The crochet girlies were right
Life lessons I’ve learnt as a crochet beginner
It has been five days since I submitted my final assignment and I have picked up a new hobby - crochet. Can I just say, the crochet girlies are definitely onto something. As a new member of this group myself, it’s been a learning curve. My younger sister is teaching me and I am currently two days in to making a pillow! Here are three things I’ve learnt since becoming a crochet girlie:
Redo to improve
As this is my first time, I have been making some mistakes. A lot of mistakes. When those mistakes happen, there is a tendency to want to either cover it up or stop completely because starting again seems SO LONG. But as with life, sometimes you need to take a few steps back to reroute yourself towards the correct path. There are times where I have to redo a single row over three times, or other times where I look back and realise that I messed up 6 rows ago and have to redo the entire thing. It’s not the most fun part of crocheting, but it is definitely where lessons are learnt. I can choose in those moments to ignore the messed-up rows and carry on thinking it won’t be noticeable, but I always think about how annoying it will be to finish the entire thing and the only thing that sticks out is that one mistake that I could’ve fixed at the beginning.
Patience
The last point ties perfectly into this one. Patience. Patience is a virtue and one that comes through daily practice. You can’t pray for patience then lash out at every opportunity you are presented with to be patient. The patience required to crochet actually needs to be studied. But what also needs to be noticed is the peace that comes with it too. We live in a fast-paced world, I live in and have grown up in London so there is always something new and quick and shiny to do. Sticking to one thing goes against everything our algorithm has been training our minds for. But since doing crochet, especially during these two weeks I took off social media, I am reprogramming my mind to slow down and focus on a task at hand. There will always be something else to do, but it is important to learn to not only prioritise but to focus your attention in moments. When I crochet, it’s all I’m thinking about.
Consistency
At first this seems like a really fun hobby. But when you are doing it for the first time, there gets a point where you get bored of doing the same thing. Maybe it’s just me, but doing the same rows over and over and over again can get quite repetitive and boring. I like hobbies that have an element of thrill, like horse riding – I never know if the horse will decide to just jump up in the air and knock me off. But a hobby like crochet doesn’t just require patience, it requires consistency in the mundane. That can teach you how to find the beauty in the mundane. Yesterday, I was getting a little bored of the hand movements I was doing, but today, as I sat in front of my iPad binge watching a show, I found joy in the constancy of being able to crochet at the same time. Now, instead of feeling guilty for watching a programme (something I will have to unpack in another blog post), I can be proud at how I used my time to make something in my relaxation.
The saying goes practice makes perfect, but I prefer the one that says practice makes progress. I’m still at the beginning stages of learning and while I am not yet perfect, I focus on being consistent in my practice.
