Have you ever been to Hobby Lobby? That place is crazy dangerous. Aisle upon aisle is stacked with items you really, really don't need but you really, really want. Not only that, but their stuff is not cheap. Not to mention, where are you going to put all this junk buy?
Unfortunately, if you're like me, you get as giddy as a child on Christmas when you enter those doors. So many craft options. What a selection of home decor! And the candles - don't even get me started on the candles.
I made a mistake a couple weeks ago. I went to Hobby Lobby. Not because I needed anything in particular. Just to kill time. Sure, I killed time, but I also killed a few pennies from my bank account. However, I picked up a new hobby. One that is much harder than I thought it would be.
Crocheting. Granted, I knew it would be no jog around the park. My fingers have been trained to do about four things, hobby-wise. Throw a softball, shoot a basketball, leave a button at break-neck speed, and type on a bunch of keys without the assistance of my eyes. That's about it. Crocheting requires my fingers to do things they've never even imagined doing.
Pinterest made crocheting look a lot easier by just showing the finished product. But the Internet always seems to do that. I walked down the book section first, and found myself a crocheting book for beginners. Flipped a few pages and located the supplies I would need to learn the technique. The hook wasn't that difficult to find. And neither was the yarn once I figured out that most of Hobby Lobby's yarn is okay to use for the task that the book was assigning me.
I purchased those materials and headed back to school. Then spent three consecutive hours practicing the new hobby I picked up on a whim. Lesson 1 was teaching about the materials. Lesson 2: how to hold the hook in one hand and the yarn in the other. Lesson 3 was how to make a chain.
I was flying through these. And my Pinterest dreams seemed to be coming true. Lesson 4: flushed those dreams right down the toilet. Making a chain is easy. Making a chain next to another chain next to another chain is where it gets a little tricky.
I managed to make a few chains the next morning after getting frustrated and going to bed the night of the spontaneous purchase. But what was supposed to be a square turned out to be a knotted circle. Loops had been skipped as had the instructions on how to make a corner. (I didn't understand the instructions, so I simply ignored them and moved on to the next step.)
I still don't know how to make a corner and I haven't crochet much since that circle. But it's something that once my fingers figure out how to do confidently, I know I'll be spending a lot of time doing.
