It was a Thursday afternoon in October 2012. I was sitting at my work computer aboard the USS Yorktown pondering my upcoming 3-day weekend. Suddenly I had an intense idea to learn something new. "What could I teach myself this weekend?" I thought. A recent conversation with a coworker came to mind. (Shout out to Katie McDaniel!) We were driving back from a work trip a couple weeks prior when she told me about a blanket she was crocheting for her mom for Christmas. "What an awesome, sentimental gift," I remember thinking. “I want to be able to do that.”
Light bulb! I'm going to learn how to crochet this weekend! When 4:30 struck, I was stoked to get in my little red Jeep and drive to Michaels Stores -- a place I’d never been in before. I felt like a kid in a candy store looking for that yarn aisle and crochet beginner's kit. Let's see, hooks (check!), yarn (check!), Boye Knitting & Crochet pouch for hooks of all sizes (check!), and of course a How to Crochet instructional book with DVD tutorials (check!). I hadn’t even returned home yet, but I had this feeling that I was going to take this newfound skill and run with it.
God blessed me with an incredible amount of inner drive and determination. When there’s something new I want to learn, I’m all in. For the next 72 hours, I read, I watched, I read, I watched - hit play, pause, play, pause. I took notes like I was back in a college classroom. I practiced until I figured it out and ended the weekend with one modest-looking bookmark. I showed it off to my roommates like it was freaking masterpiece ;) I started with a ball of yarn and made something that had purpose -- this concept was enthralling and I couldn’t wait to make more things! It took several months to get the hang of it and learn all of the terminology. I wasn’t very good to start, but I knew I could be good and knew I had the determination to get there. The rest, as they say, is history.
You can truly do anything you put your mind to.
Light bulb! I'm going to learn how to crochet this weekend! When 4:30 struck, I was stoked to get in my little red Jeep and drive to Michaels Stores -- a place I’d never been in before. I felt like a kid in a candy store looking for that yarn aisle and crochet beginner's kit. Let's see, hooks (check!), yarn (check!), Boye Knitting & Crochet pouch for hooks of all sizes (check!), and of course a How to Crochet instructional book with DVD tutorials (check!). I hadn’t even returned home yet, but I had this feeling that I was going to take this newfound skill and run with it.
God blessed me with an incredible amount of inner drive and determination. When there’s something new I want to learn, I’m all in. For the next 72 hours, I read, I watched, I read, I watched - hit play, pause, play, pause. I took notes like I was back in a college classroom. I practiced until I figured it out and ended the weekend with one modest-looking bookmark. I showed it off to my roommates like it was freaking masterpiece ;) I started with a ball of yarn and made something that had purpose -- this concept was enthralling and I couldn’t wait to make more things! It took several months to get the hang of it and learn all of the terminology. I wasn’t very good to start, but I knew I could be good and knew I had the determination to get there. The rest, as they say, is history.
You can truly do anything you put your mind to.
