I always knew I had latent hooker tendencies

Gosh, it's been too long since I've updated you, bloggie-dear. I apologize for neglecting you. I promise to take better care of you in the future.

And now for the post. I'm being pulled to the dark side: crochet. I tried many times to get the hang of it, and just couldn't. It was so bad that I avoided knitting patterns that had crocheted edgings on them. I was a sorry sorry case. Then, for Halloween, I managed a single crochet had for my daughter's costume. It wasn't too bad. The workmanship wasn't great, but it was still much faster than knitting the same thing. I'm a rather slow knitter, so that speed stuck in the back of my head.

This last week, I entered a stash-busting game on a message board, and figured that I'd never get any points if I tried to start and complete any knitting projects. Heck, a knitted dishcloth takes me two days. So I dove into some "how to crochet" videos and gave it another shot. I picked a pattern that consisted of only single and double crochet, and went to work. In only two hours, I had a completed object. TWO HOURS! This crochet thing just might have something to it after all.

Here's the rub. I cannot hook worth a damn when I do it like the people on the videos (and in the books). I have to hold the yarn in my right hand. It doesn't surprise me, as I cannot knit continental very well, either. I'm probably going to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome doing it that way, but I don't care. I'm managing to make stitches and follow a pattern, and it doesn't suck!

I won't bother posting a picture of the "spa cloth" I did on Tuesday, but you can look it up on Ravelry if you want. Yesterday I started a shawl for Nora. She's been wanting one, and even has the yarn picked out. I don't know how far the "good" yarn will go, so I started out on some acrylic that I had in the cupboard, and she likes that too. It's purple. Nora likes purple.


Pattern: Half-Moon Shawl by Lion Brand
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft, in bright purple.
Hook: 5.0mm