A Look Back on my Earliest Crochet

I am 21 and I've been crocheting since I was about 11. The first few years I crocheted I wasn't really involved in the online crochet/craft community. I didn't know such a thing existed. I didn't see all the wonderful amazing things people did with crochet. All I saw was a striped double crochet baby blanket my mom made for a friend and potholders my grandma won in a charity bingo. It was a creative famine in my world of crochet. I learned how to crochet before I knew what I would do with it. I've always been drawn to weaving, crocheting and knitting. It was something I wanted to do just for the sake of doing it. Every time I saw something crocheted, it was new and exciting.

Of course learning was a bull-headed process. My mom tried showing me how to crochet and mostly the process just frustrated me to no end, but out of pure stubbornness I figured out the very basics and went from there.

I think in a way I was lucky. I got to do creative things that I hadn't seen anyone else do before. When I made my checkered scarf, I figured out how to do the color change without cutting any yarn. I had no idea other people knew that "technique." I just loved checkers, loved crochet and hated cutting yarn.


I didn't have patterns in the early days. In fact I've almost never used patterns. I think you learn so much more if you figure out things on your own.


This was my first scarf. Before I knew that there was more than one type of stitch. I didn't know I was doing a back loop single crochet. I just though I was crocheting. I thought it'd be cool to add a pocket. I didn't know how to do a button-hole, so I just figured it out.

This was my second or third scarf. I figured out how to do chevrons and wanted to something with it. I ended up with this weird number.

I've come a long way and now I'm spoiled by inspiration on a handful of sites for people interested in crocheting and crafts. But I'll probably always have the most pride in the first things I made.