A little bit about me...

I learned to crochet when I was about 8 or 9 years old from my grandmother who lived with us. She was quite a crafty lady and her daughter, my mother, was (and still is) quite a crafty lady too. I have seven siblings and each one of us, in one way or another, is crafty. Of course I mean crafty in a good way!

I started my crochet career making things like granny squares and long, long, long, long useless chains. I remember making a granny square sweater sort of garment which was, in all honesty, quite horrendous but I think it would be considered "retro" and quite stylish now!

When I was about 11, I remember finding an afghan pattern that caught my attention in some book or magazine and I asked my mother if I could make it. Having great faith in my crochet ability and my perseverance, she took me yarn shopping to Woolworth's or the like. We picked out 6 colors and black for the border and a size Q crochet hook, just like the pattern called for. As soon as we got home, I got right to work with my yarn and my hook. I felt so grown up. Even now, when I have all my supplies gathered for a new project, I still get that same feeling of satisfaction knowing that if I stick to it, soon I will have something useful and handmade, and hopefully attractive, that will last for years to come. I love that feeling!

Well, little did I know, the stitch for the afghan I wanted to make was nothing I had ever seen before, but that didn't stop me. I found a little "how-to" booklet that my grandmother had, found the instructions for the strange stitch, worked and worked at it until I got it right, and THEN got to work on my very first afghan. It took months to finish and I used that afghan with such pride, up until about 2 years ago when it had finally outlived its usefulness. It lasted approximately 32 years! Its last use was as a bed for our dog Daisy and once she was gone, it was time to retire the afghan too. I searched my files for a picture of that afghan and could not find even one! Kind of hard to believe! But I'll describe it to you and I'm sure you'll be able to picture it. It was crocheted using the afghan stitch in strips, some rows of a color, then a few rows of black, then some rows of another color, a few rows of black, just as the pattern indicated. Once the 4 or 5 strips were finished, a row of black was single crocheted all around each one, then they were whip stitched together, and a final row of black was single crocheted around the whole thing. It was bright and cheerful with the blue, red, green, white, orange and yellow colors trimmed in black, and the bold block design was fun.

When a niece or nephew or close friend gets married, I crochet a full size afghan as a wedding gift. I just don't think there could be anything nicer to give. And when a relative or close friend has a first baby, I crochet a baby blanket as a gift. Notice I said "first baby", because with the size of my family I just couldn't keep up if every baby got one. Sharing is a concept learned early in my family! I have also made an afghan for each of my own children and an extra long afghan for my husband.

I will share some pictures of projects I've done soon, plus instructions so you can make them too!