About a week or so ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to crochet. I've been knitting for a while, couple years maybe, and taught myself by watching YouTube videos. I'm not sure what it is that's appealed to me about crochet, I think people seem to be more adventurous with it, and it just looked like more fun. My mother-in-law had a book (she's learning it too) on teaching kids to crochet (so for absolute beginners) and she lent it to me. Here's how I got on!
The first thing it did was teach you how to chain (my first chain on the left below). Once you were comfortable with that, we moved on to rows (my first row is top right in the pic below). Once I did that, I moved on and tried to create a square, hahaha, it turned into a triangle, but I knew where I'd gone wrong, I'd misread the instructions so I was taking one of the end each time.
Next thing the book taught me to do was how to include other colours in rows (left), which was actually pretty easy, I thought it was going to be much harder! Then I got some practice at creating rows, and trying not to make it smaller - you can see I did about 2 rows up, but then it stayed the same size and got pretty neat :)
Then the book taught us how to create a flower. Feeling brave I decided to try it with 2 colours, big mistake! I could really have done with a marker here so I could see where my original stitch was (I've now bought some, just waiting for them to be delivered), as a result I ended up making it a weird shape, and not the neatest. So I had another go (right) and this time it was much neater, but still not great - I need to practise this more.
The main reason I wanted to learn to crochet, was to learn how to create granny squares, this was my first attempt at the start of a granny square, I followed this video by Bella CoCo but kept getting lost. It didn't help that the yarn I was using is awful, I'm going to revisit this, but I've started a little project I want to finish first :) I'm happy with the one corner (bottom left) but the rest was pretty messy - I just don't have it all mapped out in my head yet, how it all works. Once I do I'll understand where I've gone wrong and what I need to do without needing to watch/read a pattern.
To practise my squares I've started a little project. I'm going to make a little pouch to hang in the nursery to put some muslin cloths in and bibs for when I do Squidge's last feed. I don't have anywhere good to put them at the moment, so I'm going to hang this patchwork pouch off the end of the change table - I just need to crochet a lot more squares :) I'm really pleased with how they're progressing and can't wait to stitch them all together (I'll blog the finished product) :)
Oh, and these are the crochet hooks I've bought - I had a great deal on Amazon, they were reduced by £18.00 to £6.99 - they're metal and colourful, and in a wrap, so perfect :) Here's the listing I bought them from. I think they're a pretty decent start for someone learning how to crochet.
So far I'm loving crocheting, much more than knitting. It's a shame I've started a knitting project (minecraft creeper blanket), Once that's done, I'm not sure I'll knit again, I just enjoy crocheting so much more - I feel much more involved in the process with the way you hold and manipulate the yarn, I love it!
Question to crocheters and knitters - if I knit and crochet a square, both the same size, will the square that's been crocheted end up using more yarn?
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