#beginningcrochet

This past Saturday, I made the 3 minute trek over to my sister’s place. She made us pancakes and we picked out paint samples for her new living room furniture and she taught me how to crochet.

Crochet has always sort of ... been around in my life. My grandpa was insanely talented at many things, and crochet was one of them. I believe he learned when he was about 14 years old, spending time at a polio recovery center. He taught my mom (who is also insanely talented at many things) who then went on to teach my sister. Out of all of us, she’s the one who really took to it. She makes gorgeous blankets (I have two from her, one a beautiful rainbow wave I got as a birthday present many years ago that is one of my favorite blankets ever, the other a sophisticated weave of muted purples, given as this year’s Christmas present.) She also makes scarves and hats; just this week she finished up a project and donated about 25 baby hats to our local preemie NIC Unit. They were so small it was hard to believe anyone would ever fit into them!

When I was younger my mom tried to teach me how to crochet but I didn’t have the patience for it. I wasn’t good at it and got frustrated easily, too distracted by the thought of running around outside to really sit still and pay attention. That was my last attempt --  a failed one. 

This time was different. My sister was incredibly patient with me and it was with easy laughter that she corrected my (many) mistakes. She explained all the different hook sizes, yarn thickness, pattern types. And then she taught me how to yarn on, chain and make single, double, double half and treble stitches. It was ... a lot to remember. I wasn’t good at it by any means, but honestly it was just so fun to try something new and kind of figure out the pattern of things as I went along. She gave me a couple of balls of yarn to practice on: one for chaining and one to continue to crochet single and double stitches. Hopefully with enough practice I can start making neat rows soon!