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A Decade of Crochet

December 9th, 2024

‼ Warning ‼
Lots of images.

I don't remember for certain, but in I believe late 2013, my grandmother taught me the basics of crochet while we were visiting her. I made a very wobbly trapezoid. I still have it, in fact!


forgive the stains, it's lived a decent life as a hotpad*

At some point I started going around the edge in hopes of making it closer to a square, it worked a bit. I couldn't figure out how to tie off the end so it's a goofy not-quite bow.

A few weeks ago, I realized I had basically the exact same yarn; and decided to recreate this first project ever.


In 10 years, I learned how to make a square!

The blue square now just exists with my yarn, I don't know what to do with it. But it represents...something! That doing the exact same thing 100s of 1000s of times gets you some sort of improvement?

Where would I place my skill level now? Possibly intermediate/advanced. I generally believe in my ability to follow more complex instructions, but I prefer to work on "mindless" patterns so I don't push myself much. Some things I can/have done:

I'm sure more. A big issue is that, honestly, I tend to just hand wave a lot of advanced projects. I don't need doilies. I don't need and do not want to buy the yarn for a giant mandala blanket. I don't like wall tapestries. I'd also like to learn interlocking mosaic. I've done a test swatch of it, but it didn't 100% click. I can't see myself making anything substantial though, that's soooooo much yarn. Same thing is stopping me from getting into tunisian crochet. I think I'd like to crochet a sweater someday, but I go back and forth on it. It just seems thick and uncomfortable. blah blah blah. I just need to bite the bullet and pick out a really good pattern and prove to myself I can make something nice LOL.

Another thing in the realm of "hey it's been a decade" :

(This picture is pretty awful, sorry) (I'll try to get a better one when I weave in the ends.) But it's my scrap blanket! It's a weird state of being. It is a combination of my own leftover yarn, scraps of yarn from my other grandma (who both lived closer and made much smaller projects in a variety of colors, resulting in way more various yarn) and one or two instances of ~almost~ a full skein of yarn because I would eventually frog a project and not know what to do with the yarn. An example is the light neon yarn that you can see throughout the entire thing. It went through two attempts at dog sweaters, but it just didn't work out so it eventually got killed. I may have made one hat with that yarn too?

It was kind of just going on forever (if you've seen the project page on it, you may know that I frogged + restarted it in the round a year ago.) I realized that since I just hit a decade of crocheting, this would be a pretty graceful end. Unrelated, but in retrospect I think I like the way it looked in plain hdcs more than moss stitch.

I like this blanket as a museum of yarn more than as an actual blanket. It's at least 45% acrylic yarn that is older than me. It's itchy. Some close ups of it's horrific beauty; though be warned if you're not familiar with crochet/moss stitch specifically, this might be kind of hard to visually parse:

The center: Is fake. The first two yarns of the original were actually that variegated blue and the bernat blanket. To the shock of no one, it's extremely hard to begin a moss stitch, in-the-round blanket with fuzzy yarn and hook a few couple sizes too small. A friend has described this part as "unfortunate" LOL. it's the story though, that's the yarn I used so it's gotta be there! You can guess how well bernat blanket yarn went as a new crocheter all those years ago, too.

Plus, There's a lot of disliked yarns in this beginning section. The impracticality of blanket yarn. That first tiny bit of varigated blue that I liked the colors of, but just seemed ugly worked up (RHSS Icelandic.) That mystery chunky, sparkly grey yarn that I liked in theory, but again was so ugly worked up (if it still exists [doubt] it might work better knit?) RHSS in Mirage, one of billions of instances of liking the colors in theory but hating it worked up. Lots of unfortunate textures from ancient acrylic. The beginning of the curse of Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Oatmeal. Learning that cotton (Lily S&C in Poppy, IIRC) is kind of brutal for tight tensioners. That black yarn that's going into the Bernat Blanket was absurdly stretchy, alternatively. But! That's what it's about, you learn from doing and trying and experimenting.

😬 Sorry about the hair. A close up of a phase of cotton tube yarn. From what I recall, this yarn looks great with even-moss stitch (which is completely distinct from moss stitch/this blanket.) I'd like to try knitting with it someday too! It's not Woobles yarn, this was before they existed, idk what brands they were.

The beginning and end point of what I call the cheeto yarn. It made a whole row on both versions of the blanket. Generally it was pretty neat, it was two out of-sync rainbows twisted together, and the hat I made with the rest of it looked pretty cool. This is just a particularly unflattering section. This yarn is just a couple steps from roving though, it wasn't super fun to work with. Also, a glimpse of that chunky Christmas yarn that I actually liked a lot but it was one of those mystery yarns that just materialized in the house - not enough to make anything with :-( (I'd love to knit a stocking someday!)

Center line: Lion Brand Homespun in "Mimosa" that I just call meat yarn, because I made a cowl for my friend and was just left with the old meat colored section. Shiny dark green yarn in upper third: very similar to the cheeto yarn, but single ply roving. Most of it was destroyed when I frogged the original blanket. I'm sure the hat I made with it (given away, at some point, because it was too small for my head) has not survived either; now that I think of it. Don't buy roving style yarn LOL. I think the not-quite-rainbow pastel section looks really cute!

Outlined: two vintage acrylics that I really like the color schemes of. I have no idea what general age, or brand they could be. Like, through context clues it's probably Caron, Wintuk, or Red Heart; and could be from anytime between the 70s to early 2000s. There's a third one I liked too, you can see it on the right between the boxes, between the christmas yarn and the green yarn. It's the mint green/white/mint blue/white pattern. All three fell into the category of "I liked these yarns and it would have been nice to make something with them but there was just scraps left" :-(. I'd love to hunt down dupes of them someday. (TBH the third one is just like...every other baby yarn)

Another shot of the pastel/meat corner. There's another pink meaty yarn above. I made a really thick scarf that I really like out of it and I just realized I never made a page on it here.

A brighter section. Cut off at the very bottom, you can see RHSS in "Monet" I think I've seen one project ever with this yarn that I like the look of. At the top you can see the end! I was hoping that I had enough of the orange yarn to get one full row but nope lol. I was going to end it at the corner but something about it ending suddenly, not quite halfway through a side, is both funny and fitting.

The End to the 10 year scrap blanket. I'm not particularly dedicated to acrylic yarn but oh man does this blanket (and most of my shared projects?) say otherwise. Hey there's like 5 scraps of cotton in there! And even one or two wool! IDK what I'll do with my leftover yarn going forward.

*I feel obligated to point out that you should not use acrylic (IE Plastic) yarn around heat. In practical life, for me, an acrylic square is completely fine for carrying a hot bowl of soup, grabbing a hot plate from the microwave, or protecting your hand from a hot teapot handle. Good lord do not pull something out of the oven with one, though. I don't really trust crochet of any material for particularly hot things regardless, because it's made of holes + has some degree of stretch. I'd rather use a solid potholder.

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