Cool Crochet

A few weeks before today's date nine years ago, my grandmother attempted to teach my sister and I how to crochet.  My great-grandmother was in the hospital at the time, and I believe it was a method of keeping us girls occupied and quiet while we spent many hours visiting with her there.  My great-grandmother passed away on December 15, 2002, and after that I never tried to crochet again.  Until now.

My new obsession, also known as Pinterest, made it perfectly clear to me there are so many things I want to be doing that I'm not.  People are so darn crafty and creative, and I want in on that!  I kept coming across some beautiful pictures of things people have made such as cowls, headbands, baby booties, etc.  I set a goal to teach myself how to crochet all over again and get started making something, anything!

Looking back all I really remembered about our lessons in that hospital room was that the yarn was white or maybe cream and that we wanted to make scarves.  I couldn't even remember if it was actually crochet or knitting (I had to look up the difference to figure it out)!  I also fairly certain we never made anything that could have passed for a washcloth, let alone a scarf.  I also had to look up what I would need to get started.  I had no idea there were so many different types of yarn and so many sizes of crochet hooks.  On a tip from a great friend, I checked out YouTube and found some how to videos.  This one, http://youtu.be/eqca00LdmAc, seemed to be one of the most helpful.  I took her recommendation for what type of yarn and hook to start out with and immediately made a trip to the store to get them.

I only picked up two skeins of yarn, two crochet hooks, and a package of yarn needles.  For less than $10, I was starting a new hobby.  One that is entirely portable, lightweight, and you can put down and pick back up whenever you need to, which is quite often when you have little ones running around the house.

After watching nearly every result for the search "how to crochet" on YouTube, I got started.  About fifty tries later, I had my first row of single crochet.  Even once I got going, I can't tell you how many times I pulled out multiple rows, all the way down to the first chain, and started over.  Practice makes perfect right?

Well it is by no means perfect, but I am so happy I picked up this new hobby.  It's been a couple of weeks and here's what I have so far.  There are a few spots where it's not consistent, I missed a stitch on a row, or I added one by mistake.  I quit pulling out rows when that happened because I like the idea of this being my first piece and imperfect.  I hope to hang on to it and compare it to something I crochet years from now!  My daughter wanted to check out what I was doing and tried to run away with the yarn pulling a bunch of it off the roll.  As you can see I've got a bit to untangle before I can keep going now, but that's okay.  I get excited by the thought of being able to pass this skill on to her one day (when I actually have skill at it!), but for now I am just enjoying the fact that I'm making something.

It will still be a long time before I get to anything fancy like baby booties or flower bows, but I got started and that's the first step. I think my great grandmother would be happy to know that I've finally picked this back up, and I hope she knows that I'm thinking about her today.