Crocheting Adventures
I've always wanted to learn how to crochet. Some of my earliest memories of my grandmother are of her sitting crocheting in front of the TV (which was so loud you were almost unable to hear your own thoughts). I remember asking her many times if she could teach me, it looked so fun and I loved the idea of being able to create things I could then wear, or even small plushies. But I never managed to get her to teach me.
She always answered me with a variation of "You're a boy and crocheting is for ladies. Go play outside, or read a book instead. If you still want to learn when you're older I will teach you". Yes, she was very conservative in that way, and believed that me crocheting would somehow corrupt my little innocent soul. Old ways of thinking I guess, she later changed her views and ended up accepting queer people as normal people instead of problems that needed to be fixed, but that's another topic.
Alas, my grandmother passed away without me ever re-asking her to impart her crocheting wisdom after I became an adult. I've tried looking at tutorials online but I constantly failed to understand them, and quickly got disheartened — what the hell does "half single crochet stitch" even mean?
My wife has known this has been something I've wanted to do for a while so around 2 months ago she gifted me a crocheting kit for beginners! It had everything I needed to learn in the form of hooks, a great yarn that was easy to work with, and (more importantly) a set of videos that I had to watch in order that taught me most of the different types of stitches and then walked me through making my own plushie wale.
The wale ended up being more a ball with fins, but still, I now feel like I can at least understand other YouTube videos and I'm ready to tackle (slightly) more complex projects!