Freestyle crochet a matter of scrumble

OK, people, let’s get ready to scrumble. No, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Hell’s Angels revving Harleys. Nor does it have anything to do with the cruise-in at your favorite diner or doughnut store. It’s not a word you’ll find in Webster’s dictionary, so don’t waste your time tiptoeing through the pages.

Scrumbling is crochet, or free-form crochet, to be specific.

In crochet, scrumbling is the act of creating a patched together, textured fabric using a variety of yarns. This is making-it-up-as-you-go-along in the extreme. It’s improvisation with a wail or a grin – it all depends on your mood, your patience, how the thing evolves, and how willing you are to give up and let ‘er rip.

You begin with a small motif, perhaps a simple wheel, like the center of a doily. Maybe the yarn is blue mohair. Then you make another motif, any shape. Maybe this one is in gold lurex eyelash yarn. You crochet it to the first motif. Then you make other small motifs such as shells, squares, rectangles – whatever – in colors and yarns that dazzle your fancy. You attach these motifs. You fill in the gaps as you go along, building up the piece with various stitches, textures and colors until you have created a piece of fabric that can be made into whatever you want – hat, sweater or handbag. But maybe not socks. Scrumbling creates fabric that is too bulky for socks – the feet part, anyway. Maybe the sock legs could be scrumbled.

One of the current gurus of free-form crochet is Prudence Mapstone of Brisbane, Australia. She is the author of “Freeform: Serendipitous Design Techniques for Knitting and Crochet.” She travels around the world giving classes.

Web sites that post photographs of projects done in free-form crochet are easy to find if you go to Google and type in “freeform crochet.” Or go to http://crochet.nu/ for a photo gallery of free-form crochet, and links to sites of artists who practice the craft. Ana Voog’s fanciful hats are fun to look at.

Free-form crochet is the ultimate carry-along project. All you need is a few balls of yarn, a crochet hook, a pair of nail clippers for snipping and a tote bag.

Scrumbling may be an angst-free way to get youngsters interested in crochet. It would excuse them from “making something,” which always carries with it the risk of “not doing it right,” or is weighted with so many directions it begins to be work instead of play.

With scrumbling, one is free to try different stitches, and different kinds and colors of yarns in any combination, and thereby freed of the tacit demand to do it “right.” Since there is no way to do it right, that pressure is eliminated. It would allow children the pleasure and amazement of figuring it out as they go along. The resulting piece could be named whatever the child wished – doll’s blanket, cat toy, lap robe.

Snippets

. For those interested in crocheting a hyperbolic plane for a local school science department, visit http://www.math.cornell.edu/~dwh/papers/crochet/crochet.html to find instructions. To view an online gallery of crocheted hyperbolic planes, visit http://theiff.org/lectures/05b.html.

. Web sites that offer free crochet patterns are lionbrand.com, crochetpartners.org, crochetpatterncentral.com, crochetreaures.com, and coatsandclark.com.

. Knitters with a yen for exotic yarn may wish to visit www.qiviut.com, which gives information about the Arctic Musk Ox Producer’s Cooperative.

Ardeana Hamlin welcomes suggestions. Call 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.