I'm a 43 year old British mom and freelance researcher. I moved to the US (Houston, Texas) three years ago when my hard-working husband was offered a transfer to the Land of Opportunity. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly how my crochet career started but I'd been toying with taking a distance learning course in the UK to improve my technique. I have a butterfly-like personality where I flit from extracurricular activity to activity usually moving on after 12-18 months and sometime returning to an earlier hobby enjoying my increased proficiency. Crochet has been a rather more enduring hobby than many I think mainly because of it's calming effect and the health benefits that it brings. Life can be pretty crazy at times!
After settling the children into our local public school, volunteering to make some friends and getting my freelance career up and running I had a little time to return to the goal of improving my crochet skills and found that teaching hours were required for the US equivalent certificate from the Craft Yarn Council. My first student was a fellow Brit and retired private school Principal. Since I'm not a fantastic housewife (you can't do it all - that's just a fallacy) and I couldn't face inviting people to my messy house I asked the local yarn store if I could teach on the comfy sofa in their back room where beautiful high-end yarn is stacked from floor to ceiling.
So before my first teaching session I'm doubly nervous - first about teaching at all and then thinking "Crickey, my student is a school principal", "what if she doesn't think I can teach?" "Well then I'll be done for, career over". Anyway since I'm here now, all went well. The yarn store owner and the principal met at a mutual friend's wedding and since we live in a world where it's "who you know" the owner told me once I had my certificate I could run the store's Friday afternoon workshop for crocheters ...and knitters! And that was eight months ago. Now Friday afternoons are simply the best part of my week. Big smile :)))