New tricks...

It's often said you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I think anyone who has an old dog will argue that point pretty vigorously!! But, this isn't about an old dog, or a trick for that matter. It's about how we learn things. Most people will say that they like to be shown how to do something and be given opportunity to practice it before plunging headlong into whatever activity they're undertaking. Typically, I like to learn new things this was too. However.... I discovered last week that sometimes if I watch something enough, it will suddenly click for me.

For my birthday in 2009, I enlisted the help of a friend to learn how to crochet. She was patient, thoughtful and tried her best to show me how to crochet. I however, just couldn't seem to figure it out.... I just wasn't getting it. I couldn't even do a simple chain stitch and keep the loops remotely even or similar in size. I couldn't keep the tension even. Now, maybe my brain was elsewhere.... maybe it wasn't in "learn to crochet" mode like it should have been. Whatever the reason, after I went home I tried a couple more times and ended up just plan frustrated. I haven't opened the bag of yarn and crochet hooks since then.

Last week, while I was SO very sick, the only thing I could really do was lay on the couch or in bed and pretend that I was doing something productive on the computer. If I hadn't written the recipe blogs on Sunday, I wouldn't have posted any of them throughout the week!! At any rate, what I finally ended up doing was watching "how to crochet" videos on YouTube!! Video after video. I figured if I couldn't physically do anything I could watch some other people doing it.... Maybe I'd pick up something I missed from the year before.

Maybe it was like osmosis.... where you just absorb the stuff (water, nutrients, information?)..... whatever the case was, on Friday I dug out the bag that had the forgotten yarn and crochet hooks in it... and I started crocheting. Like I'd always known how. I started by doing just a long chain....looping over and over for consistency. I then pulled the chain apart and did it again. Next.... I made another long chain. Long enough for a really long scarf. Once I reached the end, I started going back the other direction. Before I knew it, I had several rows and it actually looked halfway decent!!

Yesterday, I added two rows of an alternating color and then a row of the base color all the way around it. It's not perfect.

The ends are not square, which of course really bothers me....

but for having made it with no pattern, and no real knowledge of what I was, well.....DOING.... I think it's pretty darn good.

Eventually, I'd like to master the scarf... and hats... hats would be really cool!! Hats with funny little tassels on them, hats with ear flaps (hey, it's cold here!!). I'd like to make little sweaters for Jinxy... cause she's soooo tiny and it's soooo cold here during winter!! Maybe even a sweater some day, or small handbags... or ...... or.......or just master the scarf so the ends are even.... no, I think I'll try a hat... I need a break from long straight things for a while.