The first leap

I think it was sometime in the autumn of 2023. Temperatures were dropping and—living in the Netherlands—the weather was, of course, getting cold and grey.

I was walking through Action, a low-budget store with a surprisingly wide range of things, including a lot of hobby supplies. That’s where I first came across crochet kits.

Although I didn’t like the designs they offered, it did make me curious to look further for something I would like. For a small price, I ordered a kit online to make my own crocheted cats.
Spoiler alert: it ended with what was supposed to be the head… but only slightly more than half of it.

More experienced crocheters will probably already know why this was likely to go wrong, but I’ll tell you anyway: black and white are some of the worst colours to start learning this hobby with.

At the time, I thought the kit would have everything I needed. I was a bit too confident (and maybe a little naive), thinking I could figure it all out with the help of YouTube. But I quickly learned that crochet isn’t something you just “pick up” in a day.

With black or white yarn, it’s hard to see your stitches clearly, which makes it difficult to know where to continue. And without stitch markers—something my kit didn’t include—it became almost impossible to keep track of my rounds. I tried writing everything down, hoping I could stay on track… but in the end, it just turned into a confusing mess, resulting in a weird-shaped egg that was supposed to become a cute, round cat face.

And that’s where it stopped. I lost both my motivation and the belief that I could actually learn this. So I put it aside for a while.

Until spring 2025… when something small (and striped 🐝) pulled me back in.

To be continued.

– TheLoopNotes