Of all of the domestic arts I have cultivated as a hobby, my crochet journey spans the most years.
I learned to create textiles with so many twists of a hook when I was in elementary school. My mother showed me the basic stitches, and then I used my interpretation of them to make a “scarf” of rainbow variegated cotton yarn, which I bestowed upon my dad for Christmas. (He re-gifted it to me as an adult, and I will post photos of it whenever I have a chance to dig it out of my archives.) As I remember, I didn’t stitch in the most efficient way and had to physically lift the yarn over the end of the hook for each double-crochet-like stitch.
I have come back to crochet again and again over the years. Scarves, hats, and blankets form the core of my repertoire, but I have also created baby booties, Christmas ornaments, mini pumpkins, and pot holders. For blankets and other flat items, I usually base my work on a published pattern, but for hats, and other more ameboid shapes, I’m more apt to make up my design as I go.
Crochet is delightfully flexible, can be spontaneous, and I love the inherent ability to easily backtrack to fix mistakes. My hands prefer looser stitches over tighter ones and counting out the first row of a rectangular work can be tedious, but a pleasant repeating pattern can be done with little additional mental effort for hours. I know that I will return to this art form over and over for many years to come.
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