the craft of hooking

A few years ago I decided to pick up knitting as a way to keep my hands busy while I sat and watched tv. I've gotten wicked good at knitting long rectangles, i.e. scarves, but nothing else. The idea of increasing, decreasing, and knitting in the round scares the crap out of me and therefore I've never tried it. Or rather I have tried, failed miserably, and like to pretend I've never tried.

Recently I was thinking about how much the flight back to NOLA sucks and how jparks hates when I bring a big stack of magazines with me on the plane. And this got me thinking how I better find something new and exciting to bring with me when we fly back for the holidays to replace all my magazines. I thought knitting might be a good idea, but the thought of navigating two knitting needles, yarn, and the required book for help in the tight space of an airplane seat was not appealing. Then I started thinking maybe crocheting would be better for these space limitations.

So, of course, I went all gung ho and ordered The Happy Hooker and bought some hooks and yarn. Then one night I settled in to teach myself the art of hooking. And, that same night, I also (almost) threw the hook and book across the room in a fit of frustration. Hooking is hard!

Okay, maybe it's not hard, but it is hard for me to teach myself. Okay, maybe it's hard for me to teach myself with a book written for adults. Feeling rather beaten, I went back to amazon.com and ordered Crocheting: Kids Can Do It. I used the knitting version of this book to learn the basics of that craft, so I'm hoping I can do the same thing for crocheting.

Keep your fingers crossed that I can figure out how to crochet in time for our flight. Otherwise jparks and I will have yet another huge argument over the stack of magazines I have in my backpack. You would think he would see the bright side of my stack: if the plane crashes I'll have enough paper products to make a fire AND allow him some for toilet paper every day. Boys, they are just so illogical.