I’m a historically bad hobbyist. I don’t like being bad at things, and most hobbies have a learning curve. So when I tore open my first Woobles crochet kit, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone in my life that I became so frustrated within 45 minutes that I threw it down and walked away. Had my husband not been out of town, thus forcing me to entertain myself, I probably would have given the kits away — that would have been a Pretty Woman-sized mistake.

The next night, I picked up the hook and queued up the brand’s tutorial. You see, each crochet kit comes with a code for an online video about how to crochet the piece. The previous night I had watched segments over and over but I was just not getting it. Instead of memorizing what I was seeing, I wrote down the instructions as I was hearing them. Everything clicked into place.

Yes, The Woobles does provide detailed, written directions for each pattern, but they weren’t written in the way my brain needed to hear it. Once I understood the basics of how stitches worked, I was off to the races.

By the time my husband returned the next day, Pierre the Penguin was waiting for him on his desk. This man was shocked that I made such an adorable creature, and I don’t fault him. I have rage-quit, or simply lost interest, in so many hobbies that to list them would be an exercise in humiliation.

“These kits take up just enough brain power that you can still watch Matlock in the background.”

There’s something different about crochet. Once I got past the mechanics of how the hook and yarn work together, my (crochet-specific) confidence skyrocketed. I was able to read patterns without watching the videos. I could make a magic loop, all by myself! I quickly ran through my beginner bundle. An obsession was born. “More Woobles!” I cried. I turned into a Baron Harkonnen-like blob, sated only by my constant creation of creatures like Felix the Fox and Billy the Unicorn.

“You’re making this sound kind of scary,” you say.

I can appreciate that. But I did manage to get off the hook to feed my family and take my children to school. It’s fine; they’re fine.

To date, I’ve made 10 Woobles (plus the entire Cab-In the Mood for the Holidays Advent Calendar). I force them all to live in a commune in our China cabinet, amongst the stemware my mother made us put on our wedding registry. (She has not visited since this development and would, characteristically, be horrified.)

I recommend The Woobles to anyone who will listen: fellow mothers looking for a soothing hobby, kids patient enough to deal with yarn, older people who don’t have arthritis, priests. These kits take up just enough brain power that you can still watch Matlock in the background. (That Kathy Bates is a real powerhouse, right?)

If you’re curious, the kits are broken up into three skill levels:

Beginner (for dummies like me)
Beginner+ (for dummies who have done one kit)
Intermediate (for not-dummies)

This is by no means an exhaustive catalog, but the following links are some of my favorite Woobles. If you get to the bottom, you can watch a video of the husband-and-wife team on Shark Tank in 2009. (Their investment fell through but guess who’s laughing now, Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner?!)