Socchan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
soc_puppet) wrote2010-09-06 04:15 am
soc_puppet) wrote2010-09-06 04:15 am
Crochet lessons, fangirling
Success! I finally managed to teach my roommate J how to crochet a simple chain stitch!
For those not in the know about crochet, a chain stitch is roughly to crochet as a paper crane is to origami. Except you can still make, like, a cat or a dog or a cup if you can't make a crane in origami, but if you can't make a single loop by pulling yarn through the first loop in crochet, you can't do anything.
Anyway, J had expressed interest in learning to crochet before, and I did my best to teach her! I even had a crochet tutorial made up for AI '09 that I managed to modify a bit for my needs. AND SHE COULD NOT LEARN FROM IT. And I didn't have the patience at the time to try harder to teach her, other than iterate and reiterate "Use the hook to pull the yarn through the loop" a couple of times, and let her watch me do it. She just - wasn't learning. At all. Well, she did learn how to make a slipknot, but not learning how to do a chain stitch is... kinda pathetic, really.
Then tonight, while the rats were at play and when J had set aside her homework for the time being, I got out some of my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
help_pakistan work, and she said she wanted to try again. So I spent the next twenty minutes or so saying something along the following: "Use the hook to pull the yarn through the loop. Using the hook, pull the yarn - the stuff that's still attached to the skein - through the loop. [Socchan demonstrates, prompts her to try again] Move the hook, not the yarn! Do not use the yarn to pull the hook through, that doesn't work; use the hook to pull the yarn through!
"*deep breath* Okay, see the piece of yarn that's not attached to the skein? Hold onto that. Hold it in place. See the piece of yarn that is attached to the skein? Good; hold it kinda loosely, so it can still move, but you have a bit of tension. Now, see how you've got the slipknot tied around the crochet hook? Good. Take the crochet hook. Hook the yarn that's attached to the skein. Pull the yarn that's attached to the skein through the loop formed by the slipknot." If she had managed at that point, I would have told her to repeat, because that is how you crochet a chain stitch, but she still hadn't managed to get it right.
Finally, I sat down right next to her, lined up her hands, positioned the yarn and the hook in her fingers, and directed every movement of the hand holding the hook in order to teach her the stitch. And finally, finally, after a good ten minutes or so of that, she learned how to do the damn stitch!
To J's credit, once she picked it up, she did fairly well (though, to my chagrin, she also suggested that she might not remember how to do it in the morning T-T). I can only hope that attempting to teach her how to crochet single stitch isn't as trying =_=
----
Okay, someone do me a huge favor and watch HeartCatch PreCure so I can have someone to squee over it with. Wait, let me get my list out.
If you like:
* Magical girl series
* Stories with a little bit of meta/self-aware humor
* Trying-to-be-tough bifauxnen with secret fuzzy hearts
* Ultra tough-looking guys who secretly draw romance manga
* Yuri subtext
* Flowers
You may like HeartCatch PreCure!
If any of that is up your alley, please consider it; I really, really wanna fangirl certain parts of the series with someone! *"please" position* (Is there an emoticon for the anime "please" position? I feel like there should be or is, and I just don't know it...)
For those not in the know about crochet, a chain stitch is roughly to crochet as a paper crane is to origami. Except you can still make, like, a cat or a dog or a cup if you can't make a crane in origami, but if you can't make a single loop by pulling yarn through the first loop in crochet, you can't do anything.
Anyway, J had expressed interest in learning to crochet before, and I did my best to teach her! I even had a crochet tutorial made up for AI '09 that I managed to modify a bit for my needs. AND SHE COULD NOT LEARN FROM IT. And I didn't have the patience at the time to try harder to teach her, other than iterate and reiterate "Use the hook to pull the yarn through the loop" a couple of times, and let her watch me do it. She just - wasn't learning. At all. Well, she did learn how to make a slipknot, but not learning how to do a chain stitch is... kinda pathetic, really.
Then tonight, while the rats were at play and when J had set aside her homework for the time being, I got out some of my
help_pakistan work, and she said she wanted to try again. So I spent the next twenty minutes or so saying something along the following: "Use the hook to pull the yarn through the loop. Using the hook, pull the yarn - the stuff that's still attached to the skein - through the loop. [Socchan demonstrates, prompts her to try again] Move the hook, not the yarn! Do not use the yarn to pull the hook through, that doesn't work; use the hook to pull the yarn through!"*deep breath* Okay, see the piece of yarn that's not attached to the skein? Hold onto that. Hold it in place. See the piece of yarn that is attached to the skein? Good; hold it kinda loosely, so it can still move, but you have a bit of tension. Now, see how you've got the slipknot tied around the crochet hook? Good. Take the crochet hook. Hook the yarn that's attached to the skein. Pull the yarn that's attached to the skein through the loop formed by the slipknot." If she had managed at that point, I would have told her to repeat, because that is how you crochet a chain stitch, but she still hadn't managed to get it right.
Finally, I sat down right next to her, lined up her hands, positioned the yarn and the hook in her fingers, and directed every movement of the hand holding the hook in order to teach her the stitch. And finally, finally, after a good ten minutes or so of that, she learned how to do the damn stitch!
To J's credit, once she picked it up, she did fairly well (though, to my chagrin, she also suggested that she might not remember how to do it in the morning T-T). I can only hope that attempting to teach her how to crochet single stitch isn't as trying =_=
----
Okay, someone do me a huge favor and watch HeartCatch PreCure so I can have someone to squee over it with. Wait, let me get my list out.
If you like:
* Magical girl series
* Stories with a little bit of meta/self-aware humor
* Trying-to-be-tough bifauxnen with secret fuzzy hearts
* Ultra tough-looking guys who secretly draw romance manga
* Yuri subtext
* Flowers
You may like HeartCatch PreCure!
If any of that is up your alley, please consider it; I really, really wanna fangirl certain parts of the series with someone! *"please" position* (Is there an emoticon for the anime "please" position? I feel like there should be or is, and I just don't know it...)
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HeartCatch is the most recent Pretty Cure series; there's a good five other series out there whose plots and characters are unconnected, but that have some of the same general themes (magical girl with some meta humor, some yuri subtext (almost a given for the magical girl genre)). This is completely useless information, except how some of the early opening credit sequences have Epic Crossover Sequences of all the series goin' on. Or unless you want to watch the rest, having seen this.
no subject
no subject
I've linked a site that's got the subs collected in the thread above this; 'fraid I'm not currently set up to do burn-and-mail, as my DVD drive will not open, so if you need a physical copy, I'm not the go-to gal :(
As far as finding out more about it in general, Erica Friedman of Okazu has a "as of 13 episodes" review here, and a second look later in the series here (with a nod to a few other PreCure series as well). There's some spoilers in both of those.
Am I done? I think I'm done. For now, at least, I'm pretty sure I'm done.
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Thanks!
Digital copy is great; I've got the bandwidth at home to try it out.
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...For the first fifteen episodes, the Heart Seed coalesces out of droplets of yellow liquid. Sixteen and on, they just sorta appear, but those fifteen episodes, whenever it was time for a new Heart Seed, I just kinda sat there, sadfacing (and very slightly juvenilely amused). Just so you don't go in without warning.
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I think I'd have LOLed right off the couch. Thanks for the heads up!
no subject