This habit post will be a free post as I include Betty Mcknit's free crochet pattern and I do not want to put her free content behind a pay wall.
This one was a roughy. I think I gave myself burnout on this one. I was so excited to start February Crochet that I spent the first week crocheting for hours a day and then when I wanted to go back to my regular art projects, it made the crocheting feel like a chore taking away from my art. For the start of February Crochet, I finished up a cat beanie with cotton yarn that only had slip knots and single crochets on tiktok live. This one was a funny little project since you can see a few points where I learned something new. There's about 4 rows of stripes that were a "Mari Original" single crochet so I wasn't reaaaaally crocheting. I was also dropping the last stitch and didn't notice until I was about half way through so the hat becomes really narrow at some points. My second crochet project was another cat beanie but it was for my sister. This time I made stripes with a really cool stained glass wool yarn and a red cotton. With this one, again, I dropped a bunch of last stitches so it ended up being really tight in some spots. It also is a bit too shallow to look good as a beanie. It look so funny from the side.
I started a single crochet moss mini skirt but that is a long time project and is only about 15 rows in.
The highlight of my February crochet was Betty Mcknit's 6 day star blanket I found trending on TikTok. Her videos and patterns are very informative. For this pattern I had to learn pattern terminology and a couple new stitches (double crochet and clusters). She also taught me how to change yarns without a magic knot. This project has been extremely rewarding. Although it's technically meant to be a 6 day project, she estimates it takes an average of 2 hours a day of crocheting to finish it in 6 days. I was only crocheting for 30 minutes at a time, unless I felt motivated, so it took me way longer. I also kept making mistakes and having to redo rows since I want this project to be perfect compared to my other two crochet ventures. The best part was becoming mutuals with Betty on TikTok and getting to ask direct crochet advice and getting to know her! Betty is an incredible person. I cannot stress this enough. Watching her videos you can tell, she cares so much about her viewers and her fan base. This alone made me a fan. She was so quick to remember my name, support my own personal content (non-crochet related), and so kind on her lives. She's going to be an incredible role model for me when it comes to how I traverse having a large following online. She's one of those people I consider unicorns.
This is the star blanket pattern. She has so many free patterns for awesome projects. I highly recommend checking those out too.
This is the first video for the star blanket. Betty has a playlist for all of the star blanket videos. These are super helpful if you're a visual learner like me.
I've also made crochet buddies on my lives! I've made so many mutuals that also crochet or just are interested in crocheting. I love it. TikTok has really just made it feel like I have a lot of new friends. Now I have yet to finish this blanket but this thing is going to be huge so it's going to take me a bit more time.
To talk about the burnout part now, I think my mistake was in trying too hard to share every aspect of this journey. I simply cannot keep up with the pressure of having to be perceived while I crochet. Even people asking me, checking in if I've been keeping up weirdly created a mental block. It triggered that part of me that felt like I "have to do homework" as if I'm not 23. It also made me feel like I was being accused of slacking but I realize they genuinely are just curious and I'm just projecting the insecurities I have about being lazy. This is why I've decided to take the habits to a more blog format since I can kind of just dump everything here without the pressure of polishing a video, or setting up good lighting for a live.
I'm definitely way better at crocheting than I was at the beginning of the month so I'm excited to have picked up a new skill. I'm at least confident enough now to where I feel like I might be allowed to say I know how to crochet.
This a video from the first day progress check.
Here is the day 2 update video. (I didn't end up doing daily updates)
Videos from when I finished my sister's hat
Starting the 6 day Star Blanket
6 day Star Blanket update (I made some mistakes here that Betty was kind enough to point out for me)
An unraveling video
Here are pictures of the moss skirt. I really love this yarn but I only have one skein of it and it's sold out everywhere. I think they actually discontinued it and even this one I purchased was missing the packaging so I had to convince them to sell it to me.
This is the super cute stained glass yarn I used for my sisters' cat beanie and the 6 day star blanket.
This is what the star blanket looked like at the end of my February Crochet month. The yarn varieties you see are all gradient wool yarns. The orange one my sister left while she was visiting (left overs from making pom poms for a cat bed). The grey yarn is a $30 natural dye iron wool yarn I got at a local shop. It was for only half a skein. I would love to be able to regularly afford small business prices but I definitely couldn't afford this yarn. I bought it because I walked in before closing not realizing it would be such a small store. It was so empty and quiet I felt guilty leaving empty handed. It is a gorgeous yarn though.
This is the good half of my boyfriends' cat beanie. You can see here how uneven the width is from dropping the final stitch.
This is the inside of the first cat beanie. You can see I learned how to tuck the tails half way through the project.
The 5 rows on the bottom here are the Mari Original crochet I mentioned before. Do you see how the top 2 rows look so much better?
Close up of the weird stitches
I took these screenshots of Arisa trying on her beanie on FaceTime. You can see how it's too shallow for her head. I was crying laughing at how stupid it looked from the side.
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