Crocodile Stitch Cloak in progress

I have been plugging along on my crocodile stitch cloak and it’s growing so slowly. I work on it for a few hours every night. I’m finding that my right hand is getting crochet carpal tunnel and crochet elbow (I made those terms up but I’m very confident they apply). I’m very sad that I can’t work as long as I used to be able to on projects. I don’t know if this age related or project related or hopefully just a fluke. This particular stitch can be very demanding and is creating a lot of strain on my hands. But in the past, it was never a problem. I remember when a dear friend of mine told me she was developing carpal tunnel from knitting and my first thought was how glad I was I didn’t have that problem. I love crocheting so much I would hate to slow down because of something like that. And now here I am too. I take many breaks and stretch my hands periodically. I even bought these crafters gloves. They didn’t help me much and made my hands hot. I felt they got in the way more than they helped.

As the cloak is growing (albeit slowly), I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth the effort. I keep debating with myself if I should abandon ship and start over. I could find a different stitch that would look just as nice and still look like dragon scales (I definitely want it to look like dragon scales) and that would go much quicker. I could do a lacier design that would be lighter and cooler. But then I argue with myself (it’s not pretty) and I tell myself to just finish it. Then I think it might look cool but will it just sit in a drawer somewhere never to be actually used? Am I spending all this time on a fail? I already finished the hood and I’ve already spent so much time on the cloak part. I’ve set it aside for a few days contemplating it’s fate. I’ve committed so much time to it already I hate the thought of abandoning and consequently unraveling it but I’m not so sure I’m in love with it anymore. I probably will finish it (I can’t bring myself to undo that much work) and if I don’t like it as a cloak, I’ll keep it as a cozy afghan 🙂