diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..01cb87eb6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+*.pickle
+ 
+# Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files
+__pycache__/
+
+# Jupyter Notebook
+.ipynb_checkpoints
+
+# Environments
+.env
+.venv
+env/
+venv/
diff --git a/create_dataset.py b/create_dataset.py
index cf3aebd9a..f69b47fec 100644
--- a/create_dataset.py
+++ b/create_dataset.py
@@ -3,21 +3,25 @@
 
 import mediapipe as mp
 import cv2
-import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
 
 mp_hands = mp.solutions.hands
 mp_drawing = mp.solutions.drawing_utils
 mp_drawing_styles = mp.solutions.drawing_styles
 
-hands = mp_hands.Hands(static_image_mode=True, min_detection_confidence=0.3)
+hands = mp_hands.Hands(static_image_mode=True, min_detection_confidence=0.3, max_num_hands=1)
 
 DATA_DIR = './data'
 
 data = []
 labels = []
 for dir_ in os.listdir(DATA_DIR):
+    # skip files (like .gitignore)
+    if not os.path.isdir(os.path.join(DATA_DIR, dir_)):
+        continue
+    
     for img_path in os.listdir(os.path.join(DATA_DIR, dir_)):
+        print(f'Processing {dir_}/{img_path}...')
         data_aux = []
 
         x_ = []
@@ -48,3 +52,4 @@
 f = open('data.pickle', 'wb')
 pickle.dump({'data': data, 'labels': labels}, f)
 f.close()
+print('Data saved to data.pickle')
diff --git a/data/.gitignore b/data/.gitignore
index ffb3cdb2c..593bcf0e8 100644
--- a/data/.gitignore
+++ b/data/.gitignore
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-.gitignore
-
+!.gitignore
+*