Crochet - The Patterns We Create

I have been thinking a little about the spiritual lessons I have learned from crocheting. The Lord uses whatever touches your heart to get his message across. The things you know and love and understand on a temporal level are just fertile soil for a personal “parable.” I have learned that following a crochet pattern is like taking all the small foundational steps in building a spiritual life.


No one stitch seems that important as you are working along. If you lose count, or miss a stitch, it might not even be noticeable for quite a while. But – you have been building a pattern. Patterns are built on symmetry. If you don’t follow the pattern – exactly – you end up with something different than the designer intended. Not necessarily unusable, but different. If you want to create what the Designer intended, you must follow the pattern step-by-step.

To do that, after you notice your mistake, you have to go back to the point where you error-ed , and fix your mistake. That means tearing out the stitches in-between where you are and the last true step you completed. (Like repentance) You start again, correcting your error and continuing along in the correct pattern. When you look back, you can see what your obedience to the pattern produced – a beautiful work of art!

To me this shows the importance of daily prayer, scripture reading, temple attendance, sacrament taking, service, charity, etc. Individually – important. Individually – not too significant, from a temporal standpoint. But when you look at the entire project – the pattern will be confusing and the symmetry will be missing. It is only when you are obedient and you get to see the Master Plan…the beautiful garment that had been designed.