A Guide to Crochet: Introduction

Welcome to the start of my crochet tutorials!

I hope to provide an easy to follow, step by step guide, trouble shooting difficulties that I know some people have including reading patterns. Let's start with a little intro to your new hobby.

Crochet is the French word for 'hook.' Lots and lots of people enjoy the craft of crochet which is the art of using a single 'crochet hook' and some form of thread, yarn or wire in order to create pieces of work. These might include toys, brooches, clothes and blankets. There is no limit to the uses of crochet and we will delve further into uses later on. Here are a couple of things that I have crocheted. You can see more in this Facebook photo album.

Although crochet is extremely popular today, there is much debate around when and where it started. The first thing to consider is what you need. Aside from my crochet tutorials, you will need some form of yarn and a hook. Hooks come in many different sizes, materials and some are double ended. Here are a few of my hooks.

You can find hooks all over the internet or local haberdashery stores or departments. Here is a link to one such place. Don't rush to buy your hook yet though. First choose your yarn. The size of your yarn will decide what size hook you will need and to make this easy, most yarns will say on the label what size hook is required or recommended. You need to consider what kind of yarn is best for the project you are working on i.e. acrylic, cotton, wool. We will revisit this later. For now, any patterns you are following should state what type of yarn and what size hook you will need. For purposes of these tutorials, I am using a 4ply crochet cotton and a 3mm crochet hook. Here is a link to the cotton that I am using.

So go ahead and get your ball of cotton and hook and I'll see you back here for your first steps to crochet.

Mrs Crafty B