The Click Counter That Saved My Place on the Road

The dishcloth in my lap was supposed to be 44 rows. I had counted it three times that morning and come up with three different numbers. That is why there is a Clover Mini Kacha-Kacha counter in my project bag now, and why I have not gone back to a notepad since.

I drive regional routes out of Visalia. Most of my crocheting happens in a parked truck: 30 minute breaks, the occasional 10 hour, and weekends at my kitchen table with the radio on. In a cab, everything has to fit in one small bag and it has to work in the ten minutes you actually have. A notepad and a pencil stub technically fit. What does not fit is the moment around row 30, when you look down at a line of little strokes and cannot tell which one is the current one.

I have crocheted for about 20 years. My aunt Rosa taught me when I was 37, and she counted out loud, which works fine when someone is sitting with you. Alone in a truck, counting out loud gets old by row 12, and a tally mark only helps if you remember making it.

The counter is a small hand clicker with one job. You click it once at the end of each row. I bought mine in August 2025, about a year and three months ago, and it has lived in the bag ever since. Clover calls it the Mini Kacha-Kacha, which is honest about the sound it makes.

What I did not want was another thing to learn. My right thumb and first two fingers get stiff after a long driving day, and a single press is about all I want to do at the top of a row. One thumb, one click, done. The notepad stayed home.

The first week I used it I kept forgetting to click. By the second week the click had moved to the end of the row without me thinking about it, the same way you stop thinking about where the hook goes. That is the test I apply to anything that comes into my bag: if I have to work at remembering to use it, it stays home.

I click once per row and read the number back. That is the whole system, and it lives in a pouch the size of my palm.

Here is how it actually goes. I park, pull the bag onto the passenger seat, and work a row. At the end of the row I click. When I stop for a break or for the night, I do not have to hold anything in my head, because the number is in my hand, not my memory. Next morning I pick it up and read it.

I count rows with it, not stitches. That distinction matters. If you are the kind of crocheter who counts stitches inside a row, this is the wrong tool and a plain marker will serve you better. Rows are what I lose track of, so rows are what I click.

Dishcloths are what taught me the lesson. Forty four rows of the same stitch, worked eight or nine rows at a time across a week, and no texture at all to tell you where you stopped. Now I click at the end of every row, and the number is waiting when I sit back down. It is a small thing that removes a small annoyance, and after 20 years of crocheting I will take it.

It does not come with a neck cord. The listing shows one in the picture and says plainly that it is not included, so if you want to wear it you will be finding your own cord. I never bothered. Mine rides in a Damero mesh pouch inside the hook case, along with the scissors and two bent-tip needles, and the case goes in the project bag. That way I am not digging through a sleeper cab looking for it.

It also does not click itself. On a tired night you will get to the top of the next row before you realize you skipped a click. When that happens I click twice and carry on, knowing my count is one off. That is still better than the notepad, where I was often four or five off and had no idea.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you asked me at my kitchen table whether to buy one, I would ask you two questions first. Do you lose your place in rows, and do you work somewhere that a notepad is a nuisance? If both answers are yes, this is a small purchase that fixes a problem you have had for years.

If you count stitches, or you work one long project on the couch and never move it, save your money and use a marker instead. The counter is not magic and it is not for everybody. It is for the person who sets a project down mid-row and comes back to it after a 10 hour break, which is most of my life.

One last thing, and it is about the bag rather than the counter. Wash your hands before you pick up the yarn, and zip the project bag when you set it down. A cab is a grimy place and the tool lives in the same pouch as the work. I have done that for a year and three months, and the Clover still clicks the same as it did the week I opened it.