Hi I’m Candy from Meladoras Creations, I design free crochet patterns and film video tutorials for my channel on YouTube. Allow me to tell you about my myself, of how my life started and then where I am today. It hasn’t always been roses but I came out smelling much sweeter on the other side.
How I came to make Meladora’s Creations:
It’s kind of a long story how I got on this road to teach crochet, but I will give you the short version. I grew up in an abusive home. Not as bad as some, but worse than others. Given this past my twin brother has refused to take control of his life, and me too there for awhile. I moved out when I was 17 and I got married at the age of 18 to get away from that house, and my twin brother came over almost everyday.
We had many years of abusing drugs and alcohol, trying to forget our past and going nowhere in the present. In time I started to grow out of that life, and the whole situation of my life and marriage. I wanted to get out. The only shining light in my life was my mother. She’s the one who taught me to crochet when I was 5 years old. She died of breast cancer in 2005 and that sent my life into a tailspin.
Before she died, to say I was living to die would have been an understatement. But when she died I hit rock bottom. Coming to the full realization of my life. Unhappy marriage, being sick all the time because of drinking, my abuser being the only parent left. I decided I needed to change my life.
So one night I was at rock bottom with feeling there was no way of getting myself out of my situation I went outside and looked up at the sky and prayed for God to deliver me out of my situation. I knew in my heart that he could do it and I prayed to devote my life to changing my ways. I vowed to quit drinking and I started to go out to visit more family and friends, so I wouldn’t be idle and want to drink or do drugs, and one day while visiting my older brother, he showed me this online game he was playing. I thought it would be a great way to get out of the house and keep me busy, so I started going to his house to play this game. And on it I met a man.
We became friends and was soon hanging out all the time online. It wasn’t until much later that I found out he was from Israel! My heart sank, because all hopes of maybe us meeting in person was destroyed. I fell into despair, feeling that my chances of being happy were vanishing, feeling stupid for letting myself hope at all. But as time went on, my Dad’s leukemia got worse and soon, he too was in the hospital dying of cancer just one year after my Mom’s death. This friend online became the only lifeline to get me through all these conflicting feelings about my father and what I was going through during this time.
Even though I felt my Dad didn’t deserve my support or caring because of how he treated us kids, he was still my dad and was dying, so I struggled with this. But my friend was always there for me and helped me get through it. Once my father died, I felt an end to my troubled past start to form. I realized the only thing that was keeping this pain alive now was me. My faith in God and the promise I believed he would answer kept me moving forward. I decided I needed to get away from my husband and to divorce him and start again. I moved in with my sister and continued to play the online game. It kept me sane and not idle.
Long story short, me and my friend continued to talk for another 7 months, until I couldn’t imagine living life without him. I thought maybe this is the one that God planned for me. I was so scared to leave everything I had ever known, but I believed that God would protect me. So my friend bought me a ticket to Israel, and I stuffed whatever meant the most to me into two suit cases, and got on the the flight to Israel. This was the first time I had ever been on a plane and here I was, flying half way around the world. A little over 18 hours later, we met.
Then there I was, in a new country where I didn’t speak the language and two suit cases filled with everything I owned. We continued to get along so well, but I only had a 3 month visa, which meant I had to leave the country at least 24 hours to have it renewed for another 3 months. So I had to fly to Turkey for a few days so I could come back to Israel with a new visa. We didn’t have much money so we could only afford one ticket. So there I was alone in Turkey with 3 different currencies in my pocket and nothing to do but think. Once I got back to him in Israel, at the end of the month we found out I was pregnant! It was a trying time of course, I was still only on a 3 month visa, but we worked hard to get me to stay in the country, I did have to go to Turkey again, but since we were able to be better prepared for it the next time, he was able to come with me! Our first vacation in a new place for us both.
When we got back I hit the ground running, I started Hebrew school 5 days a week. I remember walking down the halls of my school thinking to myself. If someone would have told me a few years ago that I would be in Israel learning Hebrew and pregnant, I would have thought they were crazy! Yet here I was. Hebrew is very hard for an English speaker to learn so I didn’t learn much Hebrew before my daughter was born and I was a stay at home mom with no visa to work, so it was just me and my baby girl Lilly during the day.
I said I would make this story short, so lets cut to years later, after the birth of our son we could finally afford a trip to Cypress where we got married (crazy story) and we have 2 kids (yet more stories) but all in all my Hebrew is still not great and I needed to find something else to do for a living besides English telemarketing, cause I’m not a pushy person and I hated that job. So doing what I love, crochet, I ran into some crochet tutorials on YouTube. After making a few videos sharing some of the things I made, people were urging me to make a tutorial.
So I gave in and tried it and loved it! Now I have many tutorials and even made a website to post my patterns and tutorials, making it as easy as I can. Most of my patterns come with pictures and step by step instructions. Those new to crochet can come and learn how to read patterns and watch me do things step by step. I hope when you find me that maybe you will find a project that you like and can make for someone that you love.
Now the love for my children and crochet have given me my passion and drive back in life. I can truly say in all honesty, that now I live to live. Thank you God for answering my prayer and taking me away from a bad situation into a life that I am happy in.
If you’re out there feeling lost, just know you are not alone! God is always with you, just waiting for you to reach out. Don’t ever feel you’re bothering God, you’re not. As the bible says:
Thessalonians 5:17-18– Never stop praying. Whatever happens, always be thankful. This is how God wants you to live in Christ Jesus.
Isaiah 55:8 – For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
UPDATES!
🏠 We have since moved out on our own. I have a video showing our first apartment (It’s changed so much since this video and is much more “lived in” and looks way better. Maybe I’ll do a update video in the future!
🏪 I now have 2 shops where I sell my PDF patterns with pictures:
Ravelry – https://www.ravelry.com/designers/meladoras-creations
Etsy – https://www.etsy.com/il-en/shop/MeladorasCreationPDF
🤝 I have a Patron channel set up here https://www.patreon.com/MeladoraCrochet
Please support my channel if you can. I post 2 PDF’s for my lower tier’s per month so it pays for itself if you’re a fan of my work. You can find out about the tiers and what they off here https://www.patreon.com/c/meladoracrochet/membership
Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know me better! I’d love to get to know you too! I am the most active on my Facebook page. I hope to see you there! God Bless you and yours!
Trademark https://www.trademarkia.com/meladora-s-creations-85823123
You met a man on a video game too? Cool! Which game? How far away did you live? And yeah I know what you mean about that abuse can give you a back bone, but in other situations it can do the opposite. I’ve found both to be true. So glad you clicked on the “about me tab too” really nice to see there are others out there who went through similar things and still came out ok 🙂
Wow, what a ride! Lots of similarities between our stories, right down to meeting our spouses in a video game and moving a great (fair in my case) distance to be with them. My dad was only verbally abusive and I like to credit him for my thick skin and fiery attitude. If it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t be anywhere near as fierce as I am today and if people call me names I laugh it off and ask, “is that the best you’ve got?” Still, it would have been nice to have a loving father and well-adjusted childhood, though, right? 😉
I know you inspire and help a lot of people because in nearly every roundup I see, or search I do, there’s sure to be a Meladora link. That’s saying quite a bit, given how big the ol’ world wide web is! In fact, you taught me one of my favorite stitches, the bean stitch.
I’m glad I finally clicked the “About Me” link because I totally dig a good success / rising from the ashes story. 🙂 Have you picked up any more Hebrew? From a trip a few years ago to Costa Rica I really appreciated my 7th grade Spanish teacher for refusing to speak to us in English. I remembered Just enough Spanish to get us around town and make friends at the hotel. For everything I Couldn’t remember. or never knew, there was a Talking Translator app that came in handy. Love technology!
Thanks, so much, for what you do. Between you, and one or two others on YouTube, I have learned to crochet. It’s been about a year since I started and it is now my favorite hobby. I’ve made a couple of your flower purses and given as gifts. I’ve received tons of complements on them, and several requests to make them for others. Being that I’m still fairly slow at crocheting, I probably won’t be able to put out that many, but I have referred a few to you. When I figure out how and where to post pictures for you, I will make sure to show you the purses I made.
Again, thank you.
Sincerely,
Pam