“I started crocheting the summer before my freshman year. It was a hobby that I started to see online a lot, and I thought it was really cool. I wanted to get involved, so I taught myself from YouTube tutorials.
Crocheting is special to me because it started out as a summer activity with two of my friends as a way for us to try something new together. It later turned into a shared hobby between us. Both the process of learning how to crochet and the creativity I’m able to express with what I create makes it special to me.
Senior Miranda Wang and I co-founded Crochet and Knitting Club in our freshman year of high school. We were like, ‘Since we both like crocheting, why don’t we start a club?’
Before we started the club, I didn’t really know anybody else at Bellaire who crocheted. I got to know a lot more people who crocheted and knit. It definitely brought me closer to people who I wouldn’t have known without the club.
It was definitely more of a go-with-the-flow process. In the first year, we had no clue on what a club at Bellaire really looked like or how we wanted to go about starting one. That first year was definitely a learning process. But as we continued, we had more of a structure. This year, we had a plan. We meet every year before school starts to come up with an outline for the entire year.
Every year we have an annual service project where members will crochet pieces of a blanket called granny squares. Making an entire blanket in one sitting is not really feasible for individual members. We create the granny squares, and then towards the end of the year, around April or early May, we’ll start sewing the squares together to make a blanket. Usually, we don’t finish in time for the end of the year, and Miranda and I will take the blankets home to finish them and wash them before donating them to Ben Taub Hospital. The donation usually happens early to mid-June.
Being co-president of Crochet and Knitting Club has made me a more outgoing person by giving me an outlet to connect with people who have the same interests as me. Going into starting the club, Miranda and I had been friends for a while and we both had just started crocheting, so it gave us something new to talk about together. We wanted to turn this shared interest into a club to get to meet more people and learn from each other.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve interacted with so many other Bellaire students. I’ve met those who don’t know how to crochet or knit and are interested in learning. I’ve also met people who already knew and were looking for new friends. I’ve really enjoyed making new friends and connections. Through this shared interest, it’s given me something to start talking about with them.
Alongside crocheting, I also really enjoy playing video games and listening to music. From this, I’ll crochet things I see in these games or mementos inspired by music artists. One of my favorite video games is Stardew Valley, and I crocheted a Junimo stuffed animal based on it.
I’m going to Texas A&M University at Galveston, and I want to study engineering. In college, I plan to crochet whenever I have time. Since I’m probably going to be living in a dorm, I don’t know how much space I’ll be able to allocate to storing yarn, but it’s definitely something I plan to continue doing.
I’m not sure what type of projects I’ll be making in the future, but I’ll probably still be making gifts for my friends whenever I have the time.”
