How I learned to crochet...

I learned to crochet many years ago when I was a Girl Scout.
I learned how to make chains, how to slip stitch, and I think we learned the single crochet stitch.

When I was a teenager I taught myself the double crochet, and my own version of the half-double -(I didn't get that one quite right until I looked it up in a book!) But still - I could only go in straight lines, and I knew absolutely nothing about increasing or decreasing.
So I made lots (and LOTS) of: scarves, washcloths, baby blankets, afghans - and other things that are square or rectangular.

I looked longingly at crochet patterns, (especially the ones hanging on the yarn displays,) but all of the numbers and abbreviations intimidated me tremendously:
SC, HDC, DC, SL ST, CH, RND
And then some of them had charts for patterns - Good grief...those were WORSE!

It was like some weird, secret language that I couldn't comprehend.
I got books from the library and I tried to follow along, but the pictures often just confused me more.

But this past summer, (after drooling over the gorgeous creations on Etsy,)
I made a promise to myself that I would learn!

This book helped me tremendously

But I think the thing that helped me the most was watching videos on YouTube.
(Gotta love the internet sometimes) ;-)

Actually seeing a real live person demonstrate where to put the hook and how to do increases and decreases was invaluable to me.

And then I discovered amigurami. Oh.So.Cute.
So, putting it all into practice...I made my first creation.

It started as just a group of ball shaped objects...













But it became...Ollie!




























He was well received.
















And I ....was hooked.... (pun intended.) ;-)