How Did You Learn To Crochet?
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🧶 How did you learn to crochet? Did you learn from a Grandparent, or a Parent? From YouTube videos? Or did you learn by reading a book? 📖
New to crochet? Learn how to crochet with my free beginner crochet series of videos, crochet cheat sheets and crochet stitch tutorials.
PIN these learn to crochet resources and cheat sheets for later
When I was a child, my Great Aunt Catharine gave me a crochet hook and some yarn and showed me how to crochet a chain stitch and my first single crochet stitch.
No one else that I knew crocheted so my journey paused there until I was older (in my twenties).
When I was looking for something to keep my hands busy (after quitting smoking), Jen (my roommate at the time) recommend an old Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Needlework book to help me learn how to crochet.
In the beginning I didn’t follow patterns. I didn’t understand all the strange short forms in the written patterns and had never heard of gauge. I had no clue what gauge was or why it mattered I just wanted to crochet!
So, I simply crocheted things like scarves and blankets using very simple stitches. It was fun, it was easy and it was relaxing!
Fast forward a few more years and a full library 📚 of 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘵 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 later, I was creating small amigurumi projects for my sisters and friends.
Crochet Books I Recommend and I own
The Complete Book of Crochet Stitch Designs
The Complete Book of Crochet Border Designs
I love all of Edie Eckman’s Books – Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs Around the Corner Crochet Borders are just 2 of my favorites.
Melissa Leapman’s Indispensable Stitch Collection
and my new favorite is Crochet Every Which Way Stitch Dictionary
My first design was Bearison 🧸.
Free Amigurumi Toy Pattern
Next, I designed my little Oombawkas (now called mini meows) 🐈.
Free Amigurumi Pattern with step-by-step tutorials!
Then I spent weeks learning how to crochet and design hats – I was obsessed with figuring out the math behind making them fit properly.
Learn how to make a crochet hat that fits with any yarn and hook combination!
How Did You Learn To Crochet?
New to crochet? Learn how to crochet with my free beginner crochet series of videos!
- Stitch Anatomy and Starting Chain
- Single Crochet Stitch
- Half Double Crochet Stitch
- Double Crochet Stitch
- Treble Crochet Stitch
- Slip Stitch
- Review – Quick Stitch Guide
and grab my handy Crochet Cheat Sheets too!
Beginner Crochet Stitches and Symbols (US Version)
Beginner Crochet Stitches and Symbols (UK Version)
Everyone’s Favorite Crochet Cheat Sheet
Learn how to join with standing stitches.
Single Crochet Join
Half Double Crochet Join
Double Crochet Join
Triple Crochet Join
Starting your project in the round is easy with a double magic ring.
Expand your crochet skills
Finish like a Pro!
If you enjoy learning with video tutorials – you can find me on YouTube here.
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Happy crocheting!
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My best friend from 6th grade taught me to crochet and I have been doing it ever since. I’m crocheting for my great grandkids now. I’m 66 now and my hands are frozen so now I’m looking for really large handled crochet hooks. Can you help me so I can continue doing what I love?
My mom taught me to crochet 45 years ago. I’m still at it. 🙂
I’m glad you found a way to be able to crochet 🙂
My mother taught me to knit when I was three or four, started with making a dishcloth. Perfect for a first pattern, it is a small project with quick results and no matter the flaws it will get used every day – it’s a dishcloth!
She didn’t crochet and in my 20s I wanted to learn and found it impossible. Just couldn’t hold the yarn in the left hand and work the hook in it. So I do a sort of knitting version. I hold the yarn in the right, hook using, hand, and throw the yarn like knitting, holding the work with the left hand for stability and tension. Sounds odd, I know, but any knitters reading this – just try it.
Hi Beth, I’ve always wanted to try plastic canvas – I think I will add it to my list of things to do in 2021 🙂 I ordered a book with some plastic canvas barns and such for my daughter to use with her Schleich ponies – I better do that before she gets too old for her ponies! Have a wonderful week, Rhondda
I’m originally a Cross Sticher, but we travel on a lot on road trips (pre-COVID! Now we’re semi isolating), and it’s hard to do CS in a car, so I tried to learn to Knit…that ended disastrously! I just don’t get it, and it was causing me to be motion sick – so I turned to Crochet. I started very basically with a book and dishcloth patterns. My first ones took forever and were single crochet, then I moved on to double crochet and TC. Now I make Arumigarumi regularily and just finished a King size and Queen size blankets. I’m starting to experiment with hats.. I see a lot of terrible looking hats on my kids in the future! LOL
My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was 9. It was thread crochet, and she taught me to read patterns. In my teens, I switched to crocheting with yarn and also did some loom knitting. When my children were young, thread crochet doilies and other projects with chart/diagrams and minimal text were how I used to unwind after the kiddos went to bed. My crafting changed, and for years, I made hundreds of items with plastic canvas plus fine needlepoint on canvas. I came full circle and in the last 20 years or so, have done mostly yarn crochet from written patterns or adapted from those. I miss the diagrams in Magic Crochet and Decorative Crochet Magazines! So, the skill I learned 58 years ago serves me well to this day! My vision isn’t good. so I tend to skip thread crochet and black yarn these days. I love Oombawka Design Crochet!
When I was about 4 or 5 my Aunt Lillian taught me to crochet and then my mom taught me the finer points as I grew up, I’m almost 60.