Wednesday, March 2, 2022

That moment when you realize you can read a crochet pattern



Made a Moomin for my friend Eunice, the one who used to love cows, but is now infatuated with these. Used this free pattern, which is excellent (except for one mathematical error in one of the instructions, which a person could work around quite easily).

Still, there were some moments of panic midway. For example,

What the pattern said: these are legs
What I couldn't unsee: string bikini


and

What the pattern said: this is the thing's torso
What my children said: Oh, you made Among Us!


A bit disheartening, but it worked out in the end.

It was astounding, that moment when I realized that I was actually reading a crochet pattern and not having a nervous breakdown. It reminded me of a time decades ago when I was trying to teach myself some obscure Uni-level Math in order to pass a Physics class. All my other classmates had learned the correct advanced Math in high school and I hadn't because I'd opted for all the Science labs instead, thinking I would become a doctor instead of an engineery-Physics person. So I'd suffered through months and months of terrifying calculus and matrices and vectors and other such nonsense and my classmates were nodding calmly and I was just about ready to drop out of school and one day, while I was poring over my notes on my own between classes, suddenly something clicked and horrific concepts like divergence and curl of vectors and differentials thereof* somehow made sense and I wanted to stand on the table and shout Eureka but one doesn't engage in such histrionics in the middle of all the other Science people who are extraordinarily serious and proper, so I didn't. 

But I always remembered that feeling because it was so utterly life-changing. And this week, I had that feeling again while reading this crochet pattern - what read like code just seconds earlier suddenly morphing into English and 3D shapes in my brain. Whoa.

That said, I'm sad to report that I'm not enjoying amigurumi as much as I thought I would. The tinyness of it doesn't excite me. And I hate my miniscule hook, which feels like a toothpick. Also, counting stitches while increasing/decreasing is unbelievably stressful when they're that small. But maybe I haven't met the right project yet - and maybe I should gravitate toward giant amigurumi items instead? 

I've also been crocheting baskets. With fat yarn. Much better. Will share pics soon.

*Have forgotten what these mean now years later, of course.

6 comments:

  1. Your Moonin is very cute. I too remember that moment when (sc6, inc)*6 suddenly made sense and I could decipher amigurumi patterns. It was so exciting to realise that what sounded (and looked) complicated was actually very simple to follow. I prefer working with thinner milk cotton yarn, but my daughter uses thicker (worsted weight) yarn and her projects turn out bigger. Amigurumi doesn't have to be teeny tiny. I hope you find some projects that excite you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So enjoying your crochet journey! Congrats on the lovely progress, and don’t forget that yarn people are allllllllways searching for the perfect project bags. Crossover opportunity!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had that same feeling when I picked up knitting! Especially when I could finally 'read' the knitted fabric.

    I like making amigurumi, but not so much when it's teeny. Try it with bigger yarn, & a hook that's a size smaller than the yarn calls for.

    It's also fun to make them out of wool, then full them in the washer & dryer

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh fun ! It will be fun to see your baskets

    ReplyDelete
  5. I discovered I don't like crocheting for the most part, I love the look and recognize the skill it takes, but I take the hours and hours to crochet it and at the end I think, "I could have made the same project in less time and better with fabric."

    ReplyDelete
  6. I’m laughing out loud about your eureka moment in university because I had a similar experience. Nice project! I look forward to seeing more crochet projects..

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for talking to me! If you have a question, I might reply to it here in the comments or in an email.