There is, in some circles, a perception that crochet is somehow a “lesser” craft and that it should aspire to be less crochet like. Even at the Crochet Guild of America conference — a meeting that supposedly celebrates crochet — there are classes on how you can crochet to mimic knitting. You will not, however, find a class anywhere on the planet that teaches you how knitting can be used to mimic crochet, and the older I get the more I am inclined to embrace crochet as it is instead of what it “could” be.

So when I set out to make an Olivia inspired pig, I went all in on the crochet aesthetic, so while the front of the completed pig looked like this:

The back had a definite “jog” where I changed yarn colors to make the stripes:

I don’t particularly care because in the overall scheme of things, the pig looks pretty cute, and with the somewhat wonky color change on the back:

It’s clear that this is a hand crafted item.

I had thought that with all of the crochet work and assembly of the pig done, I would be able to consult the notes I had made and spend an hour or two writing up a pattern so that others could make this unapologetically crochet pig for themselves, but when I consulted my notes, I found that some of them were lacking — or worse — the memory of them was simply a figment of my imagination.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I started work on another pig.

Using the notes that I had made, I began reworking the pieces.

I started with the ears, because there are no color changes, and it would be easy to get that written and get a quick win. Or it would have been had I accurately recalled the number of single crochet stitches I used to start the ear, but one miscrocheted ear later (which I frogged), I got it all sorted out, and this time, I also wrote an accurate pattern for the ear.

From there, I went onto the head (for which I did have accurate notes), and then I paused to work on the legs and arms, to test the pattern I had written earlier in the day.

By the time my dog Clooney was agitating for his walk, I had gotten this far:

Not quite finished, but closer than I had expected to get, and while I cannot foresee a day that I will tire of my beloved craft, I am well past tired of apologizing for it, and I will continue to embrace crochet with all of its quirks — one stitch at a time.