Playing with a French plait

#21. Learn how to French braid my own hair.

For some reason, I never learned how to French braid my own hair when I was a kid. I had very long hair as a child and I distinctly remember in 2nd grade, at story time, how the other girls in my grade would braid my hair into these teeny tiny braids. They were actually so small that they would turn into knots, and then my mom would get mad when I came home, and then we would have to cut or rip them out. (This will explain why I got my hair cut into a short bob in 3rd grade.)

ANYWAY, when I still had long hair and I went to friends' houses and got it braided while we watched a movie or hung out, I was over-the-moon excited that it could look that elegant and polished. I became more and more impressed with friends who had a knack for making my hair look good and I regularly asked (read: begged) them to do something fancy with it for countless recitals and orchestra concerts (thanks Alex and Marisa for indulging me!).

Well, enough was enough! I could make it look just as elegant and polished if I only watched a YouTube tutorial or two. With a few months of practice, I got ok at braiding (but no better at taking pictures of the back of my head...until I realized my phone camera has a timer on it. Whoops.).

Admittedly, this item on my list was a little silly. But not every item needed to be extravagant. I'm ok with this one being silly!

Yikes, look how wavy that braid is...even the cat noticed.

Better...

Final product!

And now I can French braid my hair! Kind of. A 2nd grade girl's dream come true.

19 down. 11 to go!

Knit knit knit

#20. Knit a useable scarf.

I have never been an overly crafty person. I've always loved the idea of being crafty, but somehow it's never been a strong suit for me. However, I also love the idea of creating beautiful things (maybe this is why I'm a musician??), and when I was in high school, my mom, brother, and I all got into knitting one Christmas. 

Then, well, you know how hobbies go. You're really into them for a day or two, or a week, and then you set it down and it gathers dust for a year before you think back to it and realize you absolutely dropped the ball on it.

Anyway, I have a lot of talented friends who can knit or crochet, and I decided more recently this was an activity I wanted to pursue. SO. With the help of my friend/travel buddy Sarah (who is a phenomenal knitter, among other things!), I began!

I already had a lot of cheap yarn that was of questionable quality, which meant that it was great for practicing. I gathered it up from my mom's stash, and went to work practicing my knitting. I knit everywhere: on the bus in Croatia, backstage at a San Antonio Symphony concert, while watching Netflix (I find this helps keep me off my phone, and avoids the dual screen/split attention issue), and most recently, surrounded by friends in Philadelphia after teaching one of them how to knit (you go, Maya!!). 

Thanks to Sarah's help, I finished a practice scarf with the questionable yarn, and finally felt like I had enough practice to really go for it on the next project.

Done with the practice scarf!

I'm not yet able to read any patterns/knitting directions (I get very overwhelmed very quickly) and I like the idea of a scarf because I can see how even my stitches are. Coincidentally, while in Philly with friends we stopped into a craft store, and I found some yarn that I loved, and thought, "ok, let's do this!"

With a couple of different iterations (and redos), I finally decided that being stuck at home during the Coronavirus was the best excuse that I was going to get to finish this project. 

The colors of this yarn reminded me of a candy cane!

I also always had a friend helping...

Finally, this past week, I finished it!

18 down. 12 to go!