As a general rule, I don’t crochet for money. The value I place on the time it takes me to make an object usually far exceeds what people are willing to pay me for said object, so most of what I crochet, I give as gifts, and I vet the recipients to determine whether or not they are worthy. But recently, I found myself offered the opportunity to crochet for coffee.

Someone I know because I shop at the coffee shop she owns and works at commented on how much she liked the textured crochet newsboy hat was wearing. Flattered, and in need of downsizing my sizable stash of bulky weight angora and wool yarn, I offered to make one for her.

She thought that would be lovely, but there was one catch: she wanted to pay me.

Since I don’t sell the objects I crochet (I will make an exception if the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian ever comes calling, checkbook in hand) I was in a bit of a quandary. I wanted her to have the hat, but it seemed that my personal rule and her personal rule had collided.

What to do?

Then she hit on a solution that both of us found acceptable. I could make her a hat, and she would pay me in coffee. With a deal struck, I sorted through my stash to find a color I thought she would like, and I settled on this purple-ish blue. The lighter value of the yarn made the texture visible, and in short order I had the hat done:

With my crochet for coffee completed, I was ready to move on.

This time, I wanted to move forward on the crochet squares my younger son needs to solve the sudoku puzzle afghan I made for him in early 2013. I had recently crocheted nine amethyst squares, but now the ends are woven in and the squares are blocked and ready for their future sudoku solving adventures:

With all of the easier things done, I returned my attention to the slower task of unravelling yarn, and through a combination of luck and persistence, I got every single strand unravelled.

Every. Single. One.

Now all I have to do is brush out the hair, and then, like so many things in life, it will almost be done.