Time for Long and Short’s Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. The topic is, well, things I like to do on stormy days. Writing is the obvious choice. And drinking tea – big fan of the Murchie’s Storm Watcher in loose and bags (and so many of their other teas too; they make great green-black blends like the No 10). A new activity, however, is crocheting. I picked it up during January intercession, when I taught a course on flow activities. What are flow activities? From Wikipedia, the characteristics of flow are:
Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
Merging of action and awareness
A loss of reflective self-consciousness
A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
A distortion of temporal experience, as one’s subjective experience of time is altered
Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding experience
Here’s a Ted Talk on Flow from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who coined the term.
Writing is certainly a flow activity for me and I’ve lost more than one day to writing. I hadn’t expected crocheting would become one for me, but thought it might be a good contender for some of the students. My mother came as a guest teacher and a few of them (and my co-teacher) got into it, but it also hooked me (pun intended).
My first project was the hat that was the class project. Mom had started us off with a little circle. Mine, however, turned into more a beret than than the beanie intended 🤣. Now I’m working on this scarf project. I found the pattern just googling and loved that it came with a YouTube video, that helped me with the new stitches. I’ve been working on it on rainy days (ah for more snowy days!) while listening to Kate Elliot’s Furious Heaven.
Ramblings 
Do you have any advice for learning how to crochet? I’d love to be able to do that. I keep meaning to try.
Tea is great, too.
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I don’t know why your comment ending up under spam, so I just now saw it. Here are a couple of videos I found useful:
And because videos keep moving, I like this site for still photos (the link is specifically to her photos of the double crochet): https://sarahmaker.com/double-crochet/
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Writing is a great way to pass a stormy afternoon. Often the atmosphere can be just right and so conducive to creativity.
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Oh, fun! I’ve never tried it myself, but I know a lot of people who do crocheting and really love it. It seems like the perfect sort of activity for when the weather’s being dramatic outside, too.
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Two other characteristics of a flow activity: First, roughly 85% of one’s capability must be engaged in the activity. Much less, and the activity is boring; much more, and the activity becomes stressful because of anxiety about failure. Second, one must get immediate feedback from one’s actions — moving the brush or pencil makes a mark immediately; plucking a string or striking a key produces a note instantly; sliding the knife across the vegetable slices it at once, and so on. If there is a delay, as in early computer drawing programs, in which the line lagged behind the stylus, flow does not occur. Or if one is playing a board game, a pace is set and if one player waits too long to move, flow is interrupted.
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In the TEDTalk length above, he talks about how many bits per second a human brain can process. In addition to having the right number of bits occupied so that you’re not stressed or bored, it keeps you in the present and prevents you from worrying about other things. It keeps you right in the now.
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Flow activities sound interesting. I’ve started to teach myself how to crochet, too. It’s only been two weeks and it’s not going well yet, but I’ll get it figured out. Good luck with your projects!
My post
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Good luck with your crocheting. Right now I’m at the stage where I say my my project is evidently handmade with care, and not some crass commercially produced item 😂
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Most people seem to be wired for knitting or crocheting, not both. As a knitter I like the complementarity of crochet.
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I like your take on this prompt! I also took up crochet recently and am loving it – I’m doing amigurumi and stuffed toys because they’re quick and I don’t have as much time to get bored! I do want to try a hat or scarf at some point though. I’m glad you have gotten hooked (heehee) too!
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Oh, those sound like very fun projects. I’ve seen some kits for such and I’ve been tempted to try them. First I have to get through the scarf.
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