My Relatively Newfound Love of Crochet

I learned to knit in college when some of my girlfriends were doing it and I realized the cost of making a scarf for a Christmas present was MUCH cheaper than buying one. I made lots of scarves for lots of people over the course of several years. I had heard of crocheting, I knew a good number of people who could do it, but the thought of learning to crochet was daunting to me. How could it be easier, or faster, using one crochet hook instead of two knitting needles?

It wasn't until after Babycake was born that I decided to learn to crochet. I became a Stay-At-Home-Momma when I had her. So for the first few months we were at home- a lot. I got bored and wanted do something. My cousin had made an adorable sweater for Babycake and I wanted to be able to do that too. However, she had crocheted the sweater... I couldn't do that. Actually, what I really wanted to make was a hat for Babycake. She had out grown the hospital caps and other newborn size hats, but didn't fit the other hats we had waiting for her.

So I googled patterns for knitting hats. Did you know how much more work there is to knit a hat than to crochet one?! Well, I'm not really sure if it's a lot more work, but when you don't know how to knit or crochet in a circle, the step by step picture instructions for crochet looked a lot easier.

My mom came up to visit a lot those first few months and she attempted to teach me to crochet. Needless to say it wasn't very successful. She hadn't crocheted in over a decade and I am a bit of a perfectionist who likes to get it right right away.

So again I turned to Google. How did we function before the search engine?! I found a ton of adorable baby crochet hat patterns. However, I still didn't know how to crochet. Now I turned to YouTube. Voila! Step by step videos! Tons of free patterns! This was the place I needed to be. YouTube became my crochet instructor. By browsing YouTube I was able to learn multiple crochet stitches and begin my hat for Babycake. Here is the picture of the hat I was going for:

The Cheri Hat. Pattern can be found on the Happy Baby Crochet blog site:
http://www.happybabycrochet.com/2010/12/baby-crochet-hats-free-patterns.html

As a newbie to crocheting, this simple hat was a bit difficult. Mainly the brim was the hard part. The pattern is honestly an easy one. The instructions are simple and clear. Since it took me long enough to make the hat, I didn't go for making the flower too. I think over all it took about 1-2 weeks to make this hat. I did a lot of starting over. This is the finished product on Babycake at about 1-2 months of age:

The brim is not as long as the original picture, but what does a one month old really need a brim for? I'd say that for choosing to learn to make a hat as the first thing in crochet instead of a straight lined scarf or blanket, I did pretty well.

Since making this hat for Babycake just under two years ago, I've gone on to make blankets, scarves, mug cozies, ear warmers, and more hats. I enjoy making things for people and as a SAHM, crocheting has become a quick and easy way for me to do that.