☞ Question of the Week: What have you struggled with the most when doing crafts? (No advertising allowed)

Dear beginners
What’s giving you the most trouble right now?

Dear users with some (more) crafting experience, dear authors,
what were the biggest challenges you faced when you first started crafting? Where did you always seem to get stuck? How long did it take you to get past those hurdles?

I’ll start…
right now, I’m having the most trouble crocheting that first row without a foundation chain. I’ve already watched X videos on it, but I just can’t get it right! But I’m not giving up, because I hate foundation chains…
and I’ll probably never understand crochet charts, so I guess I’ll always be a beginner :(

Knitting!
My grandma tried to teach me a few years ago... But other than the fact that you hold two needles without hooks in your hands, nothing stuck with me. Knitting is a foreign concept to me—I can’t imagine how you can conjure up something to wear out of two needles and a ball of yarn. That makes me all the more impressed by everyone who can do it :-)
It’s actually strange—crocheting came totally naturally to me right from the start... Well, you don’t have to be able to do everything.

What’s the problem? Everything. When did I get past that hurdle? I’ll probably never get past that hurdle ;-)

In the beginning? Finding the right first stitch when working joined rounds (crocheting)!
Now I know there’s more than one way to do it ;-)

I always get stuck on crochet charts (they look like shorthand to me) and poorly written patterns.

With patience, determination, and the right amount of ambition, you can figure everything out eventually :-))

Since I’m currently trying to teach my daughter how to crochet, she’s struggling with the loop. It’s always the wrong size—no matter what size she makes it. Either it’s so small she can’t get the crochet hook through, or it’s so big she can stick her whole hand through it. But practice makes perfect!

As for me, I still find it hard to follow other people’s patterns. Unlike Schneckenkind, I prefer crochet charts. Everything is clear and unambiguous there. With written patterns, I often lose my “thread,” but so far I’ve always managed to find my way back…

And felting—I’ve really failed at that. Not the kind where you knit something and toss it in the washing machine, but the real thing. At craft fairs, I can’t tear myself away from the felters.
And spinning (okay, I can spin—my husband swears I can) with a spinning wheel or a spindle.
Turning wool from a sheep into yarn for knitting or crocheting is an art I’m still planning to learn.

And getting the hang of it? Well, how should I put it—I don’t think you ever quite get the hang of it, because there are always new challenges.
But once you’ve created a few things with your own hands, you feel very proud of them, and if you stick with it and don’t let yourself get discouraged right away, you’re halfway there!

Bobbin lace-making :-)

Fascinating to watch... but I’m staying away from it because I’d definitely need a magnifying glass. And just watching all those tiny things with thread on them already drives me crazy. It looks so chaotic to me—I’ll never get past that hurdle.

And I admire everyone who does crafts! Like Inna. It drives me crazy—it just never turns out the way I picture it, and my kids were always better at it than I was anyway. So anything involving paper and glue is a big no for me.

For me, it’s sewing zippers! I’ve tried so many different methods, but in the end there’s always a wrinkle or a seam ends up crooked. I don’t think I’ll ever really get the hang of it!
And when it comes to knitting, sewing the individual pieces together so that it looks nice is always a challenge, too.
But I always tell myself: practice makes perfect, so I keep trying… for countless years now…

Hi everyone,

I’ve been knitting since I was about 8 years old, but only ever veeeery simple stuff—knit, purl, or knit-purl… Anyway, until a few weeks ago, I thought I was knitting knit stitches and was just too clueless to follow a pattern…until I watched a video and realized—or rather, had to admit—that I wasn’t knitting knit stitches at all, but rather twisted knit stitches… Now I have to get the hang of “real” knit stitches, and I’m actually still having trouble with that right now…

Best regards, Nina

When it comes to knitting, there are no limits for me. If there’s something I can’t do, I’ll learn it. Same goes for crocheting. ;-)

What I really can’t do is sew straight seams by hand. In general, I’m a total failure at sewing. I even mess up buttons! *laughs*
I always hand off sewing projects to my mom—she learned to sew by hand and even sewed her own dresses entirely by hand when she was younger.

When I first started crafting, my biggest challenge was applying glue evenly. Eventually, I learned to work with scraps of photo cardstock, and that solved the problem for good: whenever I’m crafting, I always save scraps of photo cardstock with straight edges. I use the wide edges as a spatula to spread the glue over large areas, and the narrow ones for small areas, like glue tabs. Where I can’t reach with the bottle at all, I trim the scrap to size and apply the glue directly with it. That way, I can get anywhere, no matter how awkward or narrow the spot I need to glue is.

Now, as an “inventor” :-), I repeatedly run into the problem that what works so wonderfully as a dummy made of thin paper simply can’t be made out of photo cardstock. But by then I’m usually so excited about the project that I can’t let it go. So I look for solutions—sometimes it’s an extra fold; other times I actually make the non-load-bearing part out of construction paper instead of photo cardstock. It also happens that what I imagine so clearly and precisely doesn’t work at all in reality—maybe because it contradicts some laws of physics, or I have no idea what the template should look like, or I’m just too clueless right now to figure out exactly where it’s going wrong. I set such projects aside in the hope that maybe in a few years I’ll be smarter (or the laws of physics will have changed :-D).

Well, I’ll chime in here too. As I’ve realized, nobody’s perfect.
I’m pretty versatile when it comes to crafts and handwork, but there’s one thing I absolutely can’t get the hang of: knitting with a set of double-pointed needles—that is, with five needles, like the ones you use for socks, I think. I’m just too clumsy with them; the needles slip out of my hands, and the stitches often fall off.
I used to even knit lace and small cable patterns with circular needles. These days, I can only manage straight pieces—knit and purl—or simple triangular shawls or scarves knitted in knit stitches.

I prefer crocheting—that way, no stitches can fall off, and the lower rows don’t unravel too. Although I do think knitted items look better and feel softer.

I can’t handle a set of double-pointed needles either, and I’m just as hopeless at sewing. I own a sewing machine that just sits in the closet, gathering dust, because I have no idea how it works.... I realize I have more things I can’t do than things I can... but a woman can always learn, right? ;)

Hello everyone,

Well, I swore I would never, ever knit socks, because my handicrafts teacher at school
tormented me with sock knitting (with cables and a lace pattern!!) for, believe it or not, 4 whole years!! Then later I tried
baby shoes (a few stitches on 3 needles), and I actually enjoyed it. Today I design
new models of them all the time and enthusiastically knit cuffs and wrist warmers too.....but still no socks! 

I find knitting with 5 needles incredibly exhausting and frustrating. I can do it, sure, but I keep ending up with big gaps when moving from one needle to the next. And just when I’ve managed that, another needle slips off. Exhausting and frustrating. I’d rather find something that doesn’t require 5 needles. By the way, there are some really clever patterns for crocheting thick house socks. I can do that! And that’s exactly what I do. After all, it’s supposed to be fun, isn’t it?

I wouldn’t call them problems. “Challenges” is probably a better word...

I’ve been knitting since elementary school—crocheting, of course, is something you usually learn even earlier. I got hooked on knitting. Sewing—still with a mechanical sewing machine—came later in secondary school.

I sewed my children’s christening gown from the leftover fabric from my wedding dress, and the bodice was smocked. That was a challenge, and it didn’t turn out as perfectly as I would have liked.

Asymmetrical openwork patterns are also a challenge, since I like to knit while doing something else, and that just doesn’t work with those kinds of patterns. You always have to keep an eye on the knitting chart and stay focused.

By the way, the braided shoulder warmer for the Summer campaign (see signature) was also a challenge. I did have a braiding template, but the piece had to be much wider at the bottom than at the top. So I spent quite a while figuring it out.

I work by the motto: there’s nothing for which there isn’t a solution! It just sometimes takes a little longer.....