The Craft Adventure Has Begun

So a while back I did a post about how I wanted to take up a craft of some sort. I received some incredible ideas which I fully intend to take on. Shortly after the sister of one of my coworkers passed away unexpectedly.

I'd mentioned my passion for learning a new craft one day while at lunch with my coworker. She'd wanted to stop by a craft store to look for a wooden egg. I didn't know those sort of things existed, but apparently they do. They help chickens lay. Okay. The country me sort of questioned that because my grandpa never used those, but whatever.

As we trudged through the craft store, she'd pause at shelves of doo dads I didn't really comprehend and my muse--who'd wanted to take on this little ole project--was screaming For the love of all things sane, RUN! Too much data. Too much data.

I must've had the look of someone possessed with an overwhelming desire to flee, because my coworker laughed and asked what was wrong. A million answers ping ponged in my little not-so-crafty brain. I mean, this place has wooden eggs! Oye.

Rather than risk offending the masses in this very-full store, I told her of my desire to partake in a craft and then confessed the options were somewhat overwhelming and daunting.

That happened in a Thursday or Friday if I remember correctly. Her sister passed that weekend.

A couple of weeks ago my coworker came to me with a box in her hands and a firm, yet somewhat saddened look on her face. She then thrust a box at me and said "I think this was meant to be yours. I bought the latch hook you'll need. I want to see it when it's done."

My coworkers don't know my pen name. It's a closely guarded secret in day job land--my Fort Knox. My coworker does know I've written paranormal shapeshifting wolves recently though.

I soon discovered her sister had a craft--latch hook. Apparently she had quite a few unopened projects and one of these was a wolf scene.

It has now become my first crafting project. Last night I opened up the package and immediately went "ACK!" What have I gotten myself into?

*deep breaths*

Why do they make things so difficult?

It's a challenge I've accepted. I will overcome these amusing obstacles. Hurdle #1? COLORS.

The threads are white, blue, green, black and gray. 10 different shades altogether. The squares are pink, green, blue and a faint red. I think. It's really hard to tell. But can you see why my immediate reaction was "Shit, this is complicated."

But I will persevere. And they have been sooooooo kind to provide me with a lifeline, the proverbial flotation device tossed into the sea of Wow, why am I doing this? sea.

Okay, so it's hard to see in the pic but every little one of those squares is a thread. And they're all labeled with 10 different coded patterns which crosswalk to a thread color in a color key. Oye. World Wars were won with less complicated methods. Have I stumbled across a secretly coded message from a defunct government organization?

I dunno. Maybe.

More later. This will happen. The wolf may land out green instead of his real color. Things will be mighty interesting.

Have a fabulous weekend. I'm breaking this project into goals based on those handy dandy gridlines. My first goal is to hit the first horizontal line. That's two rows. Very small rows. If I can handle that, I'm good.