Being crafty myself and gaining so much joy from using my hands to be creative, it’s something I’ve always wanted to pass onto my children. They’ve enjoyed crafts aimed at children in the past such as Hama Beads and of course they were totally into the Loom Band craze of 2014 (not too dissimilar to crochet), making endless amounts of bracelets and figures!
Here are a few of their creations from that time that they’ve kept…
But as they’ve got older, trying to teach them more ‘grown up’ crafts such as crochet, knitting or sewing has not been as easy as I’d have liked. The children of today have so many distractions in the form of screens that crafts can seem like hard work! Over the years I’ve bought various children’s craft books in the hope that they’d be inspired and I’ve tried to teach them knitting with limited success. I have two boys and a girl and am as keen to engage the boys in craft activities as I am my daughter- no sexist stereotypes here!
So this half-term I set out to teach them to crochet. Having started this blog as well as the International Diploma in Crochet course, they’ve seen me do a lot of crochet in recent months so they were surprisingly keen to try!
The initial slip knot was a challenge as my way of getting the slip knot onto the hook is different to how books I have teach it (I don’t mind how it’s done!) but I met their varied learning styles and one learnt from a book whilst the others preferred the practical demonstration and eventually mastered my method.
And I’m so pleased to announce that within twenty minutes foundation chains a plenty were being crocheted- Hooray!
My daughter didn’t want to stop and made a foundation chain until she got to the end of the ball of yarn!
It’s a great start that I’m thrilled with and they’re already talking of crocheted animals and blankets – just need to move on from chains!
Happy Crocheting Everyone…