About Me
Welcome to my "About Me" page. My granddaughters Ruthie and Ellie shown in the photo are the little loves of my life. A third "Love" is due to arrive in September.
When I was in 4th grade, my teacher - a catholic nun - Sister Marie Cecile asked if any of us were interested in staying after school to learn how to crochet. I eagerly said: "yes".
During that one and only lesson, she taught me the chain-stitch. With a skein of pale yellow yarn and a crochet hook, I crocheted the entire skein into a very long chain and then I rolled the chain into a very large ball. I was learning to hand sew around the same time. With no additional crochet lessons and no crocheters in my family, I imagined that all those crochet chains would have to be hand sewn together with a needle and thread! The thought of hand sewing chains together was so overwhelming that I set the ball of chains aside for several years.
Watch my "How to chain-stitch" video below:
I have many other lessons on my YouTube channel. My lessons are taught in both right and left-handed versions: Click here to watch my crochet videos
It only takes a stitch!Even though I only learned that one stitch. I learned many aspects about crocheting while practicing that chain. I perfected my tension and how to hold a hook. I realized that the left hand has so much control over the process, while the right hand guided the way. That one chain stitch was the foundation for everything that followed.
A few years later...
My mom always had Family Circle, Women's Day and McCall's Needlework and Crafts magazines laying around the house. On day, I saw diagrams of crochet stitches in a Family Circle and Women's Day magazines. I studied the pictures and soon I was able to figure out some basic single crochet and double crochet stitches. I began to see how to build stitches off the original chains.
When I was in Girl Scouts the leaders lovingly taught each one of us to crochet a granny square so that the squares could be sewn together to make a coat for one of the other leaders.
Then my dear Aunt Teresa asked me to crochet her a purse. She told me exactly what she wanted and I created it for her. I worked very hard creating this purse for my aunt. When I gave it to her she was elated.
Crocheting granny squares became my escape from a very sheltered and traumatic childhood. I crocheted for hours, alone in my bedroom. I made granny square afghans for everyone.
By the time I was 19, I was so sick of granny squares that I vowed to only crochet challenging patterns from that point forward.
My first challenging pattern was a 55 piece afghan for my then boyfriend. The afghan pattern came from Woman’s Day magazine and the name of the afghan was ‘“ Galaxy Afghan" designed by Mary Ellen Thompson. It was very difficult but I did it!!
My Next Challenge...
My sister had a "Mon Tricot" crochet magazine when I was in 4th grade. In that magazine I saw a picture of a christening gown. I said: "one day when I have a baby I will make this gown for the baby". I saved that pattern from age 9 to age 23 when I got pregnant. My dream came true - I made that christening gown for my baby to wear at his christening. My then husband was not too happy about his son wearing a gown but I was thrilled.
More later...
I'm a left hander - but I learned to crochet right-handed. This was a blessing for my eventual designing career. Had I learned left-handed crochet, I most likely would have never become a designer and started this business.
MaggiesCrochet.com was started over 20 years ago with only a handful of patterns. Now we have over 600 crochet patterns and over 1,000 how to crochet videos.
I hope:
You've enjoyed a little about my beginnings and how my passion for crochet grew over the years. I support anyone who wants to learn more about crocheting and look forward to hearing from you. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out to me and my team at: customerservice@maggiescrochet.com
I will be writing more about my journey on my blog page. Please feel free to visit the blog section of my site by clicking here.
Until the next post...
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Hugs,
Maggie