With a steaming mug of tea, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes audiobook drifting from my phone speakers, I settle down to crochet.

I am a fairy-tale, forest dweller making my own clothes after tending my herb garden. A Victorian maid making baby clothes for my many nieces and nephews. A medieval wise woman, living off the land and preparing for winter.

What I actually am… is not particularly good at crocheting. Though, for perhaps one of the first times in my life, this isn’t stopping me.

I always associated crocheting with knitting, I mean, obviously.

Watching Tik Tok video’s involving amazing women crocheting everything imaginable instantly brought back memories of being a young child, and my beloved Grandmother trying desperately and repeatedly to teach me how to knit, and it just wouldn’t work.

It was completely incomprehensible to me. Knowledge frantically trying to force its way passed a blockade that was impenetrable.

I firmly believe everyone has an Achilles’ heel when it comes to learning. We all have something that our brains just won’t take in, no matter how much time and effort we put in. Knitting was the first such thing I faced in life, and tragically, not the last.

I also found that as I was unable to do it, I was unwilling to persist. The more I struggled, the more I became disinterested. I don’t have that drive that many have to succeed in every single thing I try, and inevitably, despite my Nana’s encouraging smiles, I would drop the tangled mess of wool and wonder off to collect conkers, or flick elastic bands at my brother as he attempted his homework.

As an adult, the romanticism around these skills have recaptured me, and I would watch these videos with a nostalgic desire to relive those rose tinted moments as a child. Learning the skills of old, passed down from mother to daughter, or in my case, from grandmother to unsuccessful and untalented granddaughter.

I resolved to try again. Not knitting of course, that dead horse had been well and truly flogged, but crocheting. That was my white whale.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to watch a How to Crochet Tik Tok video. I would recommend it just for the experience.

It is like someone speaking an alien language while throwing balls of wool repeatedly into your face and then being expected to write down a hither to undiscovered mathematical equation.

So after some unsuccess, I did what every sensible 30-something woman would do, I called my mum.

Fast forward to the weekend and my mum and I were on the sofa with her crocheting hooks and some brightly coloured wool.

“Teach it to me like I’m an idiot” I insist, to which my mum heroically avoided a comment and just nodded.

“Ok start off by making a loop like this.”

“Like what?”

“This. A loop. But it needs to be adjustable”

“Hang on. How did you do that? Mine isn’t adjustable.”

“Just… like this… no… this”

“Why is your hook a different size from mine?”

“Just tie your knot and we can move on to that in a bit”

“I don’t know how to tie the knot, it’s not working.”

“You’re dog is stealing the wool.”

“Oh Ruth, drop it.”

You get the idea. It was slow progress, but, I surprised myself. Something sparked inside of me. Not talent, not by any deluded imagination, but the joy of learning something new.

Something that wasn’t related to work, or study, or in any way compulsory, but something creative.

After a long, long afternoon on that sofa, softly bickering and laughing with my mum, I had the basics down. I could tie the knot, and I could do a chain stitch.

Armed with this very basic knowledge, I came back home and jumped back on those Tik Tok videos, excited to now feel like I could interpret at least some of them.

How to crochet a granny square I searched. This felt essential knowledge – if I could make the square, I could attach them together to make blankets, cardigans, jumpers, bags – anything my feverish, hyperactive brain could think of.

Again, as I struggled to grasp it, and tried, and failed, and tried again, and failed, I felt that spark again.

I’m learning something, and I can’t do it yet, but I will. What a magical feeling, one that I’ve seldom tapped into as an adult.

So much of being a grown up feels like moving from day to day, secure in activities that can be divided into what is necessary and what is enjoyable. Both can sink slowly and imperceivably into what is familiar. When was the last time I tried to learn a new skill or start a new hobby that required focus and persistence? I’m embarrassed at what the answer to that question would be.

My first square was wobbly and out of shape. My second, ragged and perhaps more of a circle. I kept at it, again and again.

“I’m going to have made a blanket by the winter” I messaged my mum, with picture upon picture of updates. Each square made and added.

“Forget that – the rate I’m going, I can get it finished by the start of Autumn” I beam a few days later. It’s like an addiction, seeing my progress, feeling it get a little easier each time.

I love Tik Tok. Well, actually I don’t.

To perhaps to be more specific, I love some parts of Tik Tok.

There are so many wonderful women, making so many wonderful crafts that are, in every way, wonderful. People sharing their passions, and teaching people who want to share it.

There’s one account where a woman is making a granny square for each of her favourite books, using the colour scheme from the front cover, and she’ll attach them all to make a book blanket, which is such a beautiful idea.

There’s another account where someone makes the most breath-taking, floor length, ball gowns with the most stunning detail, all made with just a hook and some wool.

Other people just stand with a pile of clothes saying “here’s everything I made this week” and then proceed to show a brilliant array of jumpers, summer tops, dresses, kindle holders, tote bags.. you name it.

It’s wildly inspiring.

I don’t share my own work to be clear – my tattered, brightly coloured blanket, which I did finish by Autumn, or my pile of slightly better made granny squares that I’m on the cusp of making into a cardigan.

What I love, is that I don’t feel the need to be terribly good at this hobby to feel included, and to be made happy by, the community that comes with it.

Watching these videos, and then using knowledge I learn to make my own crafts, however out of shape, gives me a childlike sense of achievement that is glorious and soothing to the soul.

I don’t know about you, but when people say “you should try something new” my mind always goes to skydiving, or skiing, or mountain climbing.

But those soft, homely hobbies with its gentle creation, never occurred to me. But I say to you now, you should try something new, and it can be small, and inexpensive, and involve a lot of learning. We can find things that will change our life, and give us a spark in the small and every day things.

The most important thing is that you don’t need to succeed. You don’t need to be good at it.

You can simply just enjoy it.