(With the humblest, most grovelling of apologies to Rudyard Kipling, his family, friends and fans)

 

IF you can keep your hooks when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when knitters doubt you,
But make allowance for their knitting too;
If you can hook and not be tired by hooking,
Or crochet lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being slated, don't give way to slating,
And yet don't hook too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can hook - and not make WIPs your master;
If you can hook - and not make yarns your aim;
If you can meet with Frogging and The Yarn Shop
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to see the stuff you've worked on
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and hook 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your yarn stash 
And risk it on some freeform crochet moss,
And frog, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your hooks and yarns and sinew
To make something long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hook on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your stitch count,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the turning chain,
if neither foes nor loving friends can throw your yarn out,
If all men count with you, but none wind skein;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of stitched cluster,
Yours is the Earth and all the yarn that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a crocheter!

This came about because I randomly thought of the last two lines this afternoon, hook in hand, brain in neutral... you know how it is.