Time is an illusion! Annual goals are arbitrary! Incomplete projects are not failures! There is time yet!
Crochet has been a lesson in living for the journey, not the destination. A testament to this is how compelled I am to share my incomplete crochet projects, not realising until now that I have yet to share my completed projects (this intro is the last part I’m writing in this whole post, trippy). Maybe that post will come haha. Back to the point. I don’t need a million hats or bags or coasters or book sleeves, but I love making them! I’m happy to make the same things over and over, to make different things, to gift away things I’ve made. Frogging work isn’t so unbearable (mostly). Because as long as I’m crocheting, it doesn’t matter so much to me that it’s taking me ages or I’ve had to restart. This is the joy of a hobby, where the reward is in the doing, not some prize at the end.
That said, the amount of Baby Baggus I have lying around with my half-finished projects is getting out of hand, so I’ve gathered my crochet works in progress as a way to take inventory, expound my mental (and technical) blocks, illuminate actionable steps forward, and get your feedback too! There are some projects I’ve simply not gotten around to finishing and some I’m genuinely stuck on.
Crochet cake tissue box cover
I have a tissue box by my bedside that’s a bit of an eyesore, so I decided to jazz it up with a cover. Plus, it was the perfect project to use up my acrylic yarn, which I don’t like using for bags/hats/wearables (my most common types of projects), and I already had all the colours I needed: pink, blue, white, red.
My vision for the tissue box cover is a vintage style piping cake (or Lambeth cake). So far, I’ve got a minimum viable product that conveys a vague notion of a cake, consisting of a dusty pink rectangular prism with baby blue iced edges. I followed this free fruit cake tissue box cover tutorial, but instead of decorating the top with kiwis, strawberries, and blueberries, I want to decorate the top with whipped cream and cherries, then gradually build up the piping on the sides for that super extravagant look. Plastic pearls would also do the trick.
This will be a great project to learn different techniques to create the dollops of whipped cream, amigurumi cherries (I’ve never tried amigurumi before!), piped ruffles, and perhaps other patterns too, if I haven’t run out of surface area. Actually, the same blog I got the fruit cake tissue box cover tutorial from also has a heart-shaped cake tutorial, which is pretty much exactly what I want my cake tissue box cover to be (just a differently shaped base), but it’s a paid pattern and the only new thing I can learn from it is the whipped cream dollops, so maybe I can find a free pattern or experiment myself (I think it’s just a circle with hella increases?).
Crochet multi-checker scarf
A year or two ago my mom impulsively bought out the Lion Brand Truboo yarn at Michael’s (the Michael’s was woefully stocked). It’s 100% rayon from bamboo and so so soft. At the time I was still pretty new to crochet, so I didn’t want to waste it on a lumpy project and stowed it away in my closet, forgotten until the end of 2023. When I rediscovered it, I realised there would be no better way to appreciate the ultra soft yarn than as a scarf to wrap my neck in. A scarf in my signature checker would be an easy, mindless project, and playing around with colour combinations would keep it interesting.
The only reason the scarf isn’t further along is because there were additional colours I wanted and didn’t have. But don’t fret! I’ve just ordered some more colours! So much for this being a stash-busting project. Oh well. This scarf is going to be glorious!! And I can use the leftovers to make a vest! The yarn has the perfect weight for a vest! I’ll need to learn how to crochet ribbing though.
I’ve been stuck with this teal and orange crochet checker bag for a year and a half. I ran out of orange, bought more orange, but the difference between dye lots was too obvious, and now I don’t know what to do. I could continue with a completely different colour combination (like I’m doing with my scarf) or do a colour combo with teal, but the issue is that the base teal and orange are so bright, and I feel like it would look awkward if the top half of the bag was darker/heavier, so that limits some options. I actually have a checker Kindle sleeve that’s half teal/orange and half teal/malachite that isn’t half bad, but the teal/orange is the top half. Anyways, I’ve been too lazy to puzzle out an ideal colour combination, so this project rests in limbo.
Crochet love letter book sleeve
Crochet love letter book sleeves are a versatile gift (as opposed to the trendy aesthetic of checker bags and scarves) and always in demand (mostly because they’re in short supply, aka I’m slow af), so I try to always keep one of these going. It’s my go-to easy, mindless project. Well… The cream granny square base and red heart are easy and mindless, but stitching together the envelope and the hearts is very not fun haha. Meticulous business.
For this particular sleeve, I’m thinking of gifting it as a wedding gift for my friend (her wedding has already passed, oops) and maybe surface crocheting her initial on the heart. Or maybe bride initial + groom initial? I’ll have to experiment because the heart is kinda small and the stitches are kinda large, so it may be difficult to surface crochet precisely. Embroidery is also an option; I’d have to pull out the skills I learned in my middle school elective class. It may very well be that leaving the heart plain would be best. Anyways, after I finish this sleeve, I’ll be starting another one.
Crochet Nightmare Before Christmas granny square hat
This is my most ambitious project yet! I was hyperfixated on The Nightmare Before Christmas this past year and decided I wanted to freehand Nightmare Before Christmas granny squares, focusing on the more Christmassy motifs. I didn’t think I’d have the perseverance for a cardigan, so a hat it is!
Note that my crochet experience mostly lies in checker bags, bucket hats, and granny square book sleeves, so these decorative squares have involved lots of trial and error. The pieces include Santa Jack, Man-Eating Wreath, Vampire Teddy, Undead Duck, Giant Snake, and a black and white spiral top. I redid the Santa Jack smile several times, wrangled the Man-Eating Wreath’s eyes into shape, repositioned the Undead Duck bullet holes and blood drips several times, redid the Giant Snake’s head several times, and have redone the spiral top once already but will need to give it another attempt in a smaller hook size, which would also give me the opportunity to fix the centre spiral. I’m also reconsidering the black and white striped borders between the granny squares, because although they look great, they jut out awkwardly when stretched around my head because they’re too bulky.
I’m alsooo reconsidering whether I want this to be a hat at all, or perhaps it would be better as a pouch, tote, or cardigan. Then the bulky striped border wouldn’t be such a big deal. The issue would be that these granny squares are actually trapezoids, which make sense for a hat (narrower at the crown, wider at the brim), but less so for a pouch, tote, or cardigan. And given all the attached embellishments and woven ends, rejigging the trapezoids into squares would require an amount of patience I don’t have. Much to contemplate…
