When I first learned about The Marshmallow Test, I wondered if I would have passed. If you aren’t familiar with it, the test involves giving a child the choice between eating a marshmallow now or having the self-control to wait for a short period of time thereby earning two marshmallows. My initial understanding was that it was a Tolkienesque “one test to judge them all” and would predict your likelihood of success in life. There was evidence that the kids who gobbled up the marshmallow grew up to have lower SAT scores and self-esteem and higher BMI values. No pressure, right?

Knowing myself, I probably would have been a gobbler, and that thought has bothered me off and on over the years. I was thinking about it the other day when I realized that there is probably an upside to being a marshmallow gobbler that the studies haven’t assessed. Innovation comes to mind.

As an adult, I still do things impulsively like deciding to make myself a crocheted beach tote without any pattern. And, just as I could have waited for 2 marshmallows, I also could have waited for someone to come up with a pattern for a beach bag that I really liked. Why wait? I gobbled my marshmallow, and through trial and error, I figured out how to make the pattern for The Nautical Stripes Beach Bag shown in the picture at the top of the post. My biggest struggle was figuring out how to make a big, roomy tote that wasn’t also a formless blob. Pleats seemed like a good answer, but I had absolutely no idea how to make a crocheted pleat. Lucky for me, I live in the internet age.

Tamara Kelly from Moogly has an excellent YouTube video on how to make a crocheted box pleat. Basically, you treat your crochet project like fabric and fold it into either a Z-shape or an inverted Z-shape and use your crochet stitches to hold the pleat in place. The pictures below give you an idea of how it’s done. To hold the pleat together, at the start of each double crochet, I had to pass my hook through three stitches instead of the usual one.

Adding pleats ended up being the perfect solution. The tote has exactly the shape that I was aiming for, and now I can’t wait to try it out on the beach. Plunging impulsively into a project is not without risks. I’ve ripped out and rewound a lot of yarn over the years, but solving problems and making something fantastic is unbelievably rewarding.

Now when I think about the marshmallow test, I see those times in my life when I only measured once and ended up having to cut twice and realize the importance of developing better self-control. On the other hand, I also see the superpower side of being unafraid to try new things like boldly crocheting where no crocheter has gone before.

And if you are worried about your own children, the good news is that self-control can be taught. Your marshmallow test results aren’t your destiny. A study published in 2022 gives a good example. It turns out that kids in Japan were more likely to wait for a marshmallow than U.S. children, but U.S. children were more likely to wait to open a gift. So, instead of worrying, stop by the grocery on your way home and grab a bag of marshmallows to gobble up while you dream up your next crochet project.

• Instagram