Learning to crochet

Firstly - check me out!! I managed to log on and continue what I'd started earlier.

Learning to crochet

I hadn't planned on actually getting past this stage - I always thought I'd fall at the first hurdle but apparently in my determination to give up smoking, I hadn't really had time to tell myself that crochet was too hard and I wouldn't be able to do it.  I really did surprise myself and picked it up relatively quickly.

I used a combination of written instructions and a DVD that I got with the Art of Crochet magazine to learn the original stitch.  I spent hours just chaining 20 then slip stitching into each chain, unpicking it and starting over again.  This was really handy for practising how to hold the hook and yarn - you can't really go wrong with a slip stitch so all you really need to concentrate on is holding the hook and yarn.

One word of advice - don't let anyone tell you how you should be holding your hook and yarn.  There really is no hard and fast rules.  Try all the combinations and you'll find the one to suit you. In case you were wondering, I hold my hook like a knife :)

The first piece!

Missing stitches

The first thing I did was a square.  The Art of Crochet gives you some yarn and a pattern for a square each week - the idea is that you make a square every week with the aim of making a throw/blanket by the end of it.

Double crochet

I started off with the basic double crochet - I did rows and rows and rows of this stitch.  I didn't want to waste wool, so did a few, pulled out the stitches and redid them all.  I spent days doing this before I went past the first few rows. Then I stumbled across my first problem - missing stitches.

It turns out, there's a stitch right at the beginning and right at the end that I was missing!!  The first few rows were a problem but with some perseverence I managed to get it sorted.

I unpicked it all and then tried again and it worked :) Okay, it might have been a bit wonky and I missed a couple of stitches but I'd worked out what to do.

 Then came the treble crochet - I must thank Jane at work for her help with this one - I couldn't quite grasp it and then she told me how to do it and it just clicked.

Double/Treble combination

My first square was a combination of double and treble crochet.  I don't have a photo of this completed - I unpicked it because it was too small when I finished and I haven't got round to redoing it. It was quite a simple square with a row of double crochet then a row of alternating between double and treble.  This is the only photo I have of the piece.

Scallop square

My next piece took some time to work out, but thanks to the step by step instructions and a bit of YouTubeing (is that a word?) I managed to create the following pattern.  Again, I got the size wrong on this one so unpicked it so can only show you a photo of a bit of it.


I'll be dedicating more time to the throw later on, but I just wanted to give my rejected squares a bit of time.  They weren't very good and I will finish them at some point, but I wanted to show what you can achieve, even from the beginning.