Looking back

I always surprise myself when I look back over the last few years and see how much I've learnt and how my crochet skills, as well as many others, have vastly improved.

This realisation has mostly come out of the fact that when The Boy's little brother stayed with us a couple of weeks ago he pointed at a picture I had painted for The Boy and asked who had done that.  When I said it was me he was like - so you bake, crochet, knit, and paint?  Yeah I am that good!

Painting for The Boy

I remember for my 18th birthday I got my first amigurumi book and that's when my crochet interest really took off.  Before then I had only made a lacy-ish scarf and a hat.  Amigurumi was a completely new concept to me - before then crochet had been about making accessories but, once I had discovered amigurumi, I couldn't stop crocheting.  I joined Ravelry about the time of my 18th birthday too to show off my amigurumi and this opened up a new world of amazing free patterns. 

My first ever amigurumi

I've started knitting more recently and my work had noticeably improved.  Since I started knitting and crocheting back in 2009, I have finished 84 projects - and a whopping 36 in 2012!

Another skill that has been improved recently is my baking (and also cooking) ability.  When The Boy met me in our first year of uni I couldn't cook at all so he used to get me to join in with the cooking and I quickly picked up how to cook.  I still get teased that my speciality is toast but thankfully that is no longer true.

Until a couple of years ago I didn't do any baking.  I used to help Mum and Eve bake but my job was mostly getting stuff out of cupboards and now I love trying out new recipes such as the damper bread I tried a few weeks ago:

Trying something new - damper bread

I wish that I had more time to draw and paint but once my uni work is out of the way the only thing I want to do is knit or crochet.  I also wish I had more time to be musical - I couldn't bring my violin or keyboard to uni because of a lack of space but when I graduate I aim to find more time to be musical!

Do you ever take a step back to look at how much you have achieved?