Finally, one of the women in my mom group, which I'll refer to as GP from now on, took up the hobby and within days was posting hats with animal faces on them. She made a minion as if she only had to will it into existence. One day she wasn't crocheting, and the next she was. And what's more, she was AMAZING at it. Her hats looked as good as any you'd see for sale anywhere. As she posted pictures, that familiar tug caught me in the expected manner. The difference, this time, was that I also just happened to find an old Hobby Lobby gift card that I had never used. And it just so happened, that on this particular day, yarn was also on sale on their website. So a few clicks and only 2 dollars of my own money later, I had over 50 dollars worth of hooks and yarn (as well as a few other things) heading my way.
One week later is where the story really begins. My package arrived and in a fit of excitement, I tore that sucker open and admired the yarn. I studied the hooks. They say, know thy enemy. Well, here it was. My enemy. Somehow, through nightmarish flashbacks of the knitting needles, I started searching YouTube for some instructional videos. I believe my first query was, "Crocheting for extreme dummies".
That night after the kids were in bed, I took the laptop up to the room and sat down in bed with my gear. I had yarn and hooks ready. I found a very simple, very clear video to follow. And I watched it about 75 times before attempting to do what they were doing.
And I did it.
I made a chain. I made a freakin' chain! Sweet baby jesus, I made a chain! look at it! It's kind of uneven, and it's not very impressive, but it's staying TOGETHER like it should. That is a great start!
The only issue was, that even when I tried to knit, I could cast on with no problem. That first row was where it stopped though. So my true concern was the second row, which I now had to attempt.
The video I watched seemed clear enough, and I was technically able to figure out what they wanted me to do. And I could even do it. But as I watched the woman in the video zip through the rest of her second row, I was fumbling and slow just to get my second stitch. I knew what I was supposed to do, and with some effort was able to do it, but it felt as if there was a misfire somewhere between my brain and hands. I couldn't seem to hold everything correctly. The left hand that feeds the yarn felt awkward, and I couldn't keep the yarn at a good tension. The fingers on that hand that are meant to hold the work itself didn't want to stay where they should. I felt like I was "patting my head and rubbing my tummy", as I attempted to coordinate what every finger had to do in order to make this work.
That first night, I laughed at myself with GP as I described my attempts and frustrations. Unlike knitting, I decided that even though I was NOT apparently gifted with the innate crocheting ability like my good friend in GP, I could still keep trying and see if things didn't get easier. And so I did.
The next day I picked it up again, and searched more tutorials.
I sat down again, and this time I was slightly better but still slow and clumsy. I still felt like I would never get used to holding the work. It took me probably 10 minutes just to do 20 single crochets, because I had to stop, re-grasp everything, slowly make sure every movement was correct.
But it was working. And over the next few days, after resisting the impulse to throw my crochet hook across the room, I was officially able to single crochet.
My little square of yarn looked stupid, to be honest. The bottom few rows from when I first started were uneven and slightly frayed from all the times I had to undo a crochet and try again. But then 5-6 rows up, my single crochets were perfect.
I decided that I'd make a small scarf for my daughter, so I continued to single crochet until it was a good length. I was able to perfect that very basic stitch. It took a few days, because I was still slow, but when I crocheted to a length I thought was good I did a quick search on how to add fringe to the end of scarves, and lo' and behold:
Not too shabby for my first attempt at crochet, if I do say so myself!
So I've decided, I enjoy this. My obsessive personality led me back to the craft store where I picked up a few more colors of yarn, a couple different sized hooks, and I believe that my new-found love might wind up being a dangerously addictive hobby. I have a giant bag of yarn (that I'm not even sure how to store, that might need to be something else I need to look into), and feel like I need more already.
So this is going to be my adventures in probably "just okay" crocheting. I am self-teaching by watching videos on YouTube, but like with sewing, I can sense that I already don't care for attempting to follow a pattern. I feel like at some point I might just wing things. I saw a crochet baby jumper on Facebook the other day that I'm going to attempt to make with nothing more than a general idea of what I want to do.
Here is the best link I used when I first started out.
Crochet Guru:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjoVWbYhWuc
I enjoy all of her videos, actually. She was the one who really helped clarify HOW to do what I was doing. Her videos are very clear and easy to see.
