I learned to crochet when I was eight years old. I will never forget the feeling I had when my mom let me stop practicing chains and start working on a blanket. Just simple single crochet stitches back and forth, back and forth. I remember the sinking feeling I had when I held up my first twenty rows and realized my beautiful blanket looked like a trapezoid. With eyes hot and stinging with tears, I asked my mom (with little hope in my heart) if she could fix it. I was amazed at how she worked on the sides of the stitches and somehow made it even again. She just knew how to master hook and yarn.

Since then, I have learned many things: how to do various stitches, how to read a pattern, how to create my own designs, and how to write those designs into a pattern someone else can follow.

I love art. My mind thinks artistically. I never understood why I couldn’t master paintbrush nor charcoal pencil, potter’s wheel nor sewing machine. I had ideas constantly forming in my mind, but no way to express them. It took me years to realize my artistic medium was hiding in plain sight all along.

I love teaching. My entire life I have taught children in many settings: home school, Sunday School, preschool, public school, summer camps, summer mission trips and personal tutoring. I thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher. Upon realizing I am too free-spirited for the wonderful structure of public education, I quickly changed majors.

I love writing and reading. They go hand in hand: writers love to read. Writing is an art form I do enjoy and can clumsily master (unlike the aforementioned arts!). I love the thrill of a good story. My favorite stories are King David and Prince Jonathan’s adventures (as found in 2 Samuel) and Peter Pan. This is why I changed my major to English (I graduated with a BS in Liberal Arts).

I love to crochet. I have been practicing and creating for twenty-five years. In the last year something finally clicked as I expanded my repertoire of patterns and unleashed the years worth of pictures and ideas I’ve been storing away. My mind has been set free to create art in a way I never thought possible. My hook is my brush, and my medium? Yarn.