BLOUNT COUNTY, TN – Crocheting used to be the thing your mama’s mama would do. She could make you anything from dresses, to booties to wear to keep your toes warm in the winter.
We’re still not sure why you’d need a crocheted tea-pot holder or something to cover up hard-boiled eggs. Hey, it’s all good.
But crochet is back in vogue as seen by model Kati Nescher and designer Ryan Roche at last year’s CFDA/Vogue fashion funds awards.
Some of the international fashion shows this year featured a curious collection of crotchet couture.
That might explain a recent crime wave in Blount County, Tennessee where there’s some stitch snatching afoot.
The folks at the Blount County library say someone seems to have an unusual obsession, one that could be found among the magazines sitting on the shelves.
Yeah, and that would be the latest editions of Crochet World.
“If you’re a crocheter, this is like an obsessive collection item,” said library director K.C. Williams.
The library can’t keep them on the shelves. That’s because someone kept ripping them off.
“We never got a stack. We’d put one out, and it would just disappear,” she said.
It’s gotten so bad that library workers stash copies of the magazine behind a desk. If you want one, you have to show a librarian your library card or a photo ID.
Williams says most folks who check out Crochet World are older women, not the usual sticky-fingered suspects. But that doesn’t surprise her. She thinks it’s the colored patters that attract them.
Just remember that the next time you get a crocheted tea pot cover. It may be the product of a purloined pattern.
