So often when the New Year rolls around I see people including on their list of New Year’s Resolutions/Goals that they want to try something new. This year I was tempted to make that one of my goals in relation to trying a new craft, but then I started thinking about how many crafts I already do or know how to do but have since put aside. It really hit me even more so as people began posting their first makes – whether a complete project or just a square of basic crochet stitches. And that’s when I began to think about my own first makes.

The only problem? I don’t remember my first make – in crochet or anything else. I do know what two crochet classes I signed up for to start learning how to read patterns and make some projects as well as the first patterns and books I bought, but what I first completed? I have no clue.

I do know, however, that I have always been creating – and what my first craft love was.

As a little girl, jewelry was definitely my thing. I had a huge assortment of plastic beads, pony and otherwise. Thinking about how much I used to make, necklaces, bracelets, what I hoped could be some sort of head piece, etc., I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the TV show Boy Meets World. In the first season episode “It’s a Wonderful Night,” Mr. Feeny is babysitting and has been roped into playing tea party with Morgan. But Morgan wants him to continue playing tea party with her even though they had an arrangement that he could grade papers. When she starts to pull the puppy dog pout on him, he comments, “Now, I have upheld my part of the bargain. I have festooned myself in costume jewelry. I have swilled your faux tea. Now, I insist that you keep your end of the bargain.” The bolded and italicized line is the important takeaway here, because “festooned myself in costume jewelry” is exactly what I did – not to mention giving my makes to my parents for them to do the same! The jewelry making love was so strong, it was a key component of my fifth birthday party.

I invited the girls from my preschool class to my house for an afternoon filled with jewelry making, playing in the new tree house my dad had just finished building, and, of course, cake. While over the next few years as I planned my birthday parties I asked for something different, looking back this was the perfect way for me to celebrate my birthday then, now, and likely well into the future. I was able to participate in a craft I loved while socializing with others.

This love of making things with beads has never fully gone away. While I eventually stopped making costume jewelry with abandon, I found a new love for pony beads when I was almost ten years old and found an assortment of “Beady Buddys” kits. Cue me buying (well, asking my parents to buy) tubs of pony beads so I could re-use the patterns from the kits. I have no idea how many of those keychains I wound up making, but I still have two shoeboxes full of them in my closet, along with the patterns and some pattern books.

Not too long after I started making these, a friend also introduced me to seed beads and how to make a flowered bracelet using them. I think this was probably among my parents’ least favorite of all the crafts I ever found myself exploring. Not because of the cost or storage or anything like that, but I was notorious for dropping those tiny beads on the floor (accidentally, of course!) and they were not the easiest of things to find – or pick up once they were found. Needles were generally involved when trying to get them off the floor.

After this, my fondness for crafting with beads went on a long hiatus – I still loved beads and looking at them, but I didn’t work with them for at least 10 years, maybe even longer. Then I felt the urge to start making “grown up” jewelry. But that took a surprising little turn when I found myself not making necklaces or bracelets, but rosary beads. I was always fascinated by rosary beads growing up, the different styles and colors, the chaplets that were made for various saints, the various materials used… To me they were a true art form, not just a religious item.

I began buying wire and glass beads in earnest, making rosary after rosary and chaplet after chaplet. I didn’t have anyone to make them for besides myself and my family, but that was okay because each was unique with the combination of centerpiece, crucifix, and color and type of bead. And the repetitiveness of making them was soothing! But then I finally, finally learned to crochet and soon the beads and medals and crucifixes were packed away with my old collection of seed beads, only to come out when someone found out I knew how to make them and requested one.

Yet, having that experience of working with wire and chains and all those years of collecting beads in various styles and sizes helped me with my crocheting when I never imagined they could. I gave my AmiguruMe dolls earrings, necklaces, rings, made their arms poseable, and am now making the entire doll poseable. So while I may not have started an entire new craft this January, I am expanding my horizons by trying new methods with my tried-and-true craft of crochet and remembering my first craft love.

Did you make a goal to try a new craft this year or are you focusing on ones you already know?