Simple Crochet Instructions

Are you new to the world of crochet?  Have you been doing crochet for a while?  Or are you like me?  I did crochet many years ago and recently decided to pick it up again.

Well, in any case, congratulations on your decision to crochet.  It is a great pastime.  It can be done while watching TV or waiting to pick up your kids after soccer practice.  You can do it in bed for a few minutes before you go to sleep.  You can set aside whole afternoons to do it or pick it up when you have a couple of minutes.  It gives you a creative outlet while allowing you to be very productive making something useful.  You can keep your finished pieces and display them in your home or wear them.  Or you can give them as unique gifts.  Your finished product can be as practical as a handcrafted scarf or sweater or as utterly without par as a handcrafted scarf or sweater.  You can see the product grow every time you pick it up.

Here are a few tips for beginners to crochet, but more experienced people might learn from them, too.

Never Underestimate the Importance of a Good Choice of Yarn

No crochet project that you create will be more beautiful than the yarn you choose to make it with.  So always choose the best quality yarn that is suitable for your project and that you can afford.  Natural fibers and yarns are often more beautiful than artificial fibers so choose them when you can.  They generally are less slippery and easier to work with, too, so a beginner to crochet is well-advised to look for them. 

When you buy your yarn to start a project, make sure you get enough to complete it all from a single dye lot.  You don’t want to have to complete a project with a different dye lot, as that can make a visible difference in your finished product.

Holding Your Hook and Yarn

When I first learned to crochet, I resisted holding the yarn the way the crochet instructions advised.  But I ran into problems as I tried to use learn more advanced stitches.  So I had to learn how to hold the yarn all over again.  The best advice is to thread the yarn through your fingers, holding it above your forefinger and middle fingers, below your ring finger and over your little finger.

Hold your crochet hook underhanded, as you hold a fork or a pencil, not overhanded, as you hold a knife.

Crochet Hook Sizes

Choose the right size of crochet hook for your yarn and your project.  Aluminum crochet hooks are intended to be used with yarn, not crochet cotton. They are labeled with numbers and letters.  These numbers and letters correspond to different sizes.  The higher the number or letter then the larger and thicker the size of the hook, and the larger and bulkier type of yarn you should use.  Read the label of the yarn skeins for advice concerning the appropriate size hook for that yarn.  Note that a larger hook and bulkier yarn means that a crochet project will be completed faster.  Good news for newbies!

Crochet With Others

Maybe you come from a family with other crocheters.  Or maybe you will need to seek out new friends to find a crochet partner.  At any rate, it’s always helpful to crochet with others. 

Being new to crocheting offers some challenges.  One of these is trying to learn to crochet well from a book or off of the Internet or television.  Crocheting is one of those things which appears much harder than it really is.  If you have a friend or relative who crochets, ask them to show you how.  If you do not know anyone who crochets, then you might want to take a class at your local community college, or join a local crocheting group.  While you can learn to crochet on your own, and many people have, it is a lot easier to learn when there are people around you who can show you what to do. 

So many people these days thinks they don’t have time for crochet or other crafts.  What a shame, because once you have mastered a few stitches you can crochet anywhere for any amount of time, no matter how long or short.  Crocheting relieves stress, is a practical way to make garments or home items that are exactly what you want and allows you freedom to create beautiful and unique items.  Start slowly, but learn as you go and you will be a master crocheter in no time.

Here are some more crochet blogs:

• How to Crochet and Do Crochet Edging – If you are like me, your curiosity about the way the world became what it is always gets the better of you. I am always trying to find out where the habits and activities we enjoy came from. Anything from arts to music to architecture and clothing design has come from a development through centuries of trial and error.

• A baby blanket « MizJennah.com – Well I didn’t intend on my very next post to be about a baby blanket after I just talked about how I wasn’t going to have any more kids but here I am writing about baby blankets nonetheless. Growing up I would always watch my mother crochet. She mostly crocheted afghans and baby blankets that I remember.

After you have done a crochet project or two, you will start to have a stash of left-over yarn.  It’s unused, perfectly good and you chose it for something.  Why throw it away?

There are three good reasons to use your left-over yarn instead of buying new. 

First of all, using up left-over yarn saves money.  Many people who are interested in crafts also have an interest in frugal living.  They are interested in their own financial sustainability and they reduce, reuse and recycle to avoid wasting money.  They seek ways to make do or do without.  And they are often creative with what they have, putting an item to a different use than intended in order to avoid buying new.

Secondly, using left-over yarn saves the earth’s resources.  Natural resources are used in every step of the process from producing the yarn to shipping it to disposing of any unused left-over yarn in a landfill.  So, to reduce the cycle of consumption, a good choice is to eliminate waste.  Don’t buy more yarn.  Use what you have!

My favorite reason is the third.  If you use your creativity to use what you have to make what you want, you will have an extraordinary piece that no one else can ever match.

Here are four tips for using up your stash of unused yarn:

1.    Sort your yarn by color.  Think of different ways to match and coordinate them.

2.    Make swatches with what you have to see what yarns are similar weights.  Try using two strands of lightweight yarn together and see how it compares to one strand of bulky yarn.  See what goes together and see what you can use together. 

3.    Do a sample piece in which you start with a yarn that has one weight and switch to a yarn with a different weight.  Does your invention look great?  If not, try a different combination.  The best choices for pieces made with yarns of varying weights are pieces for which the size can vary, so try a shrug, poncho or scarf.

4.    Make granny squares.  These can easily be combined into a vest, blanket or scarf that will be completely unique.

Use your creativity and your left-overs to make something entirely different, and save money and the planet at the same time.

Here are some links to free crochet patterns:

• Crochet Spot » Blog Archive » Free Crochet Pattern: Fast and Easy … – You don’t need to show off your fancy stitch work when all you need to do is show off the cool yarn it’s made with. So here is a really fast and really easy crochet pattern to use your really cool bulky yarn on! …

• Inspiring Free Crochet Patterns | Fine Craft Guild .com – This highly recommended easy crochet pattern book almost free… for sale now at Amazon for only 84 cts…. Can’t beat that… Check out the Amazon link as they’ll let you look inside the book before you buy, so you can get really inspired …

When you walk into a store that sells yarn, you might first notice the vast array of colors.  But look more closely.  Picking the color is just one choice you make when you pick the yarn.

First of all, all yarn is described by its weight.  And there are a number of different weights, from super fine, which includes baby, sock and fingering yarns, through super bulky, which includes bulky and roving yarns.   If your pattern calls for one type of yarn and you want to use another, you need to be aware that the size will vary.  This may not be too consequential for a simple crochet scarf or a blanket, but it could ruin the fit of a hat or sweater.

That’s not to say that you can’t use another kind of yarn.  But you will need to use some common sense before you proceed.  Think of your favorite big, bulky sweater.  You wouldn’t crochet a pair of baby booties out of the same yarn, would you?  But maybe you would choose a bulkier yarn for a sweater than the pattern describes.  There is a solution for that.  You need to crochet yourself a swatch to judge the gauge.  Once you have made a swatch that is a couple of inches square, measure it.  You will see how many stitches you have made for each inch across and how many rows you have made for each inch up and down.  Then you can convert that information to the gauge given in the pattern.  And you will need to continue to convert your gauge to the pattern’s gauge as you work your way through the pattern.  Now, maybe you don’t mind doing all that math.  But it would make a math-challenged person like me decide to choose the yarn the pattern suggests!  I prefer simple crochet.  Advanced math crochet won’t do.

Once you have the weight determined, there are other things you need to think about when choosing your yarn.  Some of the loveliest yarns are made of natural animal fibers like mohair, wool, cashmere and alpaca or natural plant fibers like cotton.  Those types of yarn are wonderful to crochet with because holding the yarn and working with it is so pleasant.  They also make a wonderful, quality finished product.  Unfortunately, they often need to be dry cleaned.  That can be a concern depending on the product you are making.  You would definitely want to choose a machine washable yarn for baby blankets, kids’ sweaters, socks and other garments.  But those dry-cleanable natural yarns could be a good choice for a lovely sweater for an adult.   

There is a lot that goes into choosing a yarn than picking your favorite color.  And a bad choice of yarn can ruin a simple crochet project.  But an appropriate choice can yield you a high quality finished product.

Check out the latest in crochet fashion:

• Lime & Violet’s Daily Chum – On Oct-8-2008 Reported by TNTknits Sweater of the Week: Dr.

• Crochet Fashion in the News – Here is a video from ABC that talks about “new” crochet fashion for the fall/winter. The pull tab bags remind me of my City Hat with Brim Crochet Pattern, since it uses pull tabs as well. The jewelery is pretty neat and gets me thinking …