Work Text:
She hummed as she sorted through the yarn she had picked up. It had been exceedingly frustrating trying to find good knitting patterns until someone suggested she try a website called Ravelry. There were just so many patterns! And so many different types, not just stupid frilly ones! She found a Cthulhu baby onesie pattern!
“Oranges Lemons sing the bells of Saint Clement’s
You owe me five farthings say the bells of Saint Martin’s
When will you pay me? say the bells at Old Bailey
When I grow rich say the bells at Shoreditch
When will that be? say the bells of Stepney
That I don’t know says the great bell of Bow.”
“What is that you’re singing?”
“Oh, it’s a nursery rhyme. I was thinking about the ones my mom used to sing to us.” How does a church owe someone else money? The clergy did, maybe. The rhymes were more complex than she remembered, perhaps.
What she really needed to do with put away all of this yarn and the handful of books she had found. While she didn’t crochet, she couldn’t help but get the one called “The Happy Hooker” it was just too great of a name.
----
Mike realized after a few hours that he hadn’t actually gotten a chance to ask Maria what she was dragging into the house in those bags as he had gotten distracted by her singing nursery rhymes. It had looked suspiciously like yarn.
“Honey?”
“Yes?” Sighing, she put down the knitting and crochet books she was trying to organize in their small library/the two bookshelves they had.
“What...what all did you buy today??”
“Knitting supplies.” The sheer amount of yarn that had been threatening to escape should have been a good indication of that, she thought.
…”You. You don’t knit?” She did not knit. He knew this. This is not something she did?
“I am pregnant.” She shrugged at him as she continued to try to sort through the books.
“I am aware of that, yes. You don’t knit.” Didn’t knit? Knit before and he didn’t know it?
“When I was younger I thought that when you got pregnant you had to learn how to knit. I figured, what better time to do so than now.” She waved “The Happy Hooker” book at him. He did not appear to have read the title, so she violently shoved it onto the shelf with the others.
“....what did you think you had to learn when you got pregnant?” Did that book really say “The Happy Hooker”???
“I thought it was a law. Where else would those little knit baby booties and blankets and stuff come from?”
He closed his eyes for a long moment before continuing his thought. “You’ve typically burned anything that frilly and ‘stupid’ before.”
“Yes, but . You should come see what I’ve found! It’s an entire website dedicated to knitting! There are black metal knitting patterns! So many options! So many more than when I was a kid! It’s great!”
Wait. “Wait.”
“Hm?”
“You thought that pregnant people were legally required to learn to knit? What was going to happen? They force you to produce a knitted piece at the hospital or they take your baby??”
“I thought that the Lamaze classes doubled as knitting classes, which would solve that entire issue.”
“That’s….one way to do it I guess.”
“But we have Ravelry now! The knitting website, Mike. Oh! You could sign up for it and collect cool patterns as well!”
“ Why ? Why would I look at baby patterns? Don’t you know the type you want?”
“....they’re not just baby patterns. There are so so so many more than that. I found one for you already! It’s cool, don’t worry!” She thought he’d look very nice in a good patterned scarf and it would help her practice.
Right. “Right okay. I’m happy to wear whatever you want...is this like crochet? That’s what my grandmother did.”
“It is! And the website is for both knitting and crochet! Hey! You could learn that if you wanted to make something for the baby!”
“That...sounds nice, actually. I could make all the pretty frilly things for the baby on the off chance the baby likes that stuff more, after all.” He was pretty sure he had once seen a knitted (or maybe it was crocheted?) pattern for a Hobbes toy from the Calvin and Hobbes comic and that would be the most adorable thing ever for the baby.
“Sounds like a plan to me!” She grinned at the bookshelf again as she pulled out “The Happy Hooker” and tossed it over to Mike.
-----
“Hey, Kanellis, whatchu knitting??”
“It’s not knitting, what it is is crochet. And it’s a baby blanket. You know. For my baby.” He looked up at Seth Rollins looking at him with a bemused expression. Odd man, you’d think he’d be more use to it, what with his girlfriend being “The Man” Becky Lynch after all.
“Oh. Oh hm. I guess Maria wouldn’t knit...uh...crochet? What’s the difference?”
“Knitting uses two needles. Crochet uses a single hook.”
“Does that make you a…”
“Why yes, you could say that, if you wanted. Or if you wanted a rematch you could continue that statement.” He waved the crochet hook in a threatening manner. It was surprisingly effective.
“Ugh, fine. Is it hard to learn?” How long had it taken him to find someone who was doing either ? And did it really matter who was doing it? No, it did not, not if it got him to his end goal here.
“Which? Knitting or crochet?” And why did Rollins care?
“Well, whatever you’re doing, I guess, so crochet?”
“It’s not that hard to learn. Why, you wanna learn to crochet?”
“I want to be able to make things, and that looks less dangerous than a lot of other options.”
“You’d be surprised. Maria keeps stabbing me with her knitting needles. Also yes. She’s taken up knitting, but apparently you can find some truly horrifying patterns these days. Nightmares for days , Seth, Nightmares for days .”
“Mike, I did not need to hear about your nightmares. But yea, I want to learn one of them. Which one can you do Irish knotwork in?”
“Oh, a gift for Becky? You can do it with either, but I’d suggest knitting. That’s not an easy thing to make, you know.” Rollins better not have a timeline on when he wanted to make...whatever...by for Becky or he was going to super disapointed.
“That’s fine, there is no firm timeline for when I want to give it to her, so I have plenty of time to curse at it and take it apart and throw it in the freezer.”
“The...freezer?”
“My aunt did that with her knitting when it was ‘misbehaving’. It was mostly the ultrafluffy yarn. I think it made it less fluffy.”
“Okay, sure, that makes sense for fluffy yarn, yes. Anyways, I can show you how to start at least, and the local yarn store I go to has lessons for both. That’s how I learned to crochet, anyways.”
“So go with you and pick up lessons, eh Mike??”
“Sounds good to me, Seth.”