You are all probably familiar with that moment. You take the training wheels off your kid’s bike, tell them they can do it, and they pedal a few times before…they run into a tree.

This week, I took Rah-Rah’s training wheels off. I wouldn’t say she ran into a tree…but we might need to put the training wheels back on.

As part of our classical Christian homeschool cooperative (co-op), we teach kids that in order to learn anything you have to first learn the grammar of it—for crochet this is the stitches, types of hooks and yarn, how to read a pattern. If you skip that first grammar step, you might have a problem with the execution.

Am I saying that Robin couldn’t do it? No! The opposite actually. She’s like one of those people who sits down and plays an amazing piano concerto, and afterward you ask how she learned that. She looks up innocently and says, “Well, I heard it once.” You repeat, “But how did you know what chords to play?” She responds, “I don’t know chords. I just played it.”

That’s what our dear Robin did this week. She looked at the pattern and could not interpret it, so she just did what she could to make it look right. And it looks amazing!

Here is what she had to say about Block #3: Resilience by Polly Plum.

Rah-Rah’s perspective: I was looking for the towel to throw it in, but instead, I wiped my brow.

Thursday came with a message on my phone from Heidi, “Today is the day! A new square.”

At the appointed time, I went on to Facebook to see this masterpiece. The square was really wonderful. My mind raced with how to pick which color was going to go where. After the last square color debacle, I realized I really need to plan my colors to avoid remaking a square due to poor color choices. I also read the announcement very carefully, and I saw that the designer may post a tutorial on Saturday. There I was, on Thursday, I thought I could do this one.

In the past, I’ve gotten a head start on the square as soon as it releases, but with our co-op being Friday, I’m often too busy or lacking the head space to do a complicated pattern. I figured this time I’d start on it before Robin so I’d be ready for any questions she had. But…I didn’t.

Rah-Rah: On Friday, I gathered everything that I would need to begin, but looking at the pattern, I began to wonder if I could do this one. The lines and patterns seemed so different from my rows of single crochet (sc).

Saturday morning, I went hunting for the tutorial. It had to be there. I must have been too early, so I waited. At 1:30 p.m., I went hunting again, and I still could not find a tutorial for this block.

I began sweating.

There I was in my chair, everything I would need was surrounding me, and Heidi was somewhere out there waiting to see what was going to happen. Studying the pattern, I think that this square was not going to happen. Wiping the sweat off my brow, I had two choices. I could give up at block three, or I could persevere.

Looking at my daughter, I realized I always tell her that you will never learn if you give up. This helped me make up my mind. So, I set out to get this done with or without the tutorial.

Note: At this point, Robin said nothing to me about giving up. I would have tried to support her. She was oddly silent.

Rah-Rah: Around 2 pm Saturday afternoon, I sent Heidi my first-row picture.

I had begun.

By 3 pm, I had completed my third row.

Forty-five minutes later, I had the fourth row done. Wait, no, I took that out, and it took another hour and twenty minutes to put row four back in. This is also where I realized that this square was really going to be a look-alike.

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At my sixth row, I get a text; Heidi stared hers and had five rows done in–I am sure it was five minutes!

At some point, I gave up on the pattern and just looked at the pictures. I was determined that as long as this block was really square and the correct size, I would use it! At 9 p.m., she was done, and an hour later, I faked it enough that I called it done.

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I’ve got to say, for not understanding that pattern, Robin did an awesome job! What she might not know is that we all change patterns a little bit sometimes. No one will ever know the difference on her square.

Current Score: 3-3

Lessons Learned: So many

Rah-Rah was right, “You will never learn if you give up.” She didn’t give up and because of that, we learned where the areas were that we needed to improve. For the next square I plan on transposing the pattern to a more simplified step-by-step pattern.

Her determination is an inspiration to me.

By the way, that tutorial? It came out on Sunday.

To read more about our adventures in crocheting, check out posts for Square 1 and Square 2, and make sure to visit MooglyBlog for all of the patterns.