Thoughts on learning crochet stitches

My favorite stitch to use is HDC, half double crochet. It's fast and fills in nice. I also like to use SC, single crochet, and DC, double crochet occasionally.  I tend to just make hats, slippers, socks, baby blankets, and rugs. Lately I have been making things out of plarn. Currently I am working on another plarn kids summer hat. I'm making the side deeper so hat is more likely to stay on. I think I could make a cowboy shaped hat by starting with an oval. That might be next hat project.

My goal has been to learn new stitches. Sometimes it's hard because directions in American abbreviations can be confusing. So I usually draw them out in European symbol language. Sometime stitch directions have both but not all the time.

Usually American directions are all crowded together without being separated out in rows. There really aren't many directions so far in European but the ones that I have seen often drop the stitches down into the row which mimics the final crochet appearance when stitches hang down in a row. I find that confusing too. So I use the lines of my notebook to keep each row separate when re-writing in European symbols.

Lately I have been learning a lot of lacy stitches. Not sure I like them or what I would use them for. However I will just keep learning and recording what I am learning.

Here's a box of my crochet samples. I stuff the samples in a labeled old bill envelope sliced open at the top and folded in half. I'm not sure what I will do once the box is full. I can keep it for a little while but I have limited storage here. Maybe I can crochet them together into a wall hanging?