One Can Lead to Another

Have you ever been in a place where you saw someone doing a craft, be it needle knitting, crochet, or some other thing? When you saw them you either said or thought to yourself I wish I could do that, but I just cannot? Well, you are wrong.

Crafting, no matter what the kind, is not a talent like everyone wants to claim. It is a learned skill. So many times I have had someone say I just don't have the talent to do something like that. It makes me want to scream, to jump up and down and run around in circles. I have no talent in the area of crafting, but I do have the ability to practice, practice, practice till it sinks into this thick set of brain cells I have. Then suddenly I have a new thing I have learned, yes learned.

I wasn't born knowing how to crochet, knit, macrame, or tat. I worked hard and had many, many frogging points (to frog is to rip-it, rip-it, you know like a frog sounds) throughout my learning days and I still do.

So you pick that thing you really want to learn and you sit and play with it. No you are not going to "get it" instantly. To some that might happen but to the rest of us it is old fashioned work. Oh I am sorry, I did say a bad word there, work. It takes time to have your hands say, yes I can do this. It takes time for your brain to say I know what you want. It take takes time for your eyes to see just exactly what the brain is telling your hands to do.

Ok I don't have the patience to sit and do that, but you will sit in front of a box half the night just looking at other people doing things that create new experiences for them. You are like a brick sitting there doing nothing but fixing those eyes on that box and letting the tails of others sink into you. So why not sit there and let that box just be a background while you play with needles or hook or loom or shuttle.

You will find that since you are not putting your entire concentration into the craft learning that you will relax a little and not be trying to totally control what the brain, hands, and eyes are seeking to do for you. So what if you make lots of mistakes, that is all a part of the learning. We all make mistakes in everything we attempt to learn. That is just the way it is and has been since the day we were born. We cannot all be the genius that picks up something and instantly knows how to do it.

I know it sounds like I am being pushy. Well, maybe I am. I know you can do it because I have done it. Oh I falter a lot along the way, but I have done it and will most likely do it again, and again as I cannot stop myself from learning that new to me thing.

Sure my aunt taught me to knit on needles. She taught me how to do a purl and a knit stitch, but nothing else. I moved away too soon for her to be there to continue my education. So I mostly gave up, but the crafting was in me from the first moment I made that first pair of slippers that I wore till they fell to pieces.

So I taught myself to crochet. Then one day I wanted to learn to macrame and I took a book and I played with it. Then one day I wanted to learn some cross stitch and I took a book and I learned some. Then one day I took on plastic canvas and I learned some. Someone gave me chair braiding books and I learned that. I hear about looms and I learned those. I wanted to tat from the ripe old age of 18 and I finally managed to take that on and I learned some. Now I am taking on knitting machines and I am learning some.

No I will never be an "expert" in any of these. I have no desire to be that expert. Where others run to the expert classes and work themselves into that I have to be the best of the best, I simply want to be able to do what I want when I want and be happy that I know, even at my advancing age, that I have had and still do the ability to take myself on the journey of learning. So can you.

Take on one and soon you will find that one can lead to another and soon maybe you are not an expert but you will no longer be saying "I wish I could" but instead "I know I can".