My Ukulele

Bill took up the ukulele because he wanted to be able to play and sing along with others. Learning the guitar just never worked out for him what with his full and hectic life.  The slightly comical little uke fits his time and ability bandwidth right now (and maybe personality).  It is small, cheap and durable so he can tote it along on his travels.  From my side of the office door, he sounds completely fulfilled in there strumming and humming away.

Knitting has always been my guitar. I admire my knitting friends (like this one) and their knitting lifestyle. It looks very soothing when they pull out their projects working as they chat with adults and moderate kids skirmishes. Being tactilely driven, I crave the rhythm and touch of the different yarns and needles.  And then there is the major bonus of having actually made a thing.

Several kind friends have tried to teach me.  But the mix of yarn, two needles and keeping an ear on my kids spells disaster.  I can't make anything, and as soon as I leave the presence of the helping friend, all knowledge spills out of my brain.

Enter crocheting.  One day at the park, I watched another mom whip out a hat.  Slack-jawed, I asked her to teach me how.  Turns out, my cranium can manage yarn, one needle and two kids.

So far I've made one ugly round white thing and one not-revolting long red thing.  I'm  very pleased. A book gorge at the library yielded about 15 very simple patterns for fun things. Stuck with nothing else to read in the car, Theo flipped through the books and insisted last night that I teach him, too.  We sat cozy on the chair together talking about the ugly long things we were making together.  Theo, pleased as punch, declared his nice looking and mine not too ugly. 

Here is my favorite crochet book so far (note: I can't even decipher the patterns yet, but this one seems clear with great projects).

Here is a great ukele video.