WHOOP WHOOP Finally I'm a Hooker (well almost)

Yesterday I found myself with one of those very elusive things.... a spare hour! Of course I had things I should have could have been doing but I was a little restless and more ironing etc for some absurd reason just didn't appeal???

I have been wanting to learn to crotchet for years quite a while, but although I've had a few quick lessons over a 20 year span I hadn't stuck at it past the lesson enough to actually get to grips with it!! One of the lessons (and probably the most productive one) was with the lovely GG. She is a fantastic friend whom I met through a knitting forum, she and her wonderful husband HWN kindly invited me and two others to stay at their house last year in order for us to be part of a group from the forum who were going to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show. She had promised me a lesson whilst at her house, but with so much chatting, getting to know each other and of course knitting going on it was nearly midnight before we knew and it and I thought my chances of learning were gone. GG however stayed up an extra hour (which was wonderful as we had a very early start the next morning) after the others had gone to bed and gave me a master class in granny squares of which the above was produced. Alas when I tried to recreate it at home I only ended up with a tangled mess, I put it down to being very tired during the lesson, and leaving it (a few days) too long before trying it again.

Anyway this came out more than 6 months ago in the UK and I bought the first 3 or 4 copies that appeared in the local newsagents but hadn't done anything with it since (you had to subscribe for the rest of the series and I wasn't sure enough of my commitment to commit to 2 years or so worth). In the first issue a free instruction DVD was included so I dug it out and put it in the DVD player.

These were the result.

My first attempt at slip stitch oooeeerrrr

My first attempt at double crotchet eerrmm umm yeah. Now this is actually where I ran out of hour, so the DVD lessons stopped at this point so everything after this point was an evening of practising double crotchet, which did (in my humble opinion) improve.

My second attempt at double crochet hhmm a little better!

and my third attempt, ignore the fact it doesn't look square, it is fairly square it 's just not sitting flat... honest.

OK, I KNOW I still have tension issues and when I first pick it up I automatically hold the yarn in the right hand like I'm going to start knitting instead of in the left but after a few seconds I figure it out and change hands. After another few seconds I can even get a rhythm going whilst I'm doing it so that is a major accomplishment.

Now I just need another spare hour to finish the DVD lessons and progress to triple crochet !!!

And on a final note, my sister did in fact like Jaiden's present, so much so she txt me to ask if I would make him another, so here it is. Just needs to be washed. I'm still hoping for photo's of him wearing one of them.