How It All Started

     December 26, 2020- The day it all started. As most people reading this know, the Covid-19 pandemic started in 2020 and we were all told to isolate as much as possible. I'm in Ontario Canada where the rules happened to be very strict with this, and at that time we weren't allowed to see any friends or family outside of our immediate household. This obviously lead to a stir crazy and lonely Christmas, though I'm very lucky that I had my husband and daughter at home with me.

    December 26, 2020- My sister posted a photo of herself beginning to knit her first scarf on Instagram. She hadn't completed the scarf yet but I was amazed at how straight she had kept the ends of it and I've always liked the look of handmade things. After seeing this picture I originally thought to myself "I'm going to start knitting". Now of course I didn't know anything about knitting or crocheting, but I had all of these ideas of things I wanted to make in my head. My other sister had also dabbled in the knitting/crochet world, so I asked her opinion on the topic. I am not good at starting small and my first idea was that I wanted to make a baby blanket for my daughter. My sister told me to try crocheting instead of knitting as it would be easier to make a blanket. Me not knowing anything about crocheting or knitting, took her advice, and that's how it all came about.

Heading To The Store

 Since this was during a lockdown not many stores were open. I headed to my local Walmart since that was pretty much the only "craft store" open. I bought a set of aluminum hooks ranging from size 1.75 to 6.5mm. I picked up some Bernat Blanket yarn and figured there were so many hook choices there that one of them had to work. The lesson I learned here was to double check the hook size recommended for the pattern that you're doing.

First Project

    The first thing I tried to make as I mentioned above was a baby blanket. The pattern is by Bella Coco (Highly recommend her to anyone beginning, she does use UK terms but is very clear in specifying the difference between US terms.) As a beginner the first place I searched was YouTube (where else do you go for how to videos?) as I had no idea how to read patterns. The title of the video is "How to Crochet a Fast and Easy Blanket" . Sounds easy right? WRONG. Of course I tried the whole pattern out before realizing that even though it is a beginner video, I still knew absolutely nothing about the fundamentals. I wasn't counting my stitches because I had no idea that you were supposed to, and I had quite the wonky "Blanket" on my hands.

Pictured above- Very Wonky First Crochet Attempt 

Fundamentals

Going back through Bella Coco's videos I found her beginner video where she goes through the beginning fundamentals of crochet (link posted here for anyone interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcOzdAzmtNM ). The one extremely important thing I learned is that you HAVE TO count your stitches. It really isn't optional if you want your projects to come out straight. After watching this video, I went back to her beginner blanket video and was able to follow it a lot better. My final attempt at the baby blanket actually came out looking like a baby blanket.

Pictured Above- Second Attempt At Blanket 

If you take away anything from this post let it be that we all start somewhere. Everyone is a beginner at some point, and you have to begin to become an expert. I have made a lot of lovely things since this blanket, but it's always a good thing to remember where you started.