Being a knitter soon made me want to spin my own yarn. I doubted my ability to learn. Could I really join the cool spinning kids? But my first amazing little spindle and me just "clicked", and I loved it! After that, I pined after a wheel until I was finally able to buy my Kiwi. The act of spinning fibre is a fantastic place to go to, and any spinners who read this will already be familiar with the pleasure, companionship, fulfilment and contentment that spinning, (usually), brings.
Being able to spin the yarn I wanted, competently enough to be able to knit something half decent, gave me the encouragement I needed to tackle crochet. As with knitting, I have wanted to crochet since childhood. It has always confused and slightly intimidated me. The construction of the stitches just seemed to make no sense! With knitting you, pretty much, work each stitch once, and then the little fella just hops across to the right hand needle. There are "fancy" stitches, such as cabling, or knitting/purling into the front and the back of the same stitch, but you don't have to learn these techniques to create a knitted fabric. Crochet felt to me like listening to Bach - how does something so complex and beautiful get written? How do you fathom the construction out? Until finally, thanks to watching a tutorial by Kim Werker I just "saw" it. I stuck to working with one stitch, the Treble Crochet (UK) - a.k.a. Double Crochet (US) - and went on from there. While my crochet is still at beginner level, I am a beginner! I recently completed my first Granny Square Crocheted Blanket. It may not be a highly original thing to make, and it is only made out of acrylic yarn, costing £1.69 a ball. But, it is my Granny Square Crocheted Blanket!!! :-)
I used This pattern on Ravelry and added an edging from This beautiful baby blanket . It measures about 41 inches across, from side to side. - I am now, officially, addicted to crochet!
