This week I completed one of the first ideas I had for a piece when I first started my learning project. I made a coffee cozy (or coffee sleeve). I was initially inspired to make one when I first looked at this post which included a list of easy crochet projects for beginners, including the coffee cozy.
For this piece, I needed to know how to complete a Chain stitch, Slip Stitch, Single crochet and the Half double-crochet stitch. Since I have completed at least one project using each of these stitches, I thought I was ready to give it a go.
After going through the post with the pattern, I decided to turn to TikTok to find some video tutorials to follow for inspiration.
Most of the videos I found were not much of tutorials but sped-up videos of people crocheting the coffee cozies.
I decided to try looking on YouTube for a tutorial that would be a bit slower than I could follow easier. I discovered this video that I thought was the perfect balance of visually demonstrating the stitch, slow speed to see how to do each stitch, and appropriate explanations by the video creator.
Overall, I found the tutorial very easy to follow, and I much prefer tutorials on YouTube as they are easier to pause and rewind when needed. At times I also took advantage of the setting that allows you to slow or speed up the video as I needed to slow down the video a few times to better understand how to complete different steps.
I decided to film a bit of me working on this piece and made it into a time-lapse to speed it up! The videos I took were around 15-20 minutes in length before I sped them up to fit into an under one minute video. I used iMovie to create and speed up my video, Garageband for the music, and Canva for the initial image for the introduction.
I really liked the way my coffee cozy turned out! I thought that overall I had even stitching once I got into the groove starting around the second or third row. It turned out a bit larger than I initially had hoped and bigger than what I had measured, but I think it still works well.
One of the things that upset me when looking back at the crochet coffee cozy sleeve pattern was that it would take around 10-15 minutes from start to finish, however, it took me about an hour in total. I know that as I continue to work on my crochet skills I will get faster but for now, I think I completed it in a fair amount of time.
Altogether, I have really enjoyed learning how to crochet and I can see it being a skill I will continue to use throughout my life. I think it is a very relaxing and enjoyable activity so I am looking forward to what I will make next!
Hey Madi,
It is so great to see how far you’ve come in your learning journey. I love the colour you chose for the coffee cozy; it looks great! I also agree about TikTok tutorials, I used a few for my learning project as well, but YouTube is definitely more thorough. After continuously practicing this new skill, do you see yourself using it lots in the future? or is it more of a once-in-a-while hobby?
Take care,
Delaney
Hey Delaney! Thanks for your comment. I can definitely see myself keeping up with crocheting in the future. I think it’s a great hobby and it’s been super relaxing every time I’m working on a piece. I don’t think it’s something I’ll be doing every day but at least once every few weeks.