Neurodiversity and learning new crafts

Learning crochet:

Remember when I asked for good crochet resources for beginners a while ago? You’ve all been amazing! I found a lot of good tutorials thanks to all of your replies.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the basic crochet stitches. I had a hard time turning off my knitter’s brain at first, but I think I’ve finally gotten around to how crochet works and am now making steady progress.

Neurodiversity and new skills:

Neurodiversitycan make picking up skills like these a difficultprogress for me. I’ll get hyperfixated on learning something new thanks to my ADHD, but when my dyspraxiamakes things difficult I’ll drop it like a brick. I’ll then feel like a failure for having dropped it, but can’t get myself to try again because my executive functioning regarding the skill I was trying to learn just gets worse the longer I wait.

I wanted to share these difficulties because I know how isolatingit can be when you’re trying to learn something new and your experiences don’t match up with those of others. This can be a huge barrier to picking up new skills, and deserves more attention. If any of this sounds familiar, know that you’re not alone.

After years of repeating this cycle, I know how to recognise it and how to deal with it when it happens. I take things slow and put my project asidewhen it gets frustrating, but make sure to pick it up again later once I’ve calmed down. I try to learn from my mistakes, but also celebrate my successesno matter how small. I switch learning methods when something doesn’t work for me, make sure to use sensory-friendly materials, and keep remindersaround of how far I’ve come for when I feel down about my progress. I also constantly remind myself of the fact that being able to see the mistakes I’ve made is not a sign of failure but one of progress. Spotting mistakes used to drain my motivation but has become something that makes me feel good about myself over time, because being able to identify them means my skills have improved.

Most of my practice samples up until recently were tangled messes. I froggedthem so I could reuse the yarn to try again. I’ve now gotten to a point where I can take some pride in the fact that I’ve got the bare basics of crochet down. I’ve kept my most recent samples instead of frogging them: they’re far from perfect, but that’s exactly why I want to keep them. I will store them in a box so I can look at them in the future, cringe a little, feel pride over the fact that I stuck with it, and appreciate the progress I’ve made since.

[ID: seven wonky crochet samples made in red yarn. Four samples were made in single crochet, half double crochet, double crochet, and treble crochet. The other samples are a flower, a granny square, and a square consisting of filet stitches.]

uhhh updates ig

really nothing big lol, just an explaination ig to my very long absense

i just started my senior year!
i got a 60% on my first history test! hahahaha
but, really, im doing fine lol, ill do better on the next one
im also workin on a small dating sim visual novel demo thing that, imo, is gonna be pretty cool
i also like this guy in my english class so im emotionally preparing for THAT downfall

but, blog related stuff, what’s up? i still plan on making tutorials, this isn’t a blog-shutting down message or anything lololol. i was just thinking about doing more with this! like, idk, videos with my tutorials? maybe small weekly posts where people talk about what kandi they’re making, akin to a weekly reddit thread? i really like the idea of videos with my stuff, i just don’t know how i’d make them. i got a phone, that’s about it. no stand or anything.

ill figure it out lol. i think my next post is going to be on really big perler projects (im getting ambitious again lol) or on rotating cuffs. kinda want another one. fun fact: you can never have too many rotating cuffs.

thats all i think. just be aware that im not jumping ship lol. this is a hueg project and im here for the long haul.