If Only You Knew How Much Swearing Was Stitched Into Your Handmade Gift

A long time ago my grandmother taught me how to crochet. I thought I was good at it because when you are eight years old, and your Grandma tells you you are good at something, you believe her.

I joined a crochet club recently and assigned myself to the beginner’s group, thinking it would be a good refresher before I got back in the swing of things and started cranking out afghans. Oh, the plans I had! I would make afghans as gifts, decorate our bedrooms with them, and color-coordinate them with the seasons - so many afghans!

Yeah…about that…

After sitting through half of a two-hour crochet club meeting on Saturday morning, my overall takeaway was: Boy, did grandma feed me a steaming pile of bullsh*t about my crocheting skills.

I’m sure Grandma wanted me to feel like a confident, accomplished little girl. But for god’s sake, I believed I was good at something for 50+ years and just realized last weekend, in a somewhat humiliating way, that I know jack shit about crocheting and have zero talent for yarn crafts. 

That revelation came when I found myself amongst women who arrived at the meeting wearing sweaters and carrying purses they had made. As we were making introductions, with starry-eye gazing and ooh-ing and aww-ing over their crocheted masterpieces, I realized that I had never finished a crochet project in my life. Yes, I may have tried, but my stitches were so god-awful uneven that I gave up, shoved the yarn in a closet, and forgot about it for a few years until I cleaned out the closet and threw the whole knotted mess into a Goodwill bin. Then I tried again a few years later, and a few years later, and a few years later, and..

Suddenly, I felt very intimidated, and we hadn’t even unleashed our crochet hooks. Okay, whatever. Relax. Breathe and life coach your way into crocheting success. I told myself I might be out of my element, but I’m ready to try new, challenging things! Bring on the yarn because I’m going to kick crochet’s ass!

I cringe now writing that because sometimes I can be an eternally optimistic fool who thinks she can master something that she cannot understand no matter how many times it is explained. I’m kind of an unrealistic moron that way.

Anyway, we were there to crochet little baskets together. Let’s get started! Step one of the instructions said, “Create a magic circle and then Ch 1 * hdc in the next 2 st, 2 hdc in the next st, repeat from * around, join with sl st in beg hdc…” 

Translation: Danielle has no f*cking idea what that means. 

I felt stupendously clueless. Those words meant nothing to me when referring to yarn. The first thing that came to mind when I read “magic circle” was Dr. Strange making his circle of fire before stepping into another realm, which is precisely what I wanted to do at that point because everyone had already made their magic circles, and I was sitting there holding a piece of yarn and thinking “Kill me. Kill me now.”

Thankfully, the instructor/leader/organizer was kind enough to get my magic circle started three times, and I managed to f*ck it up three times before the ninth hdc (that I was obviously doing wrong and what the hell is an hdc?!) 

She even put little colored pins on my mess to help count stitches and track where I started, but I couldn’t even figure out how to make A STITCH, let alone work my way back around to the beginning of the magic circle with nine stitches or sc or whatever it was that we were supposed to be doing. After a failed fourth attempt, I mentally said F*CK THIS, politely said my goodbyes, and soothed my wounded ego by browsing in a boutique across the street and then turning the radio up and singing to the Bee Gees on the way home.

I can take solace in knowing I’m not typically a quitter and am old enough to just know when something is not right for me, and I’m going to give myself a thumbs up for having the nads to participate. I can say with 100 percent certainty that I will be returning my yarn and crochet hooks tomorrow, and I will never, EVER attempt to crochet again. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. 

But man, how I envy those who can do it. It’s a beautiful art. I’m kind of sad I’m not going to be a part of that little crochet group because I liked all the women, but I don’t think, “How about I just come to socialize and eat snacks while you all make pretty shit?” is going to fly at the next meeting.

Oh well, one thing I’ve learned in life is that I’m going to suck at a lot of things. Crocheting was a bust, but on to new adventures!