Craft Club #2: Crochet 101

So many numbers in that title.

If you will recall (and you should), my circle of lady friends launched a Craft Club earlier this fall, because we really liked the idea of combining friends and crafts and hosting and food/wine. Our first craft session took place in late September at my friend Jenna's apartment, where we had some fun with foil and nommed on homemade pumpkin, white bean, and turkey chili.

On Saturday night, Craft Club #2 was hosted by our friend Lauren at her home in Quincy, where she gave us a fabulous introductory lesson to crocheting.

First of all, Craft Club grew this month! In addition to me and Lauren, our friends Stephanie, Kara, and Jenna were in attendance. New "members" (we're so elite) this month were our friends Abby (whose wedding I recently wrote all about here) and Kimmy! We should have hazed them somehow. I wish I'd thought of that earlier.

After lounging around Lauren's cozy living room for awhile, chatting and nibbling on stuffed mushrooms, popcorn, crackers and hummus appetizers, we moved into the dining room to dive into the crocheting. 

.  left to right:  kara, lauren, jenna, stephanie, abby, kim  .

Lauren was a fantastic teacher - patiently taking the time to teach us how to do a chain stitch to begin our projects, and then a basic single stitch to actually get our projects underway.

She also taught the more ambitious amongst us a more complicated double stitch, but I shied away from attempting that one and instead poured my focus into trying to perfect the hand movements for the single stitch. While it's not tricky to learn how to crochet, the hard part is certainly the mastery of the technique and the ability to make each stitch uniform in size and shape.  

For my first foray into crocheting, I'd chosen this sage green yarn from the bundles of yarn that Lauren provided for us. You can see in the picture below the start of what I was working on...

 

Perhaps one day it will be large enough to be a scarf? I assume that will be in about 3 years' time. 

We paused our crocheting briefly to chow down on the homemade chicken pot pie that Lauren had prepared for us. I'd also brought along some store-bought cornbread that actually tasted pretty darn good. A delicious dinner, for sure. 

While it may sound like a bit of an "older woman" thing to do, it was surprisingly fun and relaxing to sit around in a circle of crocheting women for several hours. Even with our heads down and our focus directed on our yarn and crochet hooks, we still enjoyed pretty steady conversation and laughs the entire night. It also didn't hurt that The Notebook and Hocus Pocus were playing back-to-back on the TV in the background. And time flew - before I knew it, it was after 10pm. Even then, most of us didn't leave till after 11!

Lauren had plenty of crochet hooks to not only share with us that evening at her home, but to actually let us each take home our own so we can continue what we began. So generous!

Another successful Craft Club! My "scarf" is about three inches wide now, so things are really shaping up. Next month, Stephanie is going to host and teach us how to make holiday cards, which is the perfect double-whammy of useful and self-indulgent, when it comes to crafting.

Anyone else crafting with their friends? Do you want to now??

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