"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela

Category: EDTC 300

The Basics of the Basics (Chain and Double Crochet)

Bella Coco’s playlist was the resource that I used to begin my learning journey this week. I watched her chain video first, which also taught me about slip knots, how to hold the piece I was working on, and, most importantly, which hook to start with. (Yes, I did not even know what all of the different hooks were for.) I picked up the packaging the white yarn came in, like she had told me to do, and found what hook I needed on it. As I picked up my 6mm hook, I wondered if it would even be big enough to hold onto the thick yarn. I fumbled with the yarn long enough that it certainly felt that way.

The crochet hooks from Mom. Second one from the right is the 6mm one.

 

This is the hold that works the best for me.

I completed my first slip knot quite easily (although I still struggle with remembering how to do it), but learning how to do the chain properly was interesting. The process made logical sense to my brain, but translating that into my hands was a challenge. My hands are quite small (like smaller than most of the kids I teach kinda small), and I had to adjust my tension hold on the yarn since her version was not working for me. Through much practice, I finally got my hold and technique acceptable enough to create the chain without much difficulty. However, the chains were sometimes completely different sizes and some had to be redone along the way due to them being too tight for the hook to pass through. This means that I could not get my yarn tension to be consistent. I went back to the video and noticed that she used the widest part of the hook to size the loops, and I found that the trick worked wonders! With my clumsiness lessened through practice and the yarn tension issues resolved, I was able to create long chains with consistent loop sizes very quickly.

The top looks longer than the bottom. (i.e. it is warped)

After taking my time with practicing the crochet chain, I wanted to go to the next step. According to Bella Coco’s playlist, the next thing I should learn was the Double Crochet stich. The whole square started with a chain, so I was off to a great start there. But, I still had to figure out how to adjust my grip to a piece that was now more than just a single row. That hurdle stumped me for a while, and I felt like a child trying very hard, but mostly failing, to refine my fine motor skills. All of the new yarn volume was throwing off my groove. Additionally, I was making my chain row way too tight to fit my hook through, so the extra chain practice actually hurt me in the end. The too-tight-chain also warped that edge of the square and was impossible to fix unless I went back and redid everything. The theme of too-tight-ness continued as my 1st double crochet row became too tight for me to create the second row. Loosening the tension on the yarn felt wrong at first, but it helped me to actually move past row one of double crochet and create something that looked better overall.

Side Note: Bella Coco’s videos were clear and concise and partnered well with my way of learning, although her hands did get in the way at times. If we had technology that could make a crochet piece hover and not have anything obstruct the view of it, it might have helped me a little bit more. Also, there was no distracting music in the background, so I was able to focus on what I had to do pretty easily.

Once I completed the first double crochet square, I decided to challenge myself by using the smaller, pink yarn to do another double crochet square. However, the packaging of the yarn did not tell me what hook I needed to use this time, and I had to look up “what crochet hook to use with 3 ply yarn”. I stumbled upon a very informative table on the Crafty Arts website, which shows the UK, US, and the AUS and NZ term equivalents for yarn weight, that solved my problems. I found my 3mm hook and got to work.

The table also made me wonder whether or not I had the right yarn weight for the projects that I wanted to do. What yarn weight/thickness would I even need? (That’s a topic for another week 😉.)

My two double crochet squares. Less heavy/thick yarn=more difficulty.

Transferrable Skills I Need to Keep Working On:

  • Counting Stiches: Counting stiches is very important in crocheting, because you will not know what point you are at in your creation if you do not keep track. (I am slightly dreading the point at which I will be creating circles for plushies, because circles don’t exactly have edges.) Currently, I have to count the stiches as I go and take all of them out if I forget what number I’m on. I am hoping to eventually be able to recognize all of the stiches and count them without having to do all that.
  • Counting Rows: This is very similar to counting stiches, although I straight up cannot do it yet. The one thing I have learned is that I should not count the chain line. I accidentally did this when creating my double crochet squares, so there are only 9 rows in each square instead of the 10 I was aiming for.
  • Learning the Difference Between US and UK Terms: Besides the chain, there are different terms that the US and UK use for stiches. For instance, the Double Crochet stich that I have been mentioning is the UK term. In US terms, it is called a Single Crochet. I will be using UK terms throughout this blog, but I will always try to point out what the US equivalent would be. I also have to be careful when watching videos or following patterns as the US and UK Double Crochet are very different things.
  • Keep Practicing the Stiches: Simply put, I will hopefully get better at the stiches as I continue to practice them.

Next Up: Treble Crochet and Half-Treble Crochet

I am genuinely so excited to continue learning about crocheting, and I can’t wait to let you know about what I do next!

P.S. I also want to credit Caitlyn Hartman for inspiring me to create and imbed my own video examples!

My Daily Tech Habits

My daily tech habits are possibly some of the worst that exist out there. I almost always have a screen on, except when I am sleeping. It could be the TV shows that I watch with my parents or on my own, YouTube videos, playing on my Switch, or working on my computer for hours on end to finish an assignment. Sometimes I have multiple screens going at once. (Truthfully, I may go almost a full day of subbing without a screen depending on whether or not I have to get students to watch videos. I definitely enjoy that time away from schoolwork.)

My Switch Lite and its case. It’s easy to tell what my favourite colour and favourite video game character are.

Most of my online time is spent on school-related websites and apps or Instagram and YouTube. The school ones are obviously used for homework, but I do often watch shows as I complete my homework. I work through the shows that I am less interested in until my favourites come on (Survivor, Big Brother, Traitors, Amazing Race Canada, Hudson & Rex, etc.). When those select shows come on, I will only work through the commercials. The work sometimes is slow going but at least I am getting something done (right?). Instagram and YouTube are primarily used when I take breaks, need entertainment, need music to help me focus on school, or as a way to regulate myself/a form of escapism. Recently, I have been trying to spend less time on Instagram by using my Switch instead. I mean, I paid a lot of money for it so I feel I should be using far more than I have been in recent months.

The methods that I use to keep my schedule (and life) together are mostly on paper or white boards. I need my schedule to be in my face at all times in order for me to remember what I have to get done that week. I have a whiteboard on my wall with sub jobs and school dates on it, a school-only schedule with the same dates by my desk, and a hand-held white board that I use to list all of the next tasks for each class and for my personal life. The only digital system I use is the alarm app on my phone. I have a wake-up alarm, a take my drugs alarm (plus three related reminders a little later), and two alarms that go off before each of my classes. Yes, I need that many reminders some days, and I have found that this system is the only way that I will, most likely, do what I need to do.

My hand-held white board. It’s double-sided which is pretty cool.

Instagram or YouTube tend to decrease my productivity when doing schoolwork, because I will often get sucked in and then it’s suddenly been half an hour. I try my best to limit myself through timed phone breaks, but it does not always out work that way. Sometimes I just ignore the timers, or I just genuinely need to step away from my computer. I have definitely gotten better at recognizing when I need to take a break from schoolwork. However, I tend to turn to my phone or TV as a means of regulating my stress and anxiety which has led to the exceedingly high screen times that I have each day. Truthfully, there is no great way for me to have a healthy relationship with technology right now. School-related things are located online, my primary entertainment is accessed through a screen, and I only have long-distance friends at the moment. The only time that I might be totally unplugged is when I am reading, but I am often too mentally tired to read at night after a long day of work and/or school. Who knows, maybe crocheting can help to reduce my screen time? (Probably not lol.)

What is Crocheting?

Based on the title of this post, you can probably guess that I have very little knowledge about crocheting. All I know is that it involves yarn, a stick/hook or two, and that the yarn is looped around them in some way. I have only been exposed to the end products of crocheting through the things that my Aunt Sandy has created and given me as gifts, the one plushie that I bought myself, and videos I have seen online. I always thought it was cool that my aunt was able to create all of the scarfs, toques, beanies, and blankets that she did.

The bottom two rows of toques and scarves are from my aunt, and the plushie at the top came labeled as “Mushroom Dude”.

Originally, my learning project was going to be centered around learning sign language. I did want to do crocheting for my project initially, but I did not want to purchase anything. I also figured that it would get delivered to me too late. However, I mentioned this to my mom one night, and she remembered that she maybe still had crocheting hooks. We took a quick journey downstairs, waking my brother up in the process, and started digging things out of the middle section of the dresser-turned-TV stand. Lo and behold, Mom still had yarn, crochet hooks, and knitting needles that she had purchased before my brother or I even existed. She said that she had tried to get into crocheting and knitting but found that she liked making rugs more. This means that I will get to keep all of the stuff if I enjoy doing it, which I think is pretty cool.

 

My Plan for the Learning Project:

1) Learn the Basics. As I said, I know nothing. I need to have a basic understanding of crocheting terminology if I ever want to progress to the point where I can fully create something. (I have taken a look at some crochet patterns online and they are like gibberish to me right now.)

– I found this great playlist of videos by Bella Coco on YouTube and will use some of them to kickstart my learning journey. I have watched part of the first one, and it is slow going and easy enough for me to follow.

– It might be a good idea for me to create a vocabulary list to reference when I am first starting out. At the very least it should be a list of the words and their abbreviations as most of the patterns I have found use only abbreviations in the steps.

2) Learn the Specifics. I really would like to create a plushie and there seems to be a lot of stiches and loops that I need to learn specifically for that.

– The Woobles website has a lot of great tutorial videos for each specific skill/technique needed to crochet plushies, and I can access them for free. I will likely use those to learn more advanced aspects of crocheting.

3) Create a Final Product. My main goal for this learning project is to create a plushie. I might be overestimating my learning abilities in the timeline that we have for this class, but creating my own plushie is something that I eventually want to do someday.

-If I find that this beyond my reach, I might switch my goal to creating a blanket or something of similar difficulty that is smaller.

-For this final product, I will likely be using patterns uploaded by various people from the LoveCrafts site, which seems to have plenty of free patterns that I can follow.

These are some of the flat duct tape flowers that I kept for myself.

I have always wanted to be crafty and create something with my hands that wasn’t typed out on a computer screen and handed in for marks. Something that could be used to create both fun and useful things. My younger self created wallets and flowers out of colourful and patterned duct tape (and created a mini-business for a year or two by selling them to my classmates), although I have pretty much grown out of that. Learning how to crochet can maybe help adult me to fulfill that need again. Regardless, I am ready to learn something new and hopefully create something I can be proud of. Also, I hope I don’t get too overwhelmed or frustrated along the way.

Welcome to My Blog!

Hello everyone! My name is Alyssa Mozel. I grew up and went to school in Wynyard, and I did band, figure skating, soccer, and several genres of dance at that time. I just finished my Bachelor’s Degree of Secondary Education in April of this year. I am currently a substitute teacher for the Horizon School Division. The division encompasses a bunch of small towns and the city of Humboldt.

Horizon Map

Pic from the Horizon School Division website.

I am also doing 3 classes for my Inclusive Education Certificate (that I will hopefully finish in April 2025), so I am pretty busy right now. I have enjoyed subbing, because I get to see a diverse range of instructional strategies, resources, classroom layouts/environments, and school-wide initiatives that I would not get to see or experience otherwise. (Additionally, I get to see and hear how some students respond to those things. There is generally a mix of good and bad feelings, but they are always very passionate when telling me about those opinions and experiences.) Most importantly, I love working with all of the kids I see (even if I get sick because of them). I love the small-town environments, and it is interesting to see the similar and unique challenges that those schools face and how they each try to overcome them.

When it comes to educational technology, I have had a decent amount of exposure and practice with it both as a student and a learning/new educator. I am part of the generation that grew up with tech being slowly introduced into the classroom, which started at Grade 1 or 2 for me. I had typing classes and got sufficient training in many Microsoft applications. Google applications came out when I was in Grade 12 (I believe), so I do not know all of the special tips and tricks. However, I can still operate many of those applications at a basic level. As a learning educator, I did my entire first year of classes (and anywhere from 30-50% of the rest of the classes for my Bachelor Degree) on Zoom. I have worked with Google Classroom and Edsby for my placements and internship, so I am very comfortable with those. There are other apps like Kahoot, Audacity, Scratch Jr, and various video-creating/editing/uploading software that I have used here and there as well. Essentially, I know my way around the internet, computer, and can figure out apps through YouTube tutorials/trial and error, but I do not claim to be the most technologically proficient person out there.

Blogging is something that I have not personally done, but I have read a blog or two for university classes. A lot of this will be new to me, but, hopefully, I will find my flow and become more comfortable with it as time goes on. I tend to be a more formal writer (due to the numerous essays and article reviews that I have written for English, Social Studies, and Education classes), and I am going to do my best to turn that part of my brain off a little bit. However, I do enjoy using big words from time to time, and I will not be stopping! If I find an obscure or rarer word in something I am reading, I may try to find a way to add it here (and link to the definition for those who are interested). Despite all this, I am excited to share my Learning Project journey (I chose crocheting), so please check that out!

Finally, I would like to sign off for the mean time with some pictures of my beloved kitties.

Luna (Left) and Hobbzy (right) sit on the deck bench.

Below is Hobbzy. She is an extremely rare cat, because she is a female orange tabby. Apparently, she needed to inherit the recessive orangeness from both parents in order for her to be female and orange (80% of orange tabbies are male). Her eyes are green, which also rare in orange tabbies. She is lazy… unless she wants something. She has learned to operate a gate’s pull latch that is 6 feet above the ground. In her younger years, she was a persistent hunter of anything that moved (yes, the backyard is a bit of a graveyard). She is stubborn and persistent and will take your spot on the couch when you leave, even at the old age of 17. Hobbzy loves to sunbathe and often has to be forcefully brought in before she experiences heat stroke. Unfortunately, she does not eat lasagna like Garfield, but she does like corn, chicken, and seafood-flavoured cat food.

Hobbzy on my swimming lesson papers.

Hobbzy on my bed.

Now onto the cat that will sleep face-down… This is our 5 year-old tuxedo cat, Luna. Luna was accidentally named by my brother who jokingly brought up the name during one of his many lists of joke names. He was quite dismayed when we actually liked the name (oops). Luna tends to be a bit skittish and anxious, but she defends her territory fiercely. She is a lover of food and will do her best to look innocent before attempting to steal Hobbzy’s food. She has lost many a collar (only god knows where) and loves to roll around in dirt (but won’t allow us to brush her without complaining). She lives up to her name by getting very aggressive when night falls. If you do not get her inside before that happens, good luck trying to get her without getting a few scratches in the process (if you can even get close to her). At that point, she will only come in for food.

Luna getting restless, annoyed, and aggressive during a night storm.

Luna cleaning herself.

 

Have a good day, and I hope you sleep well this week!

© 2024 Alyssa Mozel

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑