Published: Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 / Updated: Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 06:33 AM

Crocheting: Not just for grandmas

Local group of all ages enjoys old art form, un-virtual experience

FORT MILL -- Certainly, the first thought when somebody mentions the word "crochet" is a granny in a chair. Her hair might be gray or blue. There is a basket next to the chair with yarn in it. The TV is on.

"The Young and the Restless" or maybe professional wrestling. Or maybe reruns of "Roseanne," a show where, at the beginning, an afghan on a couch is front and center. On the couch next to the granny, draped over the back, is a crocheted afghan. The afghan colors range from blues that blind to reds that scream.

In Fort Mill and Lake Wylie, a group of more than 30 people from both Carolinas, with ages ranging from little kids to real, live grannies in their 80s, is a crochet club with the great name of Carolinas Chain Gang. The name was chosen because all crochet is a chain of yarn or anything else.

The club was started for one great reason: Crochet cannot be done on computer. It cannot be done in any virtual way.

Hands must, over weeks or months, through practice and skill and dedication, crochet.

It is the only way. Yarn, a single needle with a crook on it called a hook, and patience.

What an idea in this world of instant gratification, video games, computers and cell phone text message madness.

"Crochet has to be done by hand, and it takes time," said Carolinas Chain Gang president and founder Treva McCain. "There are just three things: You, the hook and the yarn."

Crochet, Middle French for "hook," dates back at least to the 1800s in Europe, but some believe fingers were used forever before that.

But whatever crochet's origins, nobody who ever had a grandmother or a maiden aunt, or knew somebody with that afghan -- named for a resemblance to oriental rug designs, and called a "granny square" by crochet buffs -- over the back of the couch, knows crochet. More people are doing it all the time.

There are clubs all over the country and national organizations of crochet people. Crochet designs are draped over the skinniest fashion models on New York City runways. The crocheters even have an annual meeting every year -- this year, the conference is in Buffalo, N.Y.

McCain sits on the national board of directors. Her crocheting is in magazines and other big-time places, and she will be right there at that big conference. So will her 7-year-old grandson, the only male in the local chain gang club of crocheters.

But don't call crochet knitting. Knitting is two straight needles. Crochet is one, with the hook on it. Any continuous strand will do: Wire, spaghetti noodles, thread, hair.

There are crocheted clothes and doilies and the other ubiquitous crocheted item found in a million houses: Baby booties.

"Most people, mainly women, learn it when young, don't do it for a while, then pick it up again after the first child comes," McCain said. "I learned from my third-grade teacher."

Rock Hill's Erica Taylor, 36, a wife and mother of three boys, who is another of the local crochet club's members, learned crochet from her late great-grandmother at age 8. She hasn't stopped since. None of the men in her house have taken it up, though.

"Out of all the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, I was the only one to learn," Taylor said. "I have one of my great-grandmother's afghans right here on the couch. Close to my heart."

Taylor crochets on her couch in front of the TV. And at the park while her kids play, in her car waiting to pick up her kids, and at restaurant tables.

"If I have a place to crochet, I am a happy person," Taylor said. "It's a huge stress reliever."

The local group started with four people before it took off -- thanks to the Internet, where apparently all modern crocheters go to meet up. In the area group are a couple of information technology ladies, a stay-at-home mom, a medical transcriber, a dentist, a 14-year-old girl in high school and certainly a few retirees. They usually meet once a month at the Fort Mill public library, and on March 14, will even put on a crochet exhibition at the Barnes & Noble book store at Carolina Place Mall in Pineville, N.C. Why? It's national crochet month, of course.

The crocheters can look right over at the magazine and see models wearing crochet.

Now, about that crocheted bikini.

The local crochet group, Carolinas Chain Gang, usually meets the first Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to noon at the Fort Mill branch of the York County Public Library in Baxter Village.

The March meeting is 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 14, at Barnes & Noble bookstore at Carolina Place Mall in Pineville, N.C., where the members will exhibit and crochet.

For more information

Visit: www.carolinaschaingang.com; www.crochet.org

E-mail: president@carolinaschaingang.com; trevascrochet@aol.com

Call: 704-219-6322