#literally decided to take up crocheting so i can make myself these kind of cardigans

[seo-changbinnies]

my favorite binnie looks (263/∞)

[crystal-in-nagasaki]

crochet club with my pals :)

During my time in Omura as an ALT, I've been so lucky to make some amazing friends with similar interests as me. One of those interests is crocheting! If you read one of my first posts on this blog, you'll know that I whiled away my final quarantine days in the US before my departure to Japan making a huge colorful cardigan out of yarn. Since my time in Japan has started, I've met many friends interested in crocheting and knitting, and we started an ALT crochet club of sorts in my town. I wanted to share a little about the experience here!

Our very first crochet club meeting was deemed to be a "stitch and bitch," so essentially we drank a lot of wine, complained about our lives, and crocheted. Some of my friends were new to crochet but interested in learning, so my very talented friend Roni and I tried to teach them the basics. At this gathering, we mostly just got drunk and not much crocheting was done, but it was very fun. Literally the only picture I have from this day is my friend Chrystal very drunk with a tiny crocheted hat on.

A year or more passed before we had another crochet club meeting. We decided to reinstate the club with more focus on actual crocheting and less focus on getting shitfaced and met on weekday nights instead. We usually would order takeout or cook something together, then crochet with some kind of trashy reality TV show playing in the background.

We would sometimes crochet in different places, usually rotating between everyone's houses so each person could take turns hosting. Eventually some of our Japanese friends joined and we got to spend time at their homes with their families eating homecooked meals.

Once or twice we also crocheted while having a picnic outside!

That was also the day I tried to make my cat-loving coworker a birthday gift, and brought this monstrosity into the world.

Needless to say, I didn't give it to her, but Kiwi dug it out of wherever I had it socked away and it has become one of his favorite toys <3

In October of last year, we got to do something really special. Our friend and coordinator got us a spot in a tent at a local festival, and we got to sell some of the things we made. It was really exciting. I made small flower earrings and my friends made many other things like bags, stuffed animals, scrunchies, scarves, and hats. I didn't make much money and I think I only sold two pairs of earrings (both to people I know haha) but it was a really cool experience. My partner even bought some of my earrings to support me :')

If you've noticed, I haven't shared much of what I've created from crochet club in this blog post, and the reason is because there isn't much. I hit a wall with my crocheting early on and kept making mistake after mistake after mistake. I wanted to just give up on ever crocheting again because I couldn't make anything great like my very talented friends were making. It was really awful and I felt really down on myself. But when I decided to make earrings for the festival in October, I finally was able to make something I was proud of for the first time in a long time. Now I'm trying hard not to compare myself too much to others and just try to improve my skills one step at time. And most importantly, I want to have fun! Of course crochet should be fun and not stressful. So I want to take it easy and just enjoy the process more.

The friends I've made here are amazing, and I'm so grateful to spend time with them doing the things we love together. I hope we can keep enjoying crochet together for the rest of this year before I return home <3

Thanks for reading!