While you're sheltering at home waiting for the current situation to finish raging outdoors, you could learn a new hobby.
Learning to crochet is a wonderful way to stay calm. It keeps your hands busy. It helps you focus on something other than the news. And it will produce something tangible, hilarious, and fun to show for your time.
Who knows? You might even build enough inventory to start a cottage industry that will keep you in mad money in the new economy that emerges a few months from now.
Here are a few ideas that will result in hilarious, cute, and covet-worthy products.
Joe Exotic and a tiger cub
Somehow this nutty polygamist with a big cat zoo in Oklahoma has become a star to everyone in social isolation. Tiger King on Netflix is irresistibly weird, and we just can't get enough of it.
How likely do you think it is that everyone you know will be thrilled to receive, as a gift, a crocheted-by-you Joe Exotic doll, complete with a tiger cub?
Pretty likely, right?
Here is a detailed pattern ($7), with photos and instructions complete enough for a beginner. If you're good at crochet, you'll whip right through this.
It includes a list of the yarns you will need.
It's a PDF, so you can download it instantly.
This peaceful painter has become our Zen moment.
If you have turned to Bob Ross for serene comfort and tree-painting calm during this apocalypse, perhaps you would like to be able to wrap up a crochet doll of him as a gift — or just have one on your bookshelf.
This PDF pattern ($6) is detailed enough that you will be able to make this happy painter even if you've never done anything like this before. It's an instant download. So if you have some yarn around the house, you can start making this doll right away.
This Mr. Rogers doll would love to be your neighbor.
The kind, compassionate worldview of Mr. Rogers was like a salve to the collective consciousness when he had a kids' TV show. This doll is an homage to his calm, neighborly take.
This is a PDF pattern ($7) that you can download and start immediately. It's loaded with careful directions and photos so you can easily follow along, no matter your crochet skill level. The pattern is for a 13-inch-tall Mr. Rogers doll and both the tiger and king puppets he's holding.
'Where the Wild Things Are' dolls
Are you and your kids fans of the Wild Things? There are plenty of store-made Wild Things dolls, but none of those have the same made-at-home charm these will have once you are done crocheting them.
This PDF pattern ($14) includes detailed patterns for Max and three monsters. It has step-by-step, easy-to-follow directions with plenty of visuals to get you through it. These make great kids toys if you use child-safe materials to crochet them.
Three wizards, an owl, a rat, and a cat
What better way to keep your mind off the madness than by creating your own little Hogwarts crew from yarn?
This set of three PDF patterns ($15) will calm you, teach you, and result in six adorable dolls — that you will show off for years — of everyone's favorite child wizards as well as their pets.
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