A New Hobby Emerges
My crocheted Emotional Support Chicken
Something I haven’t spoken about on this website is my newfound hobby.
In October of last year, I decided that I wanted to be a Crochet Lady—in fact, I made it my New Year’s Resolution for 2024. Honestly, I’ve always wanted to be a Crochet Lady, but learning to crochet as a lefty from adults who were righties or from books that I checked out from the library just never made sense to me. I couldn’t make my hands do what they needed to do, and I didn’t have the patience to stick with it enough to build up my skills.
Now, however, there are detailed, step-by-step video tutorials on YouTube. And now, I’m in a place in my life where I have patience to learn a new crafty skill. I’d been on the fence for awhile, until I saw a video on YouTube that lit a fire in me to learn how to crochet:
I have no idea how this ended up on in my recommended feed, but this time The Algorithm was absolutely correct that THIS was exactly the content that I didn’t even know I was looking for. If you don’t want to watch this video, it’s just a young woman who decided to make a blanket using the Retro Daisy granny square (there are LOTS of videos on YouTube about this square, but the ones I’ve linked are the ones that I played and replayed the most).
While I normally would jump right in with unearned confidence and try to make this myself, I realized two things:
I don’t actually know how to crochet, and while these women all make it look very easy, they have years of experience that I don’t have.
If I don’t take the time to at least learn the basics of crochet first, I will probably get frustrated and throw everything into the Abandoned Crafts bin in my closet that continues to haunt me to this day.
I really DO want to crochet and not relegate it to my Abandoned Crafts bin.
So, I needed to do things a little different.
My derpy, amigurumi frog
I started with a couple of The Woobles kits. While I don’t necessarily recommend these kits unreservedly (they’re very expensive for what they are), I am glad that I started here. Their step-by-step instructions and detailed explanations helped me recognize what a stitch was, where I should put the hook, and how best to keep track of a pattern (they also helped me learn that I don’t really like making amigurumi). With The Woobles kits, I learn the very basics of how to crochet and ended with a cute and completed project to help build up my confidence.
I moved on to basic granny squares, figuring that if my goal was to do a modified granny square, I should probably know a thing or two about a basic one.:
My very first granny square ever
And I finally jumped into my Retro Daisy square.
The Retro Daisy Granny Square, that I still haven’t blocked yet.
Honestly, I think I kind of nailed it…
I DO have plans to make a throw blanket or couch cushions using this pattern, but I haven’t decided on colors, so I haven’t made any beyond this initial test square.
Since then, I’ve made a few project bags:
I did a slightly modified version of the one in this video to make this bag.
And I’ve made a couple of bandanas to keep my hair out of my face (that I actually like enough to wear out in public).
I made this pattern up, and am really annoyed I didn’t write it down because I don’t remember what I did.
However, as you no doubt saw in the first pic, so far my crowning glory was my Emotional Support Chicken. By far, the most complex pattern I ever attempted and the first once I ever tried that didn’t have a video tutorial (of course NOW the pattern maker has started posting a video tutorial series).
I have several other projects in various stages of completeness that will be featured in future blog posts, as well as a few I can’t post until after the holidays because they’re gifts for people and I don’t want to ruin the surprise before they’re given. But, I guess, kind of SURPRISE if I know you IRL and you’re in my Christmas gift list—you’re getting something crocheted.
Anyway, there are lots of garden updates to post about, but I wanted to do this one as well, because as a new Official Crochet Lady, I’m very likely going to start posting a bunch of crochet content here.
