Crochet Mandala Afghan

I taught myself to crochet a long time ago but have always been more loyal to knitting. Then this ad kept targetting on social media and I finally gave in and ordered this crochet mandala afghan kit from Annie’s Kit Club. (This is not a sponsored post, I just want to show off my progress.) TERRIBLE NEWS UPDATE: They don’t seem to have the colorway I ordered available anymore, only the all-white version and a new colorway called “frosted blooms” which is far inferior. I’m so sorry to have to break this to you.

I remade this center circle about five times, trying to remember the difference between a double crochet and a half double, and a back post versus a back loop.

Once I got the hang of things, though, I REALLY enjoyed the project. It has a lot of different stitches so I didn’t have a chance to get bored.

But then, oh my god. This fucking ring of flowers reminded me why I used to hate crochet. I had to make 36 individual flowers and attach them to each other. It took weeks. I hated it. It looks nice though.

With each round, the progress gets slower, because obviously each round is larger. Also it turns out that crochet is extremely bad for my hypermobile thumb, way worse than knitting. I can do about half a round, and then I have to rest my hand for a couple days.

I’m excited to have gotten over my distaste/lack of confidence with crochet, because I’ve found a lot of cool projects that you really can’t replicate with knitting. But I’m going to have to find a decent thumb brace, and I don’t think it’s ever going to replace knitting for sheer enjoyment.