Why "Never Knew"?

As I mentioned above, this blog is called "Never Knew" because I never knew how much I'd enjoy crochet. I had no idea. And it really has been the most wonderful surprise.

I had learned to knit when I was much younger, but I found it terribly fiddly and frustrating, and I always needed my mother or Oma (grandmother) around to "rescue" my knitting when I lost a stitch, or two, or three... I had never learned to crochet, and I suppose after my knitting attempts I had decided none of it was worth the time and effort.

Anyway, my mum was crocheting one night (she rarely crochets, just sometimes when on holidays) and I leaned over her work and asked "how do you DO that?". I really wanted to try, I'm not sure why at that exact moment, having never bothered to try before. After some insistence, she showed me the basic stitches.

I was fascinated, and seemed to get the hang of it rather quickly. I had no idea that it was so easy! How the wonderful HOOK - as opposed to knitting NEEDLE - helped to keep the stitch on. And the fact that there was one stitch - just one - on the hook at a time! No need to worry about the rest of them sliding off when you put it down for a minute. And a few weeks later I discovered that when you change colours you can actually tie off that single stitch and your work was safe and wouldn't unravel! How simple! How amazing! Why would anyone ever KNIT!!?? :-D

Over the next week, while my mum was still visiting our place, I became like a woman obsessed. I crocheted every moment I could. I googled patterns and found out there is a whole world of crochet blogs, web-sites, and free patterns, all out there waiting for me to discover them. I decided I wanted to crochet little string bags - I was very keen to make crochet useful - and I had even decided I was going to give everyone one for Christmas. I crocheted and crocheted and crocheted. My mother thought it was most amusing.

As did I! I never, ever, expected to find it so satisfying! It's hard to explain the pleasure and satisfaction it brings me, because it's unlike anything I've experienced before. I have dabbled in many other hobbies over the years: cooking and baking, home and furniture re-decorating, aromatherapy and making my own skin creams, photography, scrapbooking... but none of them really gave me the "buzz" that this does.

And it hasn't gone away - that buzz, I mean. Six months on, and with about six WIP (I now know that stands for "Work in Progress") on the go at once (!) I find myself thinking about colour combinations as I drive to work, and rushing home at the end of each day, planning how I can get everything else done quickly, so that there'll still be time for crochet before the day is through.

Like I said, I never knew. :-)

More on my crochet journey soon.

Caz :-)