penny street studio: Learning a new skill: Crochet

My M-I-L bought my daughter one of those knitting looms from the craft store a couple of months ago. They weren't able to figure it out (yes, the included directions were very confusing,) so she gave the loom to me to figure out. I'm not sure why, because at the time I didn't know how to knit or crochet. She is the one who knows how to crochet. Anyway, I was able to figure out the knitting loom and I was "hooked." Okay, that was a bad pun. But I literally became obsessed with knitting on that loom. I successfully made four scarves. I then got the courage to learn to crochet. A couple of gals at work are learning too and it just gave me incentive to give it a try.

The back story to this is that Grandma used to crochet and I never had an interest in it. I guess back when I was a teen, crocheting was only a "Grandma" thing to do. Then when I was in my early 30's I asked my mom to teach me. It was not fun or relaxing as advertised. Actually, it stressed me out. I couldn't get my stitches even and I kept making them too tight. Also, I hated counting stitches. My first blanket was a very uneven square. I won't post the awful photo to save all the glorious embarrassment. After the crooked blanket incident I gave up crochet....until now.

I have to be honest with you. Crocheting is easy, but learning to crochet is not. First of all, the patterns are in a whole other language. There is a plethora of free patterns on all over the web or even available at craft stores, but you need a decoder ring to understand them. Second of all, once you do get the language it doesn't always make sense where you add stitches. Then there's gauge. It's all very confusing. I've learned to do the four basic stitches for now. The more I practice, the easier it gets. It took me about two days to learn this flower pattern, but after doing about three I can crochet a flower in under an hour. You can get the free pattern at Protsenka. There's also Crochet Pattern Central for more free flower patterns. The earwarmer/headband I just made up myself.
So there it is. That's what I've been doing so busily for the last two months. I even crochet at work during my lunch break. I made an earwarmer for my daughter. My friends at work like them so much they've been asking me to make headbands for them too. I'm so busy I just can't keep up with the orders.