Crochet by Miharin

Actually, my love for crochet is nowhere near a love at first sight.

I have always been a person with different kinds of hobbies, and mostly crafts related. I have tried numerous hobbies over the years, including reading, puzzles, diamond painting, rubber stamp carving, knitting, drawing, calligraphy, embroidery, Perler beads and Lego. The list goes on but you get the idea.

Although I still play with Lego and Perler beads occasionally, I just don’t feel as passionate towards the rest anymore even though I still find them interesting and fun. From time to time, I’ll spend time on them but they are not my ‘regular’ hobby.

This happened to crochet as well. I was really into crochet a few years back. I remember watching different tutorial videos on YouTube every day. And after doing some research, I bought the whole set of the Clover Amour crochet hooks and all kinds of notions such as stitch markers, tapestry needles with holders, along with some crochet ‘textbooks’ from Japan. I even ordered some yarn from Japan. This is how organised and ‘generous’ I am whenever I got into any new hobbies. You may say I’m very willing to ‘invest’ in my hobbies.

However, after finishing some small projects, the strong passion faded away. I do think that one of the reasons is simply me being too lazy to put more hours into it as it was time-consuming and more challenging than I imagined. Here are some of my projects finished at that time (including the coaster shown above).

Sorry for the low quality as both photos are from quite some time ago. I wrapped and gifted them to a friend and kept some (not shown in the photo) for my self. After that, crochet was put aside and I tried out some new hobbies afterwards.

Time passed and in 2021, I saw a crochet kit online and thought maybe I should give it another try. That’s the Mickey & Minnie keychains I shared in the previous post, and they were my first amigurumi project. I felt so proud and happy at that time. However, you may have guessed, crochet still was not ‘the’ hobby for me.

In late 2022, I gave it one more try for a scarf project and it just clicked (I’ll share more about that story with you later). I didn’t even need to try hard to be ‘in love’ with crochet since it just happened so naturally. I started spending more and more time into crochet, and it gradually became my ‘regular’ hobby. Even I’m surprised by myself that I can stick to one hobby for such long period of time. Until now, I’ve been passionate in crocheting for about 16 months, which already holds the longest record in my hobby history.

What I want to share with you from my story is that, it doesn’t matter if you cannot stick to one hobby for long, or if you cannot find ‘the’ hobby of yours yet. You don’t have to be upset or ashamed of yourself if you have similar experiences.

I used to feel a bit insecure about it since I I felt like I’m a ‘quitter’. I thought maybe I’m not trying hard enough and it’s just a waste of money to keep trying out new hobbies and give up so soon. Not to mention how this creates another problem since all unused or no longer in use hobby stuffs do take up storage spaces.

However, I’m now grateful for being such a ‘hobby explorer’ because on the positive side, at least I kept on trying new stuffs. If I don’t try out different kinds of hobbies, how do I know which one suits me best? Or if I didn’t keep all the crochet tools that I bought years ago, I might not be willing to spend any extra money for something I’ve already failed to keep up with once. Let’s be honest, how was I supposed to know crochet would become such a huge part of my life years later?

If there is anything that interests you which you have been longing to try, please take a leap of faith and give it a go. You might not end up loving it but at least you would be happy about the fact that you took the courage to challenge yourself with something new. If you did end up loving it, it would be even better because you found something that makes you happy. Anyway, it’s always worth trying because you’ll also be able to learn more about yourself during the process.

I hope my story would help you building the courage to be a ‘hobby explorer’ and hopefully you will find ‘the’ hobby of yours one day!

If crochet is also ‘the’ hobby of yours, happy crocheting! If not, enjoy your hobby(ies) or happy ‘hobby-exploring’! : )