I was sitting on my couch crocheting a hat the other night, remembering the day that I learned to crochet. Most of the teen girls in my Sunday School class (over 10 years ago! yikes…) already knew how to, and were working on various projects in between church services. I remember sitting there one afternoon at church, fumbling with the yarn and struggling to get one stitch done. Still being new at church, I was too shy to bother asking for help.
A lady named Mrs. Streeter came over and sat down beside me. She said, “Oh no, you’re doing this all wrong. Here, let me show you…” She took the time that day to teach me how to hold the hook and yarn at the same time, and helped me get started. The next week, she brought me a book with some beginners’ patterns in it and told me which ones to start with. She asked me every once in a while, how my crocheting was going. Even though, I didn’t really take it up then, a few years later, when I found myself pregnant with triplets and in the hospital on bedrest for three weeks… I used that book to make each of my girls a blanket. I held the yarn and hook exactly as she had taught me. It’s amazing, how the smallest gestures, can make such a lasting impression. I remember feeling loved in a place where I felt I didn’t belong, even though I barely knew her. I still have that book to this day.
A few weeks ago, when the Streeters were up visiting, she gave me some ideas for crafts with my girls. She quilts, and knits, and and cross stitches with her many, many, grandchildren now. I’m so thankful that she cared enough, to take a few minutes out of her busy day, to help a shy, awkward, teenager, who was extremely out of her comfort zone, learn how to do something that, at the time, she wasn’t even all that interested in.
Little did she, or I, know at the time- that I would one day have seven kids. Five of them being girls, whom I love to crochet for! :) And that I’d be teaching my oldest daughter to crochet now… I would have thought you had lost your mind, if someone had told me that back then….
And now… well, we’ll see where this goes. It’s a fun hobby anyhow!
Hoping I show my love for others, even in the simplest ways, as she did.
Thank you Mrs. Streeter.
Mom and Dad Polhamus, with the Streeters
I love the new hat picture and a lovely tribute to Mrs. Streeter!
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