  But one of the great mysteries of my life is ... when did it start?  Where and when did I first learn to crochet?  I know I could do it when I was living on my own in Diss, for I have memories of making some big squares ... although I have no idea what happened to them.  One day I asked my daughter if she had passed it on to me but, amazingly, she said that it was I who had taught her!

Elizabeth Thrower, née
Churchyard, c.1839-1934,
known to my father as 'Granny Thrower'

The obvious source would be my mother: she was always knitting: my hand-knitted sweaters of various colours (but always to the same pattern) are something of an embarrassing memory.  But I don't recall that she ever crocheted.  Incidentally her name for the snake or sausage was roly-poly (and it wasn't a steamed pudding!).

One of the very few pictures I have of my great-grandmother, shows her seated on a couch as if interrupted from crocheting a lace table mat.  Could it be her, I hear you ask?  Most unlikely, I have to say, since she died almost sixteen years before I was born ... unless I have inherited some peculiar 'crochet-gene'.

After the attempt at making the chair cover had lain unfinished for some while, I picked it up during last autumn, and converted its strange form into a conventional blanket or throw, about the size of a double bed.  It's now parked once more to await a useful future home.  In so doing, I found that there were almost enough of the small squares that made it up, and I had only to add about half a dozen more.

That's enough waffle.  What is this un-named object?  Before I identify it, let me just say that that word 'enough' is woven through this story.  I decided that, with the upcoming dramatic increase in energy prices, and since there was a detectable draught coming under the outside door of my lounge, it would be a good idea to make something to lay at the foot of the door to stop the draught.  

At the end of the chair cover-cum-blanket project, lots of wool was left over.  (So much for the detailed planning!)  I had used three  colours, and at the end there were two almost new balls and one that was almost exhausted.  When I came to the end of making the snake/sausage/roly-poly, that almost exhausted ball had managed to survive until only a few inches remained. 

And then there was the question of stuffing it.  A couple of weeks ago, when I visited on the occasion of her Emerald Wedding Anniversary, I mentioned this to my cousin who produced a boxful of rags and said, "Here's a bag, help yourself"  I quickly half-filled the bag and decided that that ought to fill the as yet unfinished article.  When it came to stuffing it earlier this week there was - you've guessed it - just enough, and none left over!

You could also say that, with the change to colder weather this week, and the energy price increase taking effect this weekend, there was 'just enough time' to get it finished.