As an audience engagement analyst at The National, crochet is not a natural hobby one might assume would accompany a job like mine and rightly so. I spend my days surrounded by lines of code, spreadsheets and numbers, and have been known to automate every process I can get my hands on, so I can move from rote, repetitive tasks to new and exciting challenges. I’ve seen delightful amusement on the faces of many people when I tell them that I spend a few evenings per week winding down with a crochet hook and some yarn as a relaxation method often associated with grandmothers of bygone eras.

I started crocheting around April 2023, right after I had concluded a previous role and I found myself reflecting on what truly motivates me. I had started a summer internship a month after my final university exam and subsequently revelled in the challenges of high-pressure role after high-pressure role. As such, I was uncertain as to what lay ahead for me.

In the meantime, my little sister had picked up crochet and was spinning up hats, toys and little purses faster than I could blink. I’d previously tried to learn in between Zoom calls and Slack messages, but grew impatient with how slowly I seemed to be improving and tucked the hooks away.

The writer crocheted a sunflower bag. Fatima Abaas / The National

Then suddenly, I felt unsure what came next. After four years of starting a job right after university and a relentless desire to climb the career ladder and establish myself in a dream job that seemed ever out of reach, I began questioning the constant-climb mindset that had defined my early career.

Of course, I did what any other twenty-something with everything to prove does and immediately signed up to every recruiting site I could, hoping to find the perfect job this time (hint: there is no such thing). The post-Covid-19 job market was tough to tackle, and I was growing uneasy in this new world where ghosting candidates was a cross-industry norm. Then one day, after applying to the requisite amount of ads I decided I needed to keep myself sane – I was browsing Pinterest and decided to pick up the crochet hooks and try again.

A mini crocheted toy