something new

I come from a line of "crafters". Quilting, knitting, crocheting. I have tried all of these crafts but sewing is the one I went with. I like instant gratification. I'm not saying that quilts are made in a day, although some are, but it took me f o r e v e r to complete any kind of yarn project. And with my skills, knitting and crocheting never held my attention long enough to learn anything more than a straight line, rectangle, or any kind of decorative stitch. I still get the itch every so often to try it out though. I peeked at this blog a few days ago and found some wonderful crocheted granny squares. I love everything about them, the colors, pattern, the assortment. So I got to thinking, if I focused on one square at a time, what could be so hard with that? Well once I started looking into crochet patterns again I remembered that they are like a foreign language. I have no idea how to read them, or what any of those letters mean. I bought this book, mentioned on Quiltycat's blog, and it has an alternate way of reading patterns. By a diagram. Looks easy enough, if you know what a single crochet is or a double crochet is, all of which I forgot. My mom is too far away to teach me by hand, so a friend mentioned that her sister learned to crochet by watching youtube. Well, what do you know, they have some videos on there that were not too bad. I was able to watch them, cross reference to the crochet book with the terms, and I was able to finally follow a granny square tutorial on the purl bee. And here is what I have made so far..

I used an eco-cotton blend 75% recycled cotton yarn that I found at Joann's. I like that it is not real fuzzy like some yarns. It was nice to work with. I think it is funny that I used the same pattern for both squares, yet they look slightly different, and you can't tell from the picture, but they are different sizes too. Just goes to show that I have a long way to go with learning to crochet, but I am really happy that these are not my typical boring one colored rectangle/scarf!