I taught myself to crochet in January of 2001. I’d been climbing for about a year and a half by then and I decided to take the month off to give my body and my mind a rest. I was looking for a craft I could enjoy doing, as opposed to counted cross stitch which I enjoyed the results of but pretty much hated the process for.

Learning to crochet wasn’t bad at all. Of course I was slow at first and my tension was all over the place so I never knew what gauge I was working to. Indeed, it sometimes changed mid-project as mentioned previously. But it didn’t take long before I was good enough to enjoy it, at which point Todd suddenly decided he was going to learn to crochet too. I couldn’t teach him because I’m left handed and he’s right but he taught himself from the same books I used and got pretty good pretty fast and decided he wanted to make himself an afghan.

I tried to tell him that an afghan was a pretty big project and maybe he should start with something else but he’s an all or nothing kind of guy, so we went down to A. C. Moore to pick out a pattern and some yarn. Well, I talked him into this afghan made out of separate squares each made from a different stitch: 63 Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches. I thought it would be fun to learn the different stitches and I could help him with it – we’d each do some squares and later combine them. I got the sequel – 63 More Easy-To-Crochet Pattern Stitches and we would each pick and choose which squares we wanted to make within certain guidelines. He didn’t want lacey ones – he liked the denser squares better. And of course we couldn’t do any particularly complicated ones, which there were plenty of despite the word “Easy” figuring prominently in the name.

It was a disaster. Each square was supposed to be the same size. 8″ I think. Take two novices and a bunch of different stitches and what do you think you end up with? We had everything from 6″ to 10″. They were never going to combine into an afghan.

So we gave up/lost interest. We did maybe 20 squares altogether. I finally threw them out not too long ago but before I did I picked out three of my favorites (that were relatively the same size) and framed them. They make kind of a cute craftsy type wall display.

The time wasn’t completely wasted. Aside from the wall display, I did learn how to do some pretty complicated stitches and I was forced to think harder about working to gauge. So I really think those squares are the basis for my ability to crochet today.

Having given up on the afghan, Todd decided to make himself a scarf (perhaps he should have started with the scarf, eh?). He picked out the yarn and chose to use a straightforward single crochet stitch. He did a few rows (the long way), then put it down one day and has never picked up a crochet hook since. A couple years later I finished it for him as a birthday present, carefully matching his gauge which I was an experienced enough crafter to do by then. He picked some nice yarn, didn’t he? It’s Lion Brand Wool-Ease Heather.

And that’s the story of Crocheting with Todd.