Crochet and Knitting story.

To be honest, I do not remember when everything started. Unlike cross-stitch, I do remember, that I was introduced to crochet when I was a teenager, the thing is – I do not remember what “age” I was. I even can’t recall crocheting at school as part of my classes.

Before I learned crocheting, I already knew basics of knitting and I can’t say I liked it. I would start a lot of projects and will leave them at that “start” stage. I would knit maybe dozen or two rows and then I would get bored and would stop everything forever. My guess is that I nailed only two things in my knitting life: winter mittens and socks, which I actually did somewhere at “teen” age too by using 4 knitting needles at once.

As I remember now, I was at my grandma’s house in a countryside. She lived almost on the outskirts of it. Few steps outside and you meet loooooong pine forest, and fields, and forest again, and more fields, and to the next village there are miles and miles with no people around. So it was very fun to stay there every school fall-winter-spring-summer breaks. And the biggest fun was that it was an old part of a village, where there were no kids around so you had to figure out what in the heck you will do for the next 3 month (“hello summer break”).

During those days, when we actually would have electricity, we would watch whatever TV will catch (not much was there I can say, I think only 2 channels), other than that, I would read whatever my grandma had, which in most cases were newspapers. I honestly don’t know how it happened, that I had 4 knitting needles and a yarn to my disposal. Knowing basic stitches and remembering how my mom would manage socks on 4 needles – I tried to conquer it myself.

And my end result was actually great, I also get to use to wear them during the winter.

BTW, I was introduced to knitting by my mom. I honestly tried to learn some new stitches (or how you call it) by looking them up in old (like from ‘70 or ‘80, yeah) magazines. But it still won’t make knitting process very excited. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE knitted products A LOT. I just wish I would love to knit and would have more patience with it. I lose it too fast.

There was one thing my mom did not know how to do – it is crocheting. And it was like a magical mystery for me, I wanted to learn it really badly, but unfortunately there was absolutely no one around who knew how to do it and I would pull my hair trying to understand magazines. Also there were no good books and no internet by that time (in our country). I gave up trying to figure it out myself.

This lasted until one summer I visited my cousins at southern Ukraine. And luckily, her mom was really good at crocheting. You can’t imagine my excitement finding this out. She was generous, and gave me a gift of 3 steel crochet hooks, which I still have and use. In addition to everything she was a teacher at a University (something mathematical related) so she 1. knew how to teach and 2. had a lot of patience. From this point I get the drift.