Laurebella’s Lovelies

I come from a long line of crafters. My mom likes to sew and cross stitch. One of her sisters used to do ornamental painting on wood. Her other sister paints pictures. Their mother, my grandmother, sews as well and does various crafts. My great-grandmother used to do beautiful crocheting. I remember her teaching my sister and I how to make a chain stitch.

I like to sew and cross stitch, as well as paint. There are a few crafts I have tried, but I have always been fearful of anything involving yarn. Until recently.

I first tried to learn knitting. I had one of those round looms, but didn’t realize a scarf would curl up on it. (I had previously made baby hats on it) So I thought I needed to try the knitting needles. This presented many problems: chunky yarn did not mix with size 8 needles; my children would always run off with the needles, leaving a row of empty stitches behind; or making my stitches so tight that I could not insert the needle into them.

I read that crocheting is easier, so I decided to try that instead, as a sort of homage to my great-grandmother. I wanted to be able to make afghans and little doilies like she did. While crocheting has turned out easy, the stitches that make up such beautiful things are not.

I feel like I have no clue what I am doing. I want to be able to create things for my shop so badly, but my head is full of so many things I want to try out. I am in dismay.