Why make a crochet diary?

I started learning to crochet in early 2022 as a way to continually build new skills, exercise creativity and have fun making stuff. Since there’s such an overwhelming amount of crocheting knowledge and patterns out there, I wanted to make a crochet diary to collect inspiration from around the web and document what I learned through each new project.

Although popular crafting sites like Ravelry exist, I wanted my space to be more casual since I’m still a newbie to this hobby. Plus I wanted my documentation to be a mini creative project in itself! Kinopio struck that perfect balance of being playful to use, while still having robust features for organizing my ideas.

What are some important parts of a crochet diary?

I wanted this space to have a mix of two things: structured areas to organize my projects, and unstructured mood-boarding to casually save ideas. It was important to strike this balance, as too much structure can get bureaucratic, but not enough becomes hard to navigate. The space also had to feel fun to maintain and update.

How do you collect and organize info on your space?

Usually I come across crochet patterns and inspiration on Instagram, YouTube and Etsy — the algorithms are serving me endless crochet projects! I save ideas I like under my “Wishlist” card, which acts like a bulletin board. The ideas just hang out there, and once I’m ready to begin a new project I’ll pick something from that collection.

For projects, the space is organized like a kanban board. There’s a template of several cards at the top of my space that I copy when starting a new project. For each project, I’ll add cards with the crochet pattern/instructions, the yarn used, and any customizations I make along the way. I use tags to mark projects as current or finished. Once I’m finished, I use the “lock” feature for that project’s cards so that it stays put.

Any other tips or advice?

Use the Kinopio browser extension and mobile app shortcuts. I’m trying to get into the habit of saving inspiring links or images to Kinopio right away when I come across them, and then going in and organizing it later.

Also, join the Kinopio Discord! I really like learning about new features as they roll out, and it’s helped inspire me to use Kinopio in new ways.