somehow I’ve become a crochet person

Amazing how your hobbies come to define you. Way back when I was an undergraduate, I taught myself to crochet by watching YouTube videos. And now? I’m a legit crocheter.

In my last semester of college, I was finishing my degrees and only taking classes part-time, but most of my friends were on a different degree path and busy in studio. So I had a lot of alone time. I had two part-time jobs, was doing a lot of baking and crafting, and at some point was looking for a new challenge. In terms of textile/fiber crafts, my mom taught me to sew when I was young, I was cross-stitching, weaving, and latch hooking by elementary/middle school, and took a fiber arts class in high school, where I learned embroidery. But even though my mother is a knitter, I never got the hang of it. So what possessed me to learn crochet? I can’t remember. Must’ve been boredom.

And here’s the thing. After I learned the basic stitches and made some trivets, I graduated and didn’t crochet for a loooooong time—a hiatus of something like six years. Then at some point I picked it up again and it became a proper hobby, accelerated by 1) having a stable income with which I could splurge on yarn, 2) having the time and wanting a task while watching television, and 3) the discovery of Ravelry and the r/crochet subreddit. Then the pandemic happened, I had a lot of alone time, and the crocheting went into overdrive.

Now I comfortably use “frog” as a verb, regularly purchase hundreds of dollars worth of yarn at a time, and am running out of friends/family to gift crocheted items to. So yeah. Somehow I adopted crocheting and it’s now my primary hobby.

For the above blanket, I used the Kinlough Aran Afghan pattern, a J crochet hook, five skeins of Caron One Pound in Dove, and a heck of a lot of time. It was completed in just over a month during evenings and weekends, and gifted to a friend for her wedding.

the new york brunch @ penelope

I’m trying to get back into the swing of regularly posting, but keep getting stalled when working on the longer posts, so here’s a quick one just to get me in the swing of things:

New York. Summer. Sunday. Brunch! It’s a thing. Especially when it’s “al fresco” a.k.a. outside. But … the sidewalk ain’t the most glamorous location for brunch. The street sheds that popped up during the pandemic are sticking around, so on the plus side, there’s a more seating options and usually less wait, as long as you don’t mind people constantly passing by. Now, if you haven’t heard of Penelope, it’s a pretty popular brunch spot in the city. Nothing super fancy, just solid classic American food. I pass by it regularly and it’s always pretty busy, especially weekend mornings when I’m usually headed to the grocery store, but this was the first time I actually ate there.

I had a blueberry lemonade—nice and refreshing!—and the croque madame—good, but on the heavy side. To be fair, the croque madame probably wasn’t my best choice considering I’m lactose intolerant (even though I had pills with me), I generally don’t eat much in the morning, and it was a bit warm out, so my appetite was a bit dampened. But I took half of it home and polished off those leftovers the next day. The service was good but a bit slow, which was understandable since it was a busy Sunday morning and it looked like there was only one server in our area (which was probably like eight tables). All in all, I’ll definitely return to Penelope, but next time I’ll opt for inside (to get a proper vibe of the place, to eat in peace, and for air conditioning) and I’d try one of their signature bowls … or maybe the blueberry pancakes. Mmm …

Penelope
159 Lexington Avenue
(at East 30th Street)
Murray Hill, New York, NY