Week 4

My final crafting project was crochet. In the beginning of the week, I met with my good friend Katie Barnicle to get her help with crochet. She is quite the crochet master, so it was really nice to get started with crochet with her help. I watched a few videos and did some research before meeting with her and I was able to leave knowing how to do the basic crochet stitch and she also gave me suggestions for patterns to follow. The pattern I was originally setting out to complete was going to be much more complicated and harder to follow, so it was very helpful getting her advice. I realized that it was so much easier to have someone tangibly there to walk me through the steps as opposed to watching videos and looking at websites. If I could redo my project, I would have made it more of a priority to meet with people. Throughout my project, I reached out to multiple friends online to get help, but the only person I met in person with was Katie for crochet. 


After meeting with Katie, I started working on my crochet top. My deliverable for this week was completing the top. The top ended up taking much more time than I thought it would, so I wasn't able to completely finish it. I plan on finishing it up in the next few days though. 

In terms of my goals, my goals were to complete my deliverables to the best of my ability, learn from people around me, and spend time outside, away from screens. I definitely completed my first and third goals, apart from not completely finishing my crochet top. The best part of this project was definitely being able to spend time outside and off of my computer. I was able to go to numerous different parks around my neighborhood and spend time in my backyard, which was the highlight of my senior project. Going forward I see the importance in being face to face when getting help with crafts, which I don't think I initially thought would make a difference. Meeting with a friend helped shorten the trial and error period I faced with some of the other crafts and gave me more confidence going into my project. In hindsight, I would have focused on in-person meetings as opposed to watching videos and asking for advice through messaging. 

I would recommend this project to anyone who is looking to get an overview into multiple different types of crafts. I found that often times I was just starting to understand and get the hang of the craft by the end of the week, so it wasn't a super in-depth look at each craft. However, having week-long tasks made it really easy to plan out my days and weeks. Short-term tasks also made the project overall feel much more manageable than if I had had a project that I was going to work on for the whole four weeks. I loved being able to work with my hands and try out new projects. I've mentioned this in previous blog posts, but I fully understand why there are so many people that find knitting and crochet to be relaxing and "self care" hobbies to do. I am left definitely wanting to continue crochet and knitting, as well as jewelry making. I most likely will never embroider again, but that's just me. 

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