Mile-o'-handwork 1 -- genesis

Several years ago my art-and-walking pal Debby Levine, who is a master knitter, had a brilliant idea -- she would make a mile of knitting.  We talked about this idea over a period of weeks as we walked.  The more we kicked the tires, the more we realized how big a task that would be.  She revised her plans to make the knitting narrower, but it was still daunting. Then in a moment of temporary insanity I said to her "You make a half mile of knitting and I'll make a half mile of crochet."

I thought this would be a good way to use up those bits and pieces of yarn left over from afghans, and for a while that was going great, until I used up all my bits and pieces.  Then I started grabbing all the yarns from grab bag and crocheting them.  My crochet is about four inches wide, most happy when I'm working with low-rent acrylic yarn.  I roll the finished strip into a jellyroll until it gets wide enough to fit into a banker's box.

My grandson thinks these bundles look like cakes, so that's what I call them.  At any given moment I have several going, one in a bag in the car to take with me to meetings or other public events, one in the studio, a couple on the sofa where I watch TV, one in the living room to work on if company comes.

I tried to resolve that I would never buy any yarn for this project but simply use leftovers.  But about a year ago I got desperate for raw materials and bent my principles enough to go to the Good Garbage Store's going-out-of-business sale, where I got about 50 skeins of yarn for about 35 cents each.

I have five or six boxes so far, five cakes to a box.  A couple of years ago I took everything I had finished over to the house of a friend with a really long room, and we unrolled and measured all the cakes.  It seemed that I was maybe 20% of the way to my half mile, which didn't seem like all that much progress for all the time I was putting in.  But I am not discouraged.  I will keep crocheting, and I trust that the Lord will provide yarn like manna in the wilderness.  And someday I will display the work.