Air Crochet or Air-Crochet; i.e. what people are now calling the Standing Double Crochet stitch

In 2008 I devised a stitch that I called Air-Crochet for lack of a better term.  I did not want to confuse it with the Standing Double Crochet, or Standing-anything-crochet stitch because it was different, never before used, and I was so very proud of my accomplishment. My friend Margaret has a habit of starting to call it the standing crochet stitch which again starts sweeping it away from my "finding out how to do it originally", into the grouping of an "old" stitch which honestly isn't the same.

I studied the DC, the SC and all the other stitches to see how they were made….making one and taking it apart, over and over again until I could "see" how the stitch was formed.  It took me a couple of days, and I worked hard at it.  

I mentioned in several times, although at that time I didn't advertise it or tell people what I called it…at least I don't remember doing so.  It wasn't until 2009 that I went ahead and told people about it and did a tutorial on it in the Vanna's Choice Fan Club.  That tutorial can still be located there, as well as on my own project pages.  I then posted it on my previous blog, Learning and Loving Crochet.

I was doing two blogs at a time, and found that I could barely do one, so closed that one down….probably should have transferred all the info over if I could somehow. Anyone knowledgable about that?

I put up a YouTube video recently and then just for giggles I searched for "air crochet" and found two blogs that had put up tutorials. One last year which Moogly did, and one this year (could be last?) that another person did.  I wrote to both to let them know that I was the one who originally cooked this baby up.

To my surprise I reached a lot of resistance to that statement, even though I backed it up.  You know as well as I do that I am not a super designer, or a fancy doodle blogger.  I just like to make things easier for my fellow friends in crochet.  

At one time I designed a box with a magnet in it and used it for several years to keep my pins and whatnot in there.  Several different boxes, several different designs.  Paula received one when I finally decided to let lose of the design and share it. Lo and behold over the next two years people started making fancier boxes and selling them.  To this day, Paula still gives me credit for my "Cat Box" which delights me to no end.

But I stray….back to the Air-Crochet.  I was rather miffed when Tamara (Moogly) came back to me to say that it was a printed stitch from 1999 or some such.  When I asked for the reference, because if someone else had discovered the stitch I had not heard of it, she gave me that name of a book. I bought the Kindle version and the updated version….and it wasn't my stitch.  It was, however, the same ol', same ol' standing crochet that you start with a slip stitch (the very thing I was trying to avoid).

When I told her that it wasn't the same and that I honestly would like credit for at least designing the stitch I received silence.  Days and days of silence.  It floors me that someone who is as talented and who has such lovely designs would dis me that way when the only thing I wanted was it to be given the credit that I devised the stitch…for a dc, for a sc, for a hdc, and for a treble.  I can even do it on bobbles and other stitches … easy, peasy.

I was really in a funk for several days waiting to hear from Tamara to say she had researched it and I was right, and she'd at least post my name.  I have to admit that her tutorial, as well as the other one, are a bit better than mine….but mine came first, it isn't an "old" stitch that has been around for "decades" as the one person said.

So am I being selfish….I feel like I am stamping my foot with a pouty lip crying, "Pay attention to me!"  Maybe I am, and if so, it is only right. I know she would not like someone to pass around her patterns and lose her a sale, just like I don't like people renaming my stitching and acting like I had nothing to do with it.  It actually hurts my feelings. Really.

Have you ever heard of the leaning tower stitch?  The ladies regularly give credit to the man who designed that stitch, even long time after his passing. 

Thanks for letting me vent.  I needed that. Guess I had better start working the blogs more.  I tend to slide quite a bit!

Happy Crafting and Learning!