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Setting the Record Straight

The Story of How I Learned to Crochet
or "Reading a Book Doesn't Work for Everyone"


In my post yesterday I quickly skimmed over learning to crochet thusly:

My friend and I taught ourselves to crochet in college from a book (I
Can't Believe I'm Crocheting!), ...

The "my friend" in question, Mandy, then commented with:

We didn't learn together! I learned and taught you. Let the record stand!
So how did it happen really? Who is right?

Well, we both are. While perusing the aisles at Wal*Mart (why this is fun to do, I do not know, but we always ended up at Wal*Mart), I got a hankering to buy the Learn to Crochet kit. So I did. I took the book, yarn, and hooks over to Mandy's apartment and sat down to learn. I was able to do a chain, and then a slip stitch. Problem is, I thought the slip stitch was a single crochet. I had 7 rows of slip stitching! Can you imagine how tight that was to crochet into, and how frustrating it was? We dubbed that swatch a "Toe Warmer Blanket."

Frustrated, I put down the hook and yarn. Mandy, with a great proficiency for reading and understanding instructions, picked up the book, looked at what I had done, and was quickly able to show me what I should have been doing. Once I could watch her, the instructions and images all made sense! We were both hooked. We pooled our college resources to buy a granny square pattern book, and figured out how to crochet hats by a process of trial and error.

Soon all of our friends were asking us to "knit" them something. "It's not knit; it's crochet!" was an oft heard quote. So the stopped asking us to make them things, and asked us instead to teach them how to do it themselves (male and female alike).

What does this story have to do with teaching crochet? Two things: One) there are so many different learning styles out there. I couldn't learn just by reading a book. When you are showing someone how to crochet, do three things:

  1. Tell them
  2. Show them
  3. Let them do it
Two) you don't have to be the world's best crocheter to teach someone. Mandy had just learned to crochet about 37 seconds before she taught me.

In closing, I do want to publicly thank Mandy. Without her, I doubt I would be the crocheter I am today, and I really like the crocheter I am today. Thank you, Mandy!

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posted by Anonymous on Monday, October 09, 2006 @ 10:15 PM

1 Comments:

Blogger Pyo said...

Very nice story, thanks for sharing it :o) 3:17 PM  

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