I’ve been in a bit of a crafting slump for the past few months. While I had many romantic ideas for the crafts I would do while travelling, ranging from an embroidery journal where you stitch something miniature every day and then end up with a whole hoop full of cute little pictures to crocheting a whole jersey (again). But because I’m living out of a suitcase I stop myself, asking “Do I want to carefully carry this low-key useless hoop of little pictures with me for the rest of the year?”. No offence to embroidery journals; I’m sure they’re plenty useful to many.

Earlier this year, inspired by watching my iPad go naked and alone through airport security, I crocheted myself a case:

Last week was my girlfriend’s birthday, and what better occasion to make stuff than for a gift? Now *she* has to carefully carry my crafts through airport security! She made the mistake of complimenting my iPad case a handful of times so I knew that I could make her one and she would either a) love it as much as she loves mine or b) do a really convincing job of pretending to love it.

I made the pilgrimage to Hobbycraft (not quite as exciting as my trip to Hobby Lobby but still very cool and I was informed that Hobby Lobby is run by evil forces anyway) and got some beautiful, albeit acrylic, green yarn. I tackled this project using one of my favourite methods: being way too excited to start to plan properly, finishing it very quickly, absolutely hating it, taking it apart, and doing it all over again.

I made my first attempt using moss stitch, which gives such a pretty textured look, is stretchy without being too hole-y, and is quick and fun to stitch. When I finished it was just too plain, and while my girlfriend is definitely not a cute little white frill-on-top kind of girl, it needed more. I decided to cross-stitch a picture onto it, which works best when done on a single-crochet stitch (I actually did a tutorial on this during lockdown).

So I unwound the finished laptop sleeve and started again, completing it with this adorable cat cross-stitch pattern I found on Pinterest. When cross-stitching into crochet I like to just do one half of the X stitch, a ‘/’ if you will, as to do the whole of the X would be a bit too bulky.

I’m so happy with how this came out; how’s that face?!

It fits so snugly and looks very cute on the shelf next to my iPad.

Now I need a new crochet project. I’ve been eyeing those vests that are made up of a mixture of blank squares and granny squares with playful pictures on them for a while now. Devastatingly, however, I am deep in my Kibbe body type loyalty era, and a v-neck just does not work for my soft classic silhouette.

I feel like a bag made in this style would look cool, but making a bag is just so not thrilling. Making yourself clothing is like, “Ooh, I can’t wait to finish so I can wear this,” but making yourself a bag is just, “Can’t wait to put my eggs and oat milk in this and watch it gradually get dirtier and degrade in general over time.”

I think I’ll just start making some squares and see where it takes me. My inspiration so far:

fairy picnic / sunflower / gummy bears / heart / cherry pie / purple heart and gingham / waffles / sun / leaves