When you have children, you never know exactly they will learn from you–whether it will be the things you intended to teach them, or the things they inadvertently learn along the way, that leaves them saying “I will NEVER, ever do what my parents did!” The past couple of days, however, I got to experience the thrill of my youngest son following in my crochet footsteps.

I had planned a trip to Madison County, Illinois, and when I mentioned it to my youngest, he suggested that since I was already going that far, I could just keep driving and come to Durham, North Carolina, to visit him.

When he first mentioned it, it seemed like a crazy idea, but like a lot of crazy ideas, the more you think about it, the more accustomed you get to it, and the less crazy the idea seems.

Which is how, on Tuesday, I ended up doing a lot of driving and not a whole lot of crochet.

But once I reached my destination, things took an unexpected turn. My son had scoured the internet an found this amigurumi bumble bee pattern and wanted to know if I thought he could make it.

Up to this point, he had only tried his hand at crochet for a brief period of time when he was 6 or 7, and while he mastered the art of making a six-foot long chain, he did not express any interest in learning any other stitches. Eventually, he tired of making crochet chains, and he set aside the hooks, but continued to serve in an advisory capacity on color consults.

So I was both surprised and delighted when he expressed a specific interest in a specific crochet pattern, so I lent him a hook and some yarn to practice making the stitches he would need to know

Initially, it didn’t go very well. His gauge was very tight and that made it difficult to insert the hook into the stitches. Then there was the matter of where does the yarn go? Most of the time he got it right, but as with learning any new skill, sometimes he made mistakes. Still after an hour or so, his stitches got more even and just a bit less tight, and on Wednesday, when time permitted, he was able to start and finish the crochet bumble bee

Maybe it’s because I’m his mother, but I think his first completed crochet project is a stunning success:

But because of the success of the crochet bumble bee, I no longer had enough fiberfil to stuff the horns for the crochet Viking helmet:

Lucky for me, there was still a lot to do on the crochet Viking helmet before I got to the parts that needed fiberfil, and I even got some of it done:

I also learned this: when someone follows in your crochet footsteps, it doesn’t mean that they will follow your path. As with so many things in life, they will have to follow their own.