My first project within the first month of learning to crochet this year was a hat (started around February or March).  Boy, did this take long to make.  According to the instructions it was supposed to take a few hours. Try a few months!  Started in February and finished in April. There were five of these motifs to make and attach together. Then to finish off, the top of the hat was a series of crochets done in rounds.  Right away I noticed that I like working in rounds and that I was mesmerized by lace crochet.  This project was a learning process that lasted and lasted!  To try to speed the process along I tried working on two hats at once, the first in natural and the second in victory red.   Something about colors would either speed my work up or slow it down, hmm.