My First Crocheted Thing - Child's Beanie Hat

I'm almost always up for a challenge, so when I saw my sister's crocheted dolls, it made me want to try it. I knew I'd have to start slow though, so I bought a small "learn to crochet" kit. It had several crochet needles, a couple of crochet sewing needles, an instruction booklet, and a few other items. When I cracked open the booklet, it began with the different types of stitches (single crochet, double crochet, etc.). There were nice photos of the needle movements and verbal instructions. It even came with a DVD of someone showing me how to do it. But, I still couldn't get it. That just wasn't my learning style. So, I decided to just jump right into a project. My first attempt would to be making Lalo a hat.

I knew that my learning style is hands-on, and I could tell a huge difference between trying to tell what someone was doing through photos in the book versus watching someone do it in a video. It was a no-brainer...I needed a video. So, I hopped on the famous YouTube and searched "child crochet beanie hat". I looked at several videos and chose one that had the style I liked and found out very quickly how important is was for the video to be good...aka, the instructor was good at technique, slow enough for me to see what was going on, knew the proper names of the different stitches, and took great video of his/her hands.

After I found a video that I liked, I just dove right in. I'd listen and watch a bit, then do what she showed me. And, I repeated that process, backing the video up several time ;) , over and over until the project was finished. After I completed the beanie hat, I found another video that showed how to do a flower, then I just made up my own way to attached it. And, here was the result of my very first ever crocheted project:

The pattern that I followed ended up making a beanie that was too small for Lalo's head...lol...she gets that from her father ;) Big brains! So, I REALLY had to stretch the hat out to get it to fit. I even had to back out the last row of stitching and crochet it again a bit looser. But, it worked out in the end.

After this, I was hooked ;) It was project after project after project. And, I found it to be quite relaxing too, which was a huge bonus!