Chaos Versus Calm

I've just heard about the trendy Crochet Chaos Blanket, which actually is not a new thing at all. Even when I was a teen crocheters made blankets out of rows or blocks made with random stitches; we called them samplers. I love that the youngsters have picked up the idea and run with it, especially as they're often using dice to decide what yarn/stitches/blocks to make.

Will I jump on that bandwagon? Nope.

I like to use dice occasionally to decide what pattern/project to do next from a selection I'm interested in (the dragon egg dice bag was a marvelous project I chose by dice roll), but that's about all I'm willing to let it decide for me. I crochet for calm as well as the physical therapy aspects, and that's important to me. So are color and stitch choices. Allowing everything to be randomly decided by the dice usually results in something that, well, looks random. I have too much respect for the amount of effort I put into my projects to let the Universe make all my choices for me.

Sorry, Universe. I do appreciate the pattern/project picking you do for me now and then. :)

Should you jump on the trend and make a crochet chaos blanket? If you think it would be fun, go right ahead. I'm not trying to kill the trend; I mean just to point out why it's not for me. Group projects and crochet alongs can be really fun, so if you want the chaos and/or love joining trendy group projects, dive in.

Some crocheters like me do not flourish in groups. We like lone wolfing it, and that's fine, too. When I need to jog my enthusiasm, create motivation to crochet and/or just get myself going on a new project, I often try out a new-to-me yarn in a one-skein project, or (as I did with one skein of very dark Premier Puzzle) make blocks. I like the hexagons I've been making lately so much I will likely use them to test all yarns in the future. Maybe someday I'll make a Tradewinds Blanket out of all the test hexes I've made. But that's about as random and chaotic as I will get. :)

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