Crochet Challenges and Progress On My Book

I don’t normally do crochet challenges or crochet alongs because…I don’t know, just because. I like looking at what other people are doing though. One of my best friends/sis-in-law started participating and enjoying some challenges on Instagram. She kept encouraging me to join a crochet one she was doing. She had this crazy notion that I might like it, AND that it would force me to post more regularly on my Instagram account.

The prompts are fun and fully within my purview.

See, I was guilty of going weeks without posting. Before, I was pretty active. I always had something to show, what with making things for and with the kids at work, and my own projects at home. But after the pandemic shut down our school and it not opening back up, I wasn’t crocheting much. Instead, I hyper-focused on finishing my crochet book on dolls that had been brewing for years. After intense work, I finished it and then…nada. I stopped talking about it. My excuse was that I was waiting to get the cover from my husband for the physical book edition…but that had been months already. I’m sure she and other family members were wondering why I wasn’t doing more to get the word out. I think after the big push this summer to finish it, my brain took a break, figuring when the physical book cover was done, I’d focus back in. Instead, I focused on a new account on Instagram all about succulents and my garden. I’m thoroughly enjoying that account by the way, but I became guilty of neglecting my crochet account both here and on Instragram.

There’s nothing wrong with focusing on something different. Sometimes we just need a break from things, but being the good friend that she is, my sis-in-law was getting frustrated that I stopped talking about my book. The book that took me years to finish and that I finally self-published on Amazon and Apple Books as an ebook but wasn’t announcing it from the rooftops.

Uhm, I don’t think that sat well with her. She started mentioning this challenge she was in and I enjoyed her posts on it. She gave me a few nudges here and there about things I could post about but nothing too pushy. I wouldn’t say I was ignoring the hints. It was more that I wasn’t catching them and letting them land. Then, I saw that Eleanora from Coastal Crochet was also doing the challenge and things just clicked. All the nudging paid off, and I decided to join the challenge. When I joined, I had to do a few catch-up posts, but they were fun to do and now I’m all caught up. I even had the courage to start talking about my book and incorporated it as part of the challenge.

I was reminded that just because I’m not necessarily working on a particular crochet project, I still have things to post about. And being more active on my crochet account again jumped started my creative juices, which I suspect was my friend’s evil plan all along. And after my hubby saw me getting motivated again, I think that motivated HIM too to finish my cover (and he was trying to get done by our 27th anniversary, which he did!). He was still very busy with his work so I wasn’t complaining, but I was super happy when he was done with it.

I love it! I love it!

I was able to upload it to Amazon and I’ve ordered a copy to see how it looks. It should arrive in about a week. Hopefully it looks good and I can start yelling from the rooftops. 😉 If not, it’s back to the drawing board to make it look good.

On that note, I already have a bunch of posts I want to write about here on my blog about the trials, tribulations, and frustrations I went through to upload and self-publish my book. I also have some ideas for posts unrelated to the book but are all very yarny. I might use some of my favorite prompts from the crochet challenge as inspiration for blog posts. I want to use different images than the ones I use there so followers to both will see something different. As for Instagram, I plan to continue with the challenge as it’s been super fun.

A big thanks to my sis-in-law/friend that her evil plan worked! If not for her, I would probably still be in my garden with my head in the sand saying, “What book?” LOL