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November 10, 2024 7:43 PM | Hide footnote links

I'm in my granny phase

On February 25, I went into a Half Priced Books store with my sister, and I impulsively bought the Unofficial Make Your Own Harry Styles crochet kit. I looked at it thinking, this would be a great white elephant gift! And it was half off! I had never crocheted before, but by the time we walked out of the store I had decided that I was going to make Harry Styles. My sister had been going through a tough time, so I told her "If you're ever feeling sad, just remember, Harry Styles is waiting for you".

When I finally opened the box, I realized that this crochet kit was absolutely NOT for beginners. It was like reading a whole different language. Everything is abbreviated! sc, dc2tog, blo, right side, wrong side, magic circle??? But I had already made the silly decision to buy a crochet kit, so I was going to learn how to crochet. I knew about this thing called The Woobles because my aunt had done it, so I looked it up, and I ordered the absolute easiest wooble possible: Kiki the chick. It was $35, which is more than twice the amount I paid for soon-to-be-Harry Styles.

The label on the Woobles bag said that this was estimated to take 3-8 hours to crochet. It took me weeks. Crocheting is all about counting. If you lose count, you end up with the wrong number of stitches and your amigurumi ends up looking real wonky. So I would try to stitch one row of stitches, and I would check my work and realize I counted wrong, and then I would start all over, and I would do this over and over. But I did it, and Kiki did not turn out too bad at all. Kiki is the easiest wooble to make though, so I figured I would try something a little harder and I ordered a shark kit along with some accessories.

Somewhere along in this process, things just clicked and I was really enjoying myself. I ended up buying even more woobles! I must have spent like $200 on these Woobles! But I needed to graduate from buying really expensive crochet kits. I wanted to take the next step in my crocheting journey, and I bought my own yarn. I paid like, $2 for the cheapest skein of yarn that I could get at Michael's. And then I made an octopus from it. Turns out this crocheting hobby is actually pretty affordable if you buy your own yarn. I also made a strawberry and a uterus1, which was a special request from my sister!

I was finally at the point where I had learned a few different crochet techniques and I could read patterns on my own. So a few weeks ago, I finally opened the Harry Styles box. Harry Styles was definitely much harder than all the other things I crocheted. And the yarn that came in this kit was pretty terrible and the colors didn't match the picture. I didn't have very high hopes for myself, especially after looking at other peoples' attempts at this on Tiktok.

But I just took this one piece at a time. First the arms, then the legs, then stitching the legs together, then the torso...it was coming along! I would sit on the couch and crochet Harry Styles while also listening to Harry Styles2. And I did it! Yeah, I messed up a few times. One of the shoes is coming loose and the top of the pants is a little janky and the butterfly tattoo is...not great. But I'm pretty freaking proud of myself. I thought this was going to be this huge project that I would slog over for months, but I actually just made steady progress over the course of a few weeks.3

And now that I'm finally done with Harry Styles, I don't want to stop crocheting. I've got lots of ideas in my head for more things I want to try and make (from patterns. I don't know how to create my own patterns, but maybe one day). I didn't expect to have such a life changing moment from going into a Half Priced Books store, but I'm so glad for Harry Styles and so excited about my new hobby.