Number of Stitches vs. Number of Words
Which is more? The number of stitches in this afghan, or the number of words in one of my novels?
I have been crocheting this afghan for one of my grandsons. I owe him as I did not crochet him a baby blanket like I did for my granddaughters. Mind you, I didn’t mean to slight him, really, I just never thought of crocheting him one at the time because I was crazy busy. Actually, it’s turning out to be a great deal for him, because this one is much larger than any baby afghan I might have given him and the colors aren’t babyish at all. He’ll be able to use it right through grade school and high school and maybe even onto college and even after that. Practical, right? Of course, I realize I’ve set myself up now. I’m going to have to do new ones for the girls when they are older, so they have them as they move forward in life, too.
But that’s okay. I enjoy crocheting the afghans, especially when I need a break from writing. You see, crocheting an afghan is so the opposite of writing a novel. With a novel, I have to think about every word. With the afghan, I barely have to think at all. Once I figure out the pattern, it’s just a matter of counting, and counting, and counting, one stitch after the other. It’s quite mind numbing, which is great.
But it does seem to take me forever to finish one (actually three to four months—just like working on a novel, it’s impossible to crochet non-stop), so I was wondering the other day, how does the number of stitches in an afghan compare to the number of words in one of my novels?
Let’s see, ten stitches up, three in one, ten stitches down, skip two, times eight for eight points, two slip stitches, turn—times six rows, times thirteen sections, plus the original one-hundred-eighty-five slip stitches to begin with equals—wait for it—14,693 stitches. Oh my! That seems like a lot of stitches. But the fact is, I would have to crochet six afghans to equal the number of words in one of my books! Six afghans of non-thinking stitches. Wow!
I don’t feel so bad now about taking five to six months to write a book.
Which I really have to get back to. So, until next time…
Happy Reading,
Susan Rae
Susan Rae, Romantic Suspense Author 