#TBT Crochet

Ever since Throwback Thursday became a thing, I've been anxious to share my humble crochet beginnings. I'll never forget the night I started. I could barely contain my excitement when I arrived home after work in October 2012 with my Crochet Beginners Kit from Michaels. Accompanying the kit, was a $1.99 skein of coral colored cotton yarn that I was ready to make practice scraps with. (PS - Cotton yarn is NOT the best yarn to learn with!)

And so it began, I opened the CD drive on my laptop and put in "Crochet for Beginners" DVD tutorial. I hadn't picked up a crochet hook yet, but I knew this was going to my "thing." God blessed me with an abundance of drive and ambition so I knew I was going to practice, practice, practice until I figured it out. And that I did... I had to pause the DVD several times to figure out how to make the basics: slip knot, chain, and single crochet stitch. My first creation was (because I like practical things) a bookmark. I had to give it it purpose, considering the hours it took to complete. 

My next discovery was the double crochet, which was a larger stitch; it's looser, but you can make things faster with double than a single crochet stitch. It was a cold October when I started, so my first thought was a scarf. It's a straight line, I could handle that, right? I sat in my red moon chair on a Sunday afternoon with NFL games in the background and made that darn scarf. It took 5 hours, nonstop. I don't think I'd ever focused on something so intently in my entire life. 

It was 2 months before Christmas, and once I realized just how long everything took to make (especially as a beginner), I knew I had to start preparing for Christmas NOW. So I did. My 5:30am alarm turned into a 4:30am alarm and my bed time changed from 9:30pm to 10:30pm. I was going to do everything I could to pay off my Christmas gifts through time, and I needed all of those two months to do so. 

The third discovery was how to make a circle. This took the longest to figure out. I desperately wanted to learn how to make koozies to give my sister and her husband for Christmas. On good weather days, I would even take my lunch break from work to crochet in parking lots! I was determined. My koozies have come a very long way from those lunch break practice sessions. This post would take days to go thru if I highlighted all of the "ah ha" moments, so I'll revert to photos.

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And don't forget the animals of course, which is 80% of my current inventory! It all started with a strange looking pig, a scary slug, then a teddy bear named Terrance. Each one got better and better. I realized this could be it, this could be the product that stands out from the others. I was going to sell handmade stuffed animals...and one day, someone would like them. When I stand in my booth on Saturday mornings today and watch kids get their first Simply Hooked animal and walk away with bursting smiles, I can't help but think, "Wow, it actually happened." It's so rewarding to know where it started and where it's come in just 3 years.   

I'll never forget my first correct circle, first straight line, or day I figured out that you can only use cotton yarn on kitchen items because acrylic yarn melts! Who would've thought? It's fun to look back and see the humble beginnings of items I've now perfected and give me hope for a flourishing business one day. You have to start somewhere! And in case you were wondering how Christmas went that year, you could say my sister and her husband ended up with more yarn in that one day than possibly their entire life.