I just realised something…

It comes off the back of numerous articles on musicians and chess players, which suggest that you need to spend about 10,000 hours developing a skill before you can master it. I’ve always read this titbit of information as an insight into the need to practice your skill, whatever it is. That being said, there are some readings out there that seem to suggest ten thousand hours is a literal measurement of how long it takes to achieve mastery in anything.

So I applied this number to textiles in general, and crochet in particular, to come up with a rough figure for myself:

10 hours a week x 52 weeks a year x 4 years…

I have maybe spent a little over 2000 hours crocheting (2080 total). In case you were wondering where I got the “10 hours per week” figure, I used the fact I crochet while the TV is on as a guideline. The average Australian spends 13 hours per week watching TV, and I thought I would use a conservative estimate, and not include my transportation, bar and sporting event crochet. Also, anyone that has seen me prep for a crochet sculpture exhibition could argue that figure may be higher.

A fifth of the way there, after only 4 years. It is good to get a little perspective from time to time.

Here is a link for further reading on the 10,000 hours theory:

http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html

And a link to our embarrassing TV watching habits:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats%5Cabs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyCatalogue/19D9A81DC4ABD21BCA257BAC0016BBE9?Opendocument