My first project and the hook I found at age 5.

It’s unusual for a little boy to love crochet as much as I do. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is “how did you discover crocheting?” It all started when I was just 5 years old. My Aunt gave my mom a bag of craft items she no longer wanted after cleaning out her craft room. She said to let us kids go through the bag and to donate the rest of the items. My older brother Leif wasn’t interested at all in going through the bag. My little sister Mercy was most interested in the ribbon that was in the bag. There were lots of scraps of material in the bag because my aunt likes to make quilts. I spent some time looking at all the different patterns and colors on the material but what really caught my eye was something shiny at the bottom of the bag. I grabbed the shiny “stick” and ran to my mom to inquire what it was. She explained it was a crochet hook and that you can make beautiful things with it using yarn.  My mom said my Grandma Rita knows how to crochet but that she herself didn’t know how. She grabbed her IPad and found a tutorial on how to make a dishcloth (I wanted to make an Octopus!). She grabbed some yarn from the bag of crafts and left me to experiment with it. I was familiar with navigating an IPad as I was an early reader and used it to read stories frequently. The dishcloth tutorial was very easy to understand and it only took my two tries to get the yarn on the hook. After that, it just came naturally to me. I was even able to change yarn color by listening carefully to the instructions and watching it a few times.

About an hour later my mom came back to check on me. She says now that she was sure I’d have a big mess of tangled yarn on the table. But instead, I made her a dishcloth that she still has and uses today! From that day on, I was hooked! I continued to watch tutorials and learn more difficult stitches. I enjoyed making items from the designs I had imagined in my head. Much like basketball is my favorite hobby for my brother, crochet became my favorite hobby. It relaxes me. It makes me happy. I also like to play sports and continue to be an avid reader but my crochet hook is always with me. The picture attached is of me with the frequently used dishcloth I had first made along with the hook I found in the bag that changed my life.