As the saying goes, creative people create.

The older I get, the more I realize that not only do we create, but in fact most creative people tend to have more than one way to express that creativity.

For me, first and foremost, I write. In the past, I’ve painted with watercolors. I went through a scrapbooking phase as well. I dabble with gardening (love planting, but I’m not so good with the upkeep –thank goodness for my husband). I love to bake. And I crochet.

My path to crochet was somewhat long and twisty. It started many, many years ago, when after oohing and aahing over a friend’s knitted scarf, she offered to teach me how to knit a scarf for myself. I jumped at the chance. I loved just about everything to do with knitting except one thing. The pain. Something about the motions of using two knitting needles exacerbated the tendonitis in my forearms to the point where it was too painful to even type, which was most definitely not a good thing for a writer. I reluctantly gave up knitting.

Over the next few years, I fought the urge to return to knitting. Every time I saw a yarn display, I felt the pull. I’d linger in front of yarn shops and wander the yarn aisles in craft stores. It was in one of those aisles that I noticed crochet hooks. I didn’t buy one, but I began wondering if a singular hook would be less painful than using two knitting needles…

I started talking about learning to crochet on Facebook and must have chatted it up so much that a reader (who’s now a good friend –hi Shelly!) offered to teach me the basics of crochet after a book-signing I had in Illinois, near her hometown, and I took her up on that offer. The lesson was too quick to fully grasp the whole concept of crochet, but I went home and took what Shelly taught me and used that along with how-to books and YouTube videos (a great way to learn!), and have been crocheting now for years. Pain free!

People often ask me how I have time to crochet, and the simple answer is I make time. It’s my way to decompress after a long day. To step away from the computer and use my creativity in another way. It alleviates my stress and above all, it makes me happy.

My absolute favorite thing about crocheting, though, is looking at a ball of yarn and seeing its possibilities. To essentially take long strands of fiber and create something that’s not only beautiful but usable. A hat, a blanket, a scarf. It’s artistic...and incredibly rewarding…and a little bit magical.