To say that I like to crochet doesn't quite get at the intensity of my level of involvement with yarn and hooks. While my investment of time with the craft waxes and wanes, since I learned to crochet, it has become a part of my life that I didn't anticipate. I stop and talk to people I don't know and ask to examine their hats, shawls, purses, and other assorted accessories and items. I am utterly shameless where crochet is involved, and if the occasion came across my path, I would probably interrupt a funeral to learn about a stitch I hadn't seen before.

While I can accept on an intellectual level that it is possible that there is no such thing as a crochet emergency, this intellectual knowledge does not inform my personal life. After Katrina hit, all I could think of was all of the displaced crocheters whose yarn, hooks, and patterns had been lost forever. What would they do for tools and materials? How would they relieve their stress with all of their earthly crochet good washed away or forever damaged beyond repair? I would hope that if life put me in a similar situation, someone would step forward and provide me succor in the form of hooks and yarn that I could use to start my life fresh.