The Cloud — My First Love

I need to tell you about The Cloud. Because this bag isn't just a bag to me. It's proof that stubbornness pays off.

It started with bobble stitches. I was practising them obsessively — on swatches, on coasters, on random squares that piled up in a basket under my desk. My mum kept asking what I was going to do with all of them. 'I don't know yet,' I'd say. But I did know. I could see it in my head — a bag so covered in soft, pillowy bobbles that it looked like something you'd find in a cloud.

The first version was a disaster. The shape was wonky, the bobbles were uneven, and it couldn't even stand up on its own. It looked like a sad, lumpy potato. I showed it to my brother and he said, 'What is that supposed to be?' Thanks, bro.

So I unravelled the whole thing and started again. And again. And again. Twelve times. TWELVE. That's probably a hundred hours of crochet that ended up as a pile of crinkly yarn on my floor. Each time, I'd fix one thing but something else would go wrong. The base was too narrow. The handles were too long. The bobbles were too tight, then too loose, then too tight again.

But version thirteen — oh my God. When I finished the last stitch and turned it right side out and stuffed it with tissue paper to see the shape, I actually gasped out loud. It was EXACTLY what I'd seen in my head. Soft and structured at the same time. Covered in these perfect little bobbles that catch the light and create shadows in the most beautiful way. Like a cloud. Like an actual cloud you could carry.

I ran to show my mum and she just stared at it for a long time. Then she said, very quietly, 'This isn't a school project anymore, Kaira.' And she was right. It was something real. Something I'd be proud to see in a shop window.

Each Cloud takes me about 16 to 28 hours. Every single one is a little bit different because that's what happens when a human makes something — it gets personality. Some have slightly tighter bobbles. Some are a tiny bit softer in certain spots. They're all perfect in their own imperfect way.

The name came easily. When you touch it, that's what it feels like — holding a cloud. Soft, pillowy, impossibly light for its size. I still get a flutter of excitement every time I finish one. Every. Single. Time.

The Cloud taught me something important: the things worth making are the things that take the most tries. If I'd given up at version three, or version seven, or even version twelve, I'd have never known what version thirteen felt like. And version thirteen felt like everything.