Everybody Loves the Giant Squid
By Summer Block

If you are a twenty- or thirty-something that enjoys knitting, quilting, paper folding, or baking, you're in luck. For the domestically-inclined and partially-employed like me, it is a new golden era. A true DIY Renaissance is attested to by the success of Craftster.org and CRAFT magazine (in which I have been published) among many other creative venues. Craftster's mission statement addresses itself to "people who have crafty urges, but who are not excited by cross stitched bunnies and crocheted toilet paper cozies." Those people better like Super Mario Brothers.

One of my favorite embroidery pattern sites, Jenny Hart's Sublime Stitching, boasts the tag line "This ain't your gramma's embroidery!" and promises "no teddy bears or geese in bonnets," just patterns for sushi, Mexican wrestling masks, retro pin-up girls, rockabilly tattoos, tiki gods, and pirates. This ain't your grandmother's embroidery, but someday it will be somebody's grandmother's. I look forward to the day when Zelda and Homestar Runner have replaced "God Bless This House" samplers as icons of another era and the characters from Adult Swim are as touchingly dated as bonneted geese.

A beginner knitter, I am encouraged to start with that old stand-by, iPod cozies. Already cozied every iPod in your house? CRAFT will show you how to make cozies to cover your Rock Band drum set. Because a toilet paper cozy would be silly. Once you are proficient at knitting, crocheting, making plush animals or fondants, you can move on to a stuffed Zaphod Beeblebrox, Luigi earrings, a Transformers dog costume, or Lego-themed cupcakes.

Nor am I immune. Only a few months ago I was sewing a giant squid baby bonnet for my newborn niece. It was not the only cephalopod-themed item of apparel she received. I love mollusks and I love crafting and I've never claimed to be an individual; being a free spirit usually means making really bad decisions about footwear. Nonetheless, it’s eerie, the way the collective consciousness decided that sushi, Mario, ninjas, and giant squid would be the emblems of this generation. Why do so many people, when exhorted to get creative, think mollusk?

I don't include here the many kitschy patterns that DO make use of bonneted geese and toilet paper cozies, often with a sardonic twist that excuses their homespun appeal. Irony has already appropriated tiki bars, American diners, and Virgin Mary votive candles. But the old favorites remain items from our collective childhood, a childhood that began with "The Transformers" on Saturday morning and has yet to end.

Forty years ago, my father and his friends could generally be described as "hippies," though the term encompasses a wide spectrum of lifestyles, political commitments, and footwear choices. They took as their emblems tie-dye, peace signs, long hair, and dancing bears. Over time, most of them grew up and away from the icons of their youth, cut their hair, got kids and jobs, and became our parents. A few never retreated; instead, they went further, changing their names, moving into school buses, following the Dead. They're still driving around today, or parked somewhere in Humboldt County living off discarded Luna bars.

I look forward to our own generation's unreconstructed heroes, wearing trucker hats, drinking Pabst, and driving around with dogs named "Rover" and "Spot." I imagine a dedicated pair falling so far forward into irony that they actually become truckers, ironically hauling hardware from Barstow to Jersey City.

In forty years, I may still love the giant squid. Or I may regard Super Mario dioramas with the same fond embarrassment our parents feel for love beads and Strawberry Alarm Clock. Either way, I look forward to the day my grandchildren can open a pattern book "for those who are not excited by ninjas or sushi patterns."

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Summer Block is currently embroidering her husband's gym bag with Russian prison tattoos.

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