Originally posted on: October 10, 2017
A month ago almost to the day I was surfing through Facebook, randomly chatting with a few people in a group I have belonged to for a long time. The group is a chat group for discussion about the television show called My 600 Pound Life which follows a Houston doctor who is on a quest to help as many morbidly obese people as he can. Over the years the group has blossomed to over 11,000 members and is quite active. One of the admins posted that having a hobby that keeps your hands busy is a good way to keep yourself from binge eating and asked us what our hobbies were.
I opened my big mouth…
I of course said that I crocheted, a lot. I do! It consumes me, it wasn’t a lie. But then a few other members mentioned that they crocheted or that they wanted to learn to crochet. All the sudden every single helpful bone in my body started vibrating and then I did it. I sent a message to said admin and told her I wanted to start a spin off group where these folks could learn to crochet. She thought it was a good idea and so did the other admins, an hour later the group was created.
A few days after that I was doing my first live Facebook video session and then a few days after that I got the bright idea for all of us to do a group project. I searched and searched for something that would be beautiful but still extremely simple to learn for the people who had come under my wing… all 19 of them and 3 do not count as they are family members. So 16 people are looking to me! The pressure! Insert a few days of thrashing around, abusing myself for opening my big mouth.
Right, I was on the hunt, a hunt for a pattern. I had been working on a simple shawl for a Christmas gift and had taken pictures to show to the group. More than a few commented, they liked it so I thought hey, why not give it a chance? Off to Ravelry I went and sent a message to the designer Jinty Lyons. I explained what I was doing and asked her if she would permit me to do a video tutorial on the shawl for the group. She responded back almost immediately and said yes!
YES!
Wait… no…!
I do not know how to record videos. I certainly do not know how to edit videos. I don’t know anything about the world of Youtube or the like. What have I gotten myself into this time? Right, anxiety level at max. But this is fine, it’s all fine, I can make it through this. I’m smart. I can figure this out. I am a nerd at heart. It cannot be that hard. This. Is. Fine.
Wrong. It wasn’t fine. It was no where near fine. I spent an entire weekend ignoring as much of the world as I could and filmed. Hours and hours of filming. Stoping and starting, tripping over my own tongue, binge eating all the things that were horrible for me (ironically), giving the evil eye at the animals and the kids who dared squeak in the direction of the room I was filming in only to look at the raw footage and hate it!
I deleted every single video. Insert more thrashing…
Thankfully I pulled myself together, got some encouragement from the folks in the group and family members then plodded back to recording. This time I did it. I learned from my mistakes the previous weekend and spent another filming. But now, editing.
Spit fire and save matches.
As a blessing that didn’t turn out to be as awful of a process as I thought it was going to be. The finished product isn’t as pretty as some of the videos other crocheters put up on Youtube but hey, I don’t think it’s terribly awful. Then came the uploading. I had days before created a Youtube channel, and an Instagram account which I’ve been trying to learn to use. When I finally figured out how to upload I took a deep breath, dropped my file where it said to drop it and then gawked as I looked at the processing time. 3.5 hours! Have mercy! Fine… I’ll go watch tv and crochet while I wait.
An hour into it my browser froze. Grey screen all across the monitor. My blood pressure rose so quickly I nearly fainted. One force quit and a restart of the computer later the video was back to uploading… then it began the processing… another hour wait. Finally it was completed but then it wanted me to choose a thumbnail. THUMBNAILS! I didn’t even think about thumbnails. At this point I was so tired and afraid of another browser crash I just selected one of the ones it had created and went with it. Certainly not as pretty as many others, but, it serves it’s purpose.
The video will go live on Saturday, four days from now because that is when our group is starting our project. We will all have one month to complete our shawls though I doubt it will take anyone that long. I am in knots over it. It’s long, very long, as in an hour and a half long. Some of the members of the group didn’t even own a crochet hook when they joined so I was really focused on making the tutorial for a beginner. It is my hope that it will be easy to follow for folks who are just picking up hooks for the first time.
I feel like I’ve missed things. I’ve watched it several times. I don’t know if I have or not. At this point I’ve looked at it so much I probably wouldn’t notice if I did or not. Regardless, it’s done now and it’s going to be fine. This. Is. Fine. I keep telling myself that anyway. I can say though that I have a whole new respect for the folks who are constantly putting out tutorials. This mess is hard!
It all escalated very quickly. In a month I went from opening my big mouth to a Facebook Group (small but still a group), a Youtube Channel, an Instagram Account, a SnapChat (that I have no idea how to use) and now a blog… because I feel like I have something to say and even if no one reads it perhaps it’ll help me feel better and allow me a place to get all of the things in my head out. Think Albus Dumbledore pulling thoughts out of his brain with his wand and dumping them into the basin. This is my basin and any of you poor souls who end up here will have to put on knee high boots to wade through the madness. Muwahaha…..