The One Where Our Heroine Goes Over To The Dark Side

I know this is supposed to be a knitting blog, but for some reason I have been bitten by the crochet bug. I have not crocheted in years, except for the occasional edging, but the poncho craze got me rolling. I can't say that I have ever loved ponchos, and I know that this fashion trend will quickly die away, leaving my lovingly-made poncho languishing in a box for the next thirty years (at which point it will again be in fashion, and my daughters will pull it out and give it a second life). But who said that I had to be rational?

For a while I was only admiring Steph's Charlotte's-Web-derived poncho, managing to hold tight to my non-poncho resolve. I just visited the picture once in a while for fun--honest. Soon, however, I had to have more. I visited other sites in search of ponchos. I drew up templates. And still I held off...but then the Yarn Harlot and her groupies pushed me over the edge. (How many times in one's life can you say a phrase like that? And some say that knitters are boring.)

I decided to make a poncho. With a few caveats. First, I had to use stash yarn. There would be no major financial investment in a garment that might get only minimal wear, especially when I am lusting after yarn for so many other projects. Second, it had to be Cool. Not cool as in "not too heavy and hot", but cool with a capital-C, as in Unusual. Funky. Eye-catching.

With the help of the wonderful list of poncho patterns on the Faery Crafty site, I searched for a knitted pattern that I could use as inspiration, but none of them spoke to me. None of them was "the one." After some consideration (and disbelief), I then decided to investigate the crocheted ones as well--but, again, I was left unsatisfied.

Then, a pattern that I had tucked away in a binder many years ago called out to me. It is an afghan pattern from an old Women's Day magazine. (I found it at my mother's house. My mother has a collection of old women's magazines that would fill a dump truck. Maybe two dump trucks. In any case, it seems that these magazines were much more likely to carry knitting and crochet patterns in the 70's than in recent years, ugly as many of those patterns may be. But I digress.) I never really thought that I would make the afghan, but I always loved the colors and the gestalt of it all. Hence, the idea of the Flower Power Poncho was born.

Let's hope that "cool" doesn't actually turn out to mean "tacky."