CROCHETING LIKE A CHAMP

a couple weeks ago i got really, really invested in a roblox game called griffin's destiny. the game boasts some pretty solid character customization options and part variety that i enjoy, but ultimately suffers from the same over-monetization issues that sonar studios' games often do (which, currently, i am exerting great self-restraint in not getting into further). after a few days of idling at spawn with an autoclicker while i slept to farm ingame currency and open more lootboxes, i said "oh my god i need to get a hobby or else." a few days later i went to michael's and picked up a 6mm crochet hook and yarn in green and beige.

i've been having a good time with it so far! it's a great way to keep my hands busy while usually not needing enough active attention to keep me from watching videos or listening to podcasts while doing it (which has been an issue when i try to do the same while drawing or playing games, especially in relation to podcasts without a visual element). i'm no master by any means but for the most part it's been easier for me to pick up than i originally feared, which is always nice.

TAKE 1: THE BASICS

i started the way most people pursuing new hobbies do: a youtube search for "how to crochet." groundbreaking stuff, i know.

the first channel i checked out was bella coco and her "absolute beginners crochet lessons" playlist. they're very concise and nicely show the basics of crochet, and i still come to her tutorials pretty often when i need to learn or improve on a new technique.

and so, my first-ever attempt at crochet ended like this:

ok so something bad happened here i think. granted, i wasn't trying to make anything more specific or complicated than a swatch of yarn here, but it was still kind of frustrating for something so seemingly simple to turn out so misshapen. looking back on it i'm pretty sure that after the first couple rows i started skipping the last stitch and didn't catch it until i'd done a few more rows and subsequently did the same thing on all of them. it was a good learning excercise, though, and it's quite soft.

TAKE 2: THE SWEATER

sweaters are, unsurprisingly, incredibly common crochet projects, and for good reason! while i'm not incredibly interested in trying to make full-on clothing yet with my amateur skills and limited supplies, i did go in with the full intent of making plenty of tacky little accessories for my plushies. my first foray entailed sifting through patterns designed for babies (notably similar in size to build-a-bears) until i discovered a pattern made specifically for the plushies on a site called ribblr.

i was originally annoyed by the account requirement ribblr has in order to view patterns but i enjoy a lot of the quality-of-life features on the site. a favorite of mine is that you can click on terms and abbreviations (the latter of which being used in basically all crochet patterns, and i still haven't totally gotten used to) to bring up a short explanation and in many cases even a short video demonstration of the technique. i also got a lot of use out of the ability to mark off the steps i'd done including individual instances of repeating instructions - i often have a hard time keeping track of my place in patterns. it was all pretty streamlined and easy to follow from beginning to end, and turned out very cute!

here's frosty modelling the final product. it's not perfect - it's a little bigger than the original pattern called for, and i think i made a mistake stitching the right sleeve on - but it fits well and i had a good time making it. i might look into making more in other color variants in the future.

TAKE 3: THE BANDANA

i actually didn't take nearly as many in-progress photos of this one as i have my other projects so far. probably because it was basically a big triangle, but unfortunately that does still mean i don't have a whole lot to show of that process.

this was based on this triangle scarf pattern from heart hook home. i couldn't find a bandana pattern proper that i liked enough to use so i ended up using this one with the exception that i only made it big enough to snugly tie around the neck of jazz, my gay plush alligator.

simple, but stylish. i think orange suits him really well.

TAKE 4: THE DINOSAUR

at this point i'm pretty confident that my skills in crochet are growing. something i've wanted to pursue from the start was amigurumi, or the art of crocheting (or knitting) small toys and plushies out of yarn. it's definitely a lot more involved than, say, making a sweater or scarf, but there's still a lot of beginner-friendly patterns you can easily find online. after sifting through tons of small-scale dinosaurs and dragons i finally settled on the scraptacular reptiles pattern from stringydingding. they're designed to be made with scrap yarn - leftovers from other, bigger projects - and given i wasn't sure how much yarn i had left from the skein i used for my sweater i figured this would be perfect to make use of it.

this is how that went.

ok, not a bad start. pictured here with tf2's snakewater snake, kindof.

looking a little bit like a sock here but not horrible. he'll probably shape up when i get to stuffing him.

oh

oh fuck

oh my god. ok

okay. so something went wrong here i think

i don't know where exactly the trouble started but i do know i lost count of my stitches around the end of the snout and started to kind of wing it by the time i got to the neck. it shows. in some ways i think i prefer this result over what he was supposed to look like if i followed the pattern a little more closely. i made this throughout the duration of a voice call with my boyfriend and when i got to the "limbless tube" phase i dont think either of us could stop laughing at this little green fuck

i've been calling him "snout" or "sniff" in my head. i love him and i hate him so much. he's so funny. i think he sounds like a guinea pig.