My Affair with Crochet

So a couple days ago I received a photo from a friend of a crochet sock monkey baby hat (pictured left) that she said she'd totally buy from me if I lived in Canada. Well, I'm heading home at Christmas, so I told her I would give it a shot.

One problem: it's crochet. I knit. I don't crochet. 

I know it's bizarre, but I always felt like if I learned to crochet, it would be betraying my knitting. I've been so loyal for so many years to knitting, so getting involved with crochet would be like having an affair, no?

Every time I found a cute crochet pattern, I would say, "I'm sure it can be modified to knitting." The only time I've crocheted was when finishing off my most recent toned tiles blanket with a basic crochet edge... and that's not real crochet. ;)

I was slightly hesitant, therefore, to pick up the crochet hook (yes, THE crochet hook, as I only own one) and begin learning. I decided I'd make a flower, as crochet flowers can be added to my knitted hats, so it's only SORTA cheating.

So yesterday I went and found a pattern on ravelry.com, where I get many of my knitting patterns. I was all ready to go and opened the pattern. WHAT IS THIS? What's a "sc" or "hdc" ??? This is CRAZY TALK! give me back my "K2tog" or "YO" please!

This clearly wasn't working so I watched a youtube video instead. This walked me through step by step (with lots of me pausing to copy) and I looked up some other basic stitch instructions on Google. After about an hour of waiting for streaming video (Honduran internet is not always the fastest) and a little excitement (Shh! Don't tell knitting!), I finished my first flower. I then proceeded to make 4 more! 

Once I had the flowers down, I decided that perhaps a hat wouldn't be so hard after all. I found a basicpattern for the hat base, and guessed at where to change the colours to suit my desires. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but once I did, I couldn't stop. I was determined to finish in the same day! 

Once the hat was done, I had to find yet another pattern to modify the mouth and the ears. I then added my original flower and TADA! I was SOOOOO happy with the finished product! It's adorable. 

I'm sorry knitting... I love you and will always love you more, but crochet is not so bad either. My loyalty is to you, but I may need to dip my feet in other waters from time to time. Don't worry, knitting, you're better looking in the end, and you'll always be a little more classy.