PostHeaderIcon Simple Crochet Instructions In Twelve Easy Steps

In one form or another, crochet has been around in many cultures for thousands of years.  Now, in an era of mass produced everything, fewer people seek out and own quality handmade crochet pieces and few people make them.  Yet the supplies to do crochet are affordable and the skills to make a simple crochet piece are within your capacity to learn.  After all, if all those people in faraway places in times past can do it, you can do it, too!  

So here are twelve steps to take to get started on your way to simple crochet success:

Step #1 – Get Your Supplies Together – To crochet you will need a crochet hook, yarn, scissors and a large-eye needle. 

Step #2 – Hold Your Crochet Hook Correctly – Hold your crochet hook in your dominant hand the way you hold a pencil.  Create a slip-knot and place it over the end of your hook. 

Step #3 – Create a Continuous Stitch, Called a Chain Stitch – Wrap the yarn over your hook (called a “yarn-over”) and slip that yarn-over through the slip-knot that is already on the hook. 

Step #4 – Make 12 Chain Stitches – Repeat this step until you have a chain of stitches that is 12 stitches long.  Take a look at your handiwork.  It should look like a series of side-ways “v’s”.  Congratulations!  You are on your way to learning to crochet. 

Step #5 – Create Two Loops – So you have a chain of stitches and a loop on your hook.  Keeping that loop on your hook, skip over the stitch that is right before the hook and work the hook into the hole of the second stitch from the hook.  You will have two loops on your hook.  Yarn over.  Remember, that means to wrap the yarn over the top of the hook. 

Step #6 – Bring Your Yarn Back – Hook your yarn and draw it back through the first loop on your hook.  As you do that, you will let the front loop from your hook fall onto the yarn you are drawing through.  You will end up with two loops on your hook. 

Step #7 – Making Rows – Yarn over again and draw the yarn through the two loops on your hook. You have now completed your first single crochet!  Fabulous!

Step #8 – Single Crochet The Rest of the Row – Continue this basic crochet technique until you reach the end of the row.  Then do a chain stitch.  This chain stitch takes the place of the first single crochet stitch in the next row.  Turn your crochet piece so that the hook is at the upper left hand corner of the piece if you are right-handed, or at the upper right hand corner if you are left handed.

Step #9 – Repeat Another Row of Single Crochet – Now you are ready to do the second row of single crochet.  Work the hook into the first single crochet stitch of the first row.  Repeat the stitch described in the steps above.  Continue to crochet until you have reached the end of the piece.  Then turn, do one chain stitch and start on the next row.  Continue until you have a small swatch of crochet.

Step #10 — Cut Off the Yarn — When you have made a swatch as large as you like it, cut the yarn with about a 6” tail left at the end.

Step #11 – Fasten Your Project So It Won’t Unravel – Bring your tail of yarn back through the last stitch to fasten it. 

Step #12 – Cut the Excess – At this point you are finished and can cut off the excess tail of yarn.

Hey, you did it!  You did a swatch of single crochet!  You applied yourself to learning something and you did.  You are no smarter than you were when you woke up this morning. 

And if you do keep practicing, look at some of the pretty and creative things you will be able to make:

 


 

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