Week Without Wind

When we were given the assignment to teach a skill I was way excited.  I went and borrowed my sister's trainer kiteboarding kite in order to teach a friend how to fly it. 

Well after a week of waiting for the wind that never came, I ended up teaching a friend how to crochet on an intensely exciting sunday afternoon.

 Yes. You heard me right.  That is me teaching a girl how to crochet.  My roommate and his girl laughed when they realized who was teaching whom.  I was surprised to hear that my friend had never learned to crochet, but she told me that her paralyzing fear of needles, sticks, and pointy objects had inhibited her from ever learning.  So, while breaking gender stereotypes and overcoming fears, we started to stitch together.

It was interesting for me to have to explain something that now comes so naturally to me.  A muscle memory is harder to convey than other types.  You can't just give someone that ability.  It is something that can only be understood from a book with great difficulty.

Continuing with patience I positioned her fingers around the yarn and hook in the way that I do it. After getting a little more comfortable with her stitches, she "improved on my methods" and found a comfortable way to hold her hook by herself.  I guess we all have a different way that we do things.  Even though my friend definitely needed my help to understand how to do the stitches and start off, once she had the basics down she was able to adapt her knowledge in a way that worked well for her.

After a nice (though rather uneventful in comparison to kiting) afternoon, my friend had mastered the art of crocheting and made a modern artistic crochet piece.  It looked like this  ---

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A sort of rectangle with a long rat tail.  She said she would keep it forever.  I think that next sunday we will learn about crochet patterns . . .