When the lights go out...

[Braxxi]

Well, we had our power go out for about an hour and a half last night...right after I finished the head for the little pig I'm testing for Sandra. I couldn't actually finish the snout because I needed to pick out the yarn for it and judging colors doesn't work so well by lantern light!

 

Soooo, it's a good thing I had the round-ripple afghan that I'm making for a friend of mine for Christmas! Even using a darker blue I was able to work on it by lantern light.

 

It is amazing how vivid colors are though when the lights come back on!

[MamaHooker]

Cool. I could not do anything without light. You should get some glow in the dark yarn for the next time. Crochet your own light.

[ZoeZoesmom]

I spent an evening crocheting by candlelight when our power went out, made me thankful for my hobby. Hubby was totally lost without TV, lol.

[Debbi-a1]

I understand. Our power goes out easliy (hasn't for a while, thankfully). And our front room is dark (for some reason the builders didn't put a light in the ceiling, I guess figuring other lights would light it... um, no).

 

Those lighted crochet hooks work pretty well in the dark, but I have a hard time with them, the hook section is small (I bring my work back far on a hook) and plastic.

 

Or they were talking about other alternatives.

Someone had a baseball cap with a light attched to it:lol.

I saw some finger flashlights (super small with a little finger wrap) at a dollar store.

Or I even have some book reading lights that I could use.

 

So those are some alternatives. I may have to get a lantern to make sure I always have a light to crochet by:yes

Debbi

[rshseaeagle]

I crochet in bed at night and my DH usually watches TV until he falls asleep, I am always up past him.

 

I crochet with a headlight. One of those lights like the miners wear. That way he can watch TV with the lights out (he likes that) and I can still do what I want too. Tried a book light for a while but it was always falling and I couldn't see well with it. I love my head light as I can adjust the light to shine directly on my hands and the work area. It works great for me and saves on the electric bill. I always keep extra batteries for it in my tote bag.

 

LOL,

Toni

[HomekeepingGran]

I can knit partly by feel as long as the pattern is simple, but crochet? I've got to see at least a little bit to know where to put the hook.

[frugalmel]

Have you seen the light up hooks?

[pasteeater]

I can, but not well. The lights usually don't go out here. Unless we're having brown outs but those are usually in the day.

[Nila]

I love it when the power goes out. (sounds a little weird I know) The last time our power went out, we sat around listening to the radio and later on my sisters dragged out their guitars. I've got no problems crocheting in the dark, provided I've got just a little candle light for if I get lost. I tend to be a little disappointed when the lights come back on...

 

I know what you mean about the colors though.

[Granny Square]

Makes you respect our foremothers, where lantern or candlelight was the norm.

[Feederofthepack]

After our Sept windstorm I was trying to crochet by candle light! My lighted hooks were not the right size for my project.

[Ellie 13]

The last time I had a power failure, it was daytime. I and listened to the radio for hours (got the freezer defrosted too ).

Ellie 13

[adagio]

In the aftermath of Ike, I used lighted hooks for a while. Then remembered I didn't have any backup batteries. I found a headlamp that I'd stashed away, that I did have batteries for, and a pleasant evening crocheting.

[Braxxi]

I'll have to put the lighted hooks on my Christmas list...lol.

 

I do have a whole new appreciation of our foremothers, that's for sure. I can't imagine what it was like for them when they first got electric lights!

[Elle]

At the end of September one of our maintenance men messed up REALLY bad and shorted out our main power board here. He plunged the whole place into total darkness, and since this place is going on 50 years old, most of the parts were no longer even available and had to be updated. This meant that the entire place had to be rewired, all new parts had to be ordered, and it was SIX DAYS here without power! The one saving grace was that it wasn't July or August, so at least we didn't have to tolerate 90 degree nights with non-opening windows and no air conditioning. But the real bugger about the situation was that there was NO LIGHTS AT ALL, and I had to crochet by candlelight and oil lamp light for a week! Anything darker than a dark pink or red and it was IMPOSSIBLE to see the stitches, and if I sat close enough to the candles to really be able to see what I was doing, I was afraid that my yarn was going to catch fire!

 

Naturally the hotel was closed during this time. We had a few die-hard guests who decided it would be fun to play "camp out" who stayed with us in spite of everything. But there were no computers, the office was closed, and my job for the week consisted of sitting in a lawn chair outside explaining to those who asked just what the current status was on the replace-the-electric-master board project. Therefore, from the time I got up in the morning until the time it got dark, I sat outside crocheting! It was the one thing that made the whole week bearable! It was unbearable, however, to have to cut short my crocheting at night, because I usually crochet for a few hours each night and it relaxes me and makes me sleepy. Now I had to fall asleep on my own, because it was so annoying trying to crochet by candlelight that once it got dark, I really couldn't crochet for more than an hour or so otherwise it would give me the start of a headache trying to see in the very dim light.

 

There was great rejoicing at the end of the seventh day when the lights came on at about 6:00 in the evening. As exhausted as I was from having been awake since daybreak, I stayed up most of the night crocheting so I could get myself back on my night is day and day is night schedule. My normal work hours are from 3-11pm in the office and then from 11pm to 7am on-call from my apartment, so the whole being awake from dawn until dark thing was completely foreign to me, and I was never so glad as when it was over!