Granny squares, it would seem, have gotten their hooks into me, and as soon as I finish one, I feel compelled to begin another.

Today my efforts focused on the B side of granny square bag I am in the middle of making.

Based on a leather bag that was two 16-inch squares joined along three sides with two straps (no lining, no closure — just a big tote with a $240 price tag), I have been working on creating my own vegan version of the design.

One of the things I love best about crochet is that if you can think it, there is a good chance you can crochet it, and that is what I spent my time on today.

Yesterday, I had a number of things to get done, so my progress on the square was modest.

I got this far:

So this morning, I picked up where I left off, but was a little stymied as to what color I would use to crochet the eight round. My top two choices were Red Heart Super Saver Accent guava and Red Heart Super Saver tea leaf:

While I love the spritely nature of the guava, in this situation, I ultimately decided that tea leaf was the way to go, and once I had it all crocheted, I did not regret the choice I had made:

From there I moved forward, crocheting four more rounds before I thought to stop and take a photo:

Excited at the progress I was making, I held out hope that I would get the square done before it was time to fix dinner and walk the dog, and while I didn’t quite achieve my crochet goal, my hook and I did make it to the seventeenth round, one shy of my goal of 18 rounds:

There are lots of things to love about crochet: it’s portability, it’s meditative quality, the fact that with a bit of determination you can make just about anything you can think of, but mostly I love the freedom crochet gives you to express yourself, and that is absolutely invaluable.