Hooked On Crochet

In keeping with my personality, I took up a new hobby last month, crochet. Now this happened as the result of a total accident. I was supposed to learn how to knit and went to buy knitting needles. However, the store only had crochet hooks and thread; I didn’t even know what they were.. But I bought one anyway because I was uber bored and it seemed interesting. I got some wool too, as a starter pack.

 There was only one person who could have taught me how to crochet, and that was my grandmother. So I gathered up my supplies, confusion and all and went to her for help. She had me crocheting like a pro in half an hour! It was unbelievably easy. So after I’d mastered the first chain stitch, I immediately wanted to move on to bigger and better projects.. (Nobody as patient as me, of course :P)

I started to knit a scarf, starting with green wool and a simple 224 chain stitches  Then I started adding single crochet stitches and also some lovely two-toned purple and white wool; the activity thrilled me so much. My scarf started coming together and began to look like this. Now I was pretty happy with this considering I had never even tried holding a crochet hook before :D.

A few mishaps happened, when my cat, Coco got into her head to treat the unfinished  scarf as her personal play string, nearly unraveling the whole thing on more than one occasion. She finally left it alone after realizing she wouldn’t be able to get her claws in it..thankfully for me.

After getting this far ( I still haven’t finished), I bought a lot of black thick wool to make scarves for everyone in the family. Needless to say, they’re still waiting for them. I’m not the most consistent person, unfortunately.

But during this topsy turvy lesson learning to crochet, I’ve learnt something very important. Like baking, crocheting is an extremely personal art. I say art because it really is a completely individual piece of expression and I believe every single person’s stitches are totally varied, different and personal. That’s the amazing thing about it. I also noticed that when I was angry or agitated, the stitches started to become bolder, more open looking, as opposed to when I was calm, and they were neat. The phrase ‘putting your whole heart into it’ didn’t seem ridiculous to me after this; when I bake or crochet, or knit, whatever I feel goes into the process and the finished product reflects my mood. Maybe I’m just sentimental? But I like believing something extra goes in to the things we make and try for, and spend hours making 😀

Pray I finish my scarf, and then I may have some hope after all.

+Excellent crocheting tutorials available at http://crochet.about.com/od/learntocrochet/tp/crochet-for-beginners.htm. I learnt more patterns and stitches in minutes 😀