How Crocheting has Impacted Me by Emma

How Crocheting has Impacted Me by Emma - August 2025 Scholarship Essay

One of my many passions is crocheting. I’m a self-taught artist who started in my freshman year. Crocheting is a significant hobby to me because of the importance of detail. Making a scarf as my first project, I quickly realized just how much every stitch matters. When I start something new, it’s hard to recognize when I make a mistake. As I worked through each row of single crochets, I noticed an issue in my counting when I came to the end of rows. Somehow, I was adding stitches in some places and missing stitches in others. Understanding that this little mistake could impact the whole image of my scarf, I decided to unravel my hard work and fix it by redoing all the incorrect stitching. Taking the time to fix my mistakes became more real to me when I learned to drive. I was an online driving student who was essentially self-taught. While working toward my license, I misunderstood how to turn the steering wheel, almost causing multiple collisions. While this mistake may seem silly, it became an issue when I began turning onto roads. Still, I needed to fix it, so I began to do research. I watched videos as well as my dad when he was driving. Seeing how others turned the wheel correctly, I was able to rewire my brain and fix my turning, just like how I was able to rewire the mistake in my counting and fix my scarf.

When others hear that I’m a crocheter, they will undoubtedly ask me to make them something. The biggest project I have constructed was a blanket for my brother, Jakob, for Christmas. While I had fun crocheting the blanket, I became overwhelmed with school work, my extracurriculars, and the holiday deadline peering around the corner. To manage my time properly, I made sure to get important tasks done while working on the blanket during any free time. I completed the present in time, and my brother cherished his new blanket. A few months later, the effort I applied to my brother’s Christmas present turned into applying for an internship at Lockheed Martin. I needed to complete a multitude of tasks: creating a resume, writing a cover letter, asking teachers for letters of recommendation, taking my first drug test, and undergoing an intense interview. All of these required maximum effort and determination. Although it was exhausting, I finished my application. Eventually, the skills I learned from crochet paid off—not only when I got to see my brother’s love for his present, but also when I received news that I got the internship.

Crocheting requires extensive imagination. When I crochet, I can either use a pattern or I can use my hook, a skein of yarn, and my mind to create a masterpiece. My favorite project is a sweater I made on a road trip. I didn’t follow a pattern or look at an example; all ideas came from me. By the time I made it home, the sweater was complete, and it was my best work yet. I saw myself apply the same type of imagination when I built a fan in robotics class. Using a 3D modeling program, I designed and printed fan blades. I utilized my professor’s heat gun to mold the blades perfectly and program my robot to power the fan with four settings. I constructed a gear ratio system to move the fan faster, improving the productivity of the blades. Seeing my fan finished and created solely from my imagination, I was immensely proud. It was functioning not only correctly but also efficiently.

Thanks to my endurance, time management skills, innovation, and ability to change my mindset to fix mistakes, I can take basic materials and use my imagination to engineer something out of nothing. My hope through this year is that I'll continue to grow in these skills, as well as develop new ones.