I have an admission to make: I love crocheting. I know that’s not a particularly masculine thing to say, but I don’t care. I have found that no other activity manages to capture my kinetic energy in the same way that crafting does. There is something about coming home from a long day at the office and being able to sit down and experience the unique combination of mindlessness and focus that crocheting offers. And I have this Pinterest board to prove that I’m not alone! Not that I really care to be honest, I basically feel like most of the commenters in this Quora thread do- get over it.
With that out of the way, I wanted to cover a few of my favorite crochet ideas…
Crochet Cactus
You can bring one of these to life using a pattern or just improvising. And after you make one, you might find that it’s so much fun that you just can’t stop and create a whole garden. I have yet to make any of these myself but they are definitely on the ToDo list. I do live in Tuscon, after all! The best tutorial I have found on these yet is this roundup here.
Check the video below for a step by step on how to crochet a Kawaii Cactus:
Crochet Chair Socks
If you are like me and have a matte finish on your floor, you might find that it gets easily scuffed by the movement of your chairs in your kitchen. You can usually buff these out, but why bother doing that when you can avoid them in the first place. There is also likely the fact that the movement of a chair on tile is eerily similar to the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, and nobody enjoys that. Instead of resurfacing your entire kitchen floor, why not just pick up some chair socks. Basically these are adorable little socks that you place onto the foot of your chair, and which allow for easier shifting and far quieter chairs. To bring these to life you’ll need a 3.5 mm hook, worsted weight yarn, and a yarn needle. Oh, and a chair. Don’t forget that. This great tutorial from Crochet Bug shows how you can bring these to life your own chair socks to life. I am considering selling my own on Etsy, and recently got a pair of woven labels custom-made for them. They will arrive in a week and I can’t wait!
Other Crochet Items
One of the things I love about crochet is that it is completely unlimited in it’s scope. Basically, if you can imagine it, you can bring it to life in crochet form. It won’t necessarily be functional, but it will often look great and make a welcome addition to your home. A few fun ones I’ve found with just a handful of Google searches are: avocados, crochet computers, R2D2, and a bagel with cream cheese. Unfortunately you’ll need a real avocado and bagel to get those calories in, but if there is one thing I have learned in life it is that nothing improves one’s mood like the thought of avocado. If I can look up from my computer and see a miniature yarn avocado staring back at me, I’m a happy man.
Cultivating Creativity
I have been thinking of this word “creative” a lot recently, and wondering what it is that makes it. Why do some people seem to have it while others don’t? Is it an attribute that can be cultivated at all, or is it simply native to people who have won the genetic and or environmental lotteries
The short answer is that I don’t know, but I do believe that creativity is an attribute that can be honed in virtually everyone. If you have the mental capacity to read and understand this sentence as you are now doing, you have the capacity to turn on a creative side of yourself. Yes, even if that side of yourself has been long neglected. Yes, even if you don’t think you have it in you because you are not a creative type.
I think so much of creativity is born of experience. As Steve Jobs said, creativity is simply a matter of connecting the dots. And the more experience you have, the more dots you have to connect. So get out there and see the world and enrich yourself, and you will soon find that you have many many dots to connect!