Double should only be a thing when related to espresso…

which coincidentally I may need before mastering the skill of crochet.

When given the task of finding a learning project I thought about it for a little while.  There are some things that interest me for classrooms, however since I don’t have my own class this year, I was thinking it may be difficult.  I am new to my school, and so was unsure of a teacher I could shoulder tap to work with, without giving them a bunch more work.  On top of that, I’m finding life pretty hectic right now, and it’s difficult some days to even commit to getting into classrooms for instructional walks let alone team teaching.

I thought about my current level of stress: it’s been high.  I wanted to find an activity that would be quiet and relaxing.

Credit

I actually do some colouring for relaxing from time to time.  But I decided I would give crocheting a try.

I am decently crafty, and have knitted since I was 5 or 6 years old.  My thought process was that really, how hard could it be?  Really, I’m pretty good at it:

If I can knit this, I should be crocheting pretty darn fast right?  WRONG

After approximately 7 693 812 attempts, ok thats a slight exaggeration and this is not about fishing, so I’ll scale it back a bit, (get it???).  Ok, after many videos and visuals, and several attempts, I managed to get the single crochet down:

admittedly, this is far from perfect when it comes to tension, but a couple rows none the less.

After several attempts:

and then several more:

I’m decently happy with my control over single crochet at this point.  My tension is staying pretty consistent, and I’m able to create more or less a piece that is not completely lopsided.

Then came the double:

After a few failed efforts, the only double I worried about was 40 proof.

A couple days later, picked it up again, and got a little farther:

Again, tension is getting  much better.

This week I will be focusing on the granny square.

What I know about learning a skill like this.  Knitting was much easier with my grandma there to correct my mistakes.  If I was wrong, she seen what I was doing wrong and could show me the right way.

I need a combination of ways to show me what to do.  The videos are great on the one hand because I can watch.  The downside is how fast they move.  It’s great I can watch them again and again, but I still find that I have to have a picture in front of me as well to figure out what I’m doing, as well as written instructions with illustrations.

At times I can see from my work that I am not correct, but I’m unsure of where my mistake is- this is what I find the most frustrating.

I have people I know who crochet, and I could ask for help, however I’m really trying to figure this out on my own with no face to face to truly get a better understanding of how feasible completely learning a new skill online is.