Getting started: holding your crochet hook

When we’re crocheting, it’s important we hold our yarn and hook in the right way so that we can control the tension of our work. There are two main ways to hold your crochet hook:

 

1) The Pencil Grip

2) The Knife Grip

 

Try them both out and see what feels most natural to you. You can also develop a variation of these if you prefer!

What's in a name?

Hello! I’m so glad you could join me again!

Today I want to talk about crochet stitches. I know when I was just beginning to learn I thought there were loads of different crochet stitches, and I'd never be able to learn them all. Ok, it's true that there are lots of stitches, but the good thing is that many of them are variations on the three main stitches: double crochet, half treble crochet and treble crochet.

If you've already read about crochet on the net, you might have heard these called slightly different names. That's because the terminology in America is a little different to here in the UK, which can make it a little tricky when you're trying to follow American patterns!

Here's a handy table that you can refer to if you ever get confused:

U.S. term	U.K. term	Symbol
chain stitch	chain stitch
single crochet	double crochet
half double crochet	half treble crochet
double crochet	treble crochet
triple/treble crochet	double treble crochet
double treble crochet	triple/treble treble crochet

This table is taken from here

As I said, though, the main 3 stitches you’ll come across are double, half treble and treble crochet stitches. Once you’ve mastered them, you can combine them to make all kinds of really pretty, interesting effects.

Sometimes you might come across patterns which have a diagram instead of or as well as written instructions. Each stitch is represented by a symbol, and the best part is that these symbols are the same throughout the world, so once you know what they mean, you'll be able to read charted patterns from any country!

I really hope this has shown you how few stitches you have to learn!

That’s all for now, but next time we’ll get started on doing some crochet!

xxx

Hello and welcome!

Hi there! Thank you so much for visiting my brand spanking new blog!

In January this year I decided to take up a new hobby – crochet. I’d already found a few blogs by that point, all full of inspirational pictures of pretty, yarny things made by the very clever people of blogland, but I wasn’t really sure how to start learning. It was only when I saw the first issue of one of those part work sets in WHSmith’s that I found my answer, plus, at £1 for instructions, yarn, a hook and a few patterns, it was a bargain!

Once I’d mastered the basics I turned to the trusty old interweb to find my next step. The trouble was, so many patterns out there were a smidge too advanced for me. I wanted something easy, but useful. Something pretty that I’d want to work on. And, most importantly, something that wasn’t a dishcloth!!! Eventually I found it, and I’ve been learning slowly, project by project, ever since.

Because I had trouble in those early days finding interesting but easy projects to work on, I’ve decided to set up this blog in the hope that it’ll be a kind of ‘how to crochet’ course. Don’t worry, it isn’t going to be too scary! I’d really like to share my projects with you, so you can see how I’ve learned to crochet so far, and hopefully that will give you some inspiration to get you started, too! Of course, please feel free to tell me all about your projects as well!

That’s all for now, but I really hope you can pop in again soon!
xxx