Learning to Crochet

Growing up I would watch my mom create beautiful granny squares and put them together to make mini afghans.  She is very talented and crochet is only one of her many, many skills.  I always wanted to learn.  She would break out the yarn and the hooks and try to teach me.  I got the chain stitch down very quickly and then my brain would stop and I couldn't absorb the rest of the lesson.  I put down the hook and tried to pick it up several times since then with very, very little success.  But let me tell you, I can crochet a chain like a boss!  ;)

Fast forward to this past weekend.  I was on Pinterest and pinning all of these adorable crochet patterns to my needles and thread board.  I kept telling myself that one day I too would take up the skill of crochet.

Then my life changed.  No joke!  It changed forever!!  I found it.  The blog post to end all blog posts on "how to crochet" (well for me anyway!).  I pulled out the one crochet hook I own and sat down with a skein of yarn, a tiny notebook, and my iPad.  I was ready!  I started on lesson one even though I know how to start I didn't want to skip any steps.  Boy am I glad I started at the beginning.   Dana has a great way of breaking down all of the stitches and steps to teach anyone.  Honestly, if I can learn from her videos I have faith that anyone can!



She goes over EVERYTHING!  Really, she loves nothing out.  She teaches about the parts of the crochet hook.  How to hold the hook and yarn.  She teaches about the different yarn fibers and what they work best for.  She even teaches about the ball band - yeah I had no idea what that was either!

She has you start with the chain, going into the chain, single crochet, half double crochet, double crochet, half treble crochet and treble crochet.  Once you do those you have a swatch to reference back to.  Here is mine...

My fancy schmancy swatch.  Never mind the drop stitch.  I see it, I know it is there.  I am learning from it!  lol

Then she teaches you how to crochet in the round.  It sounds like something odd, doesnt it?  Really it is just making a circle with the yarn instead of a squarish piece of fabric.  This is how you would make hats, booties, hot pads, etc...  Here is my swatch...

My swatch for crocheting in the round.  It is with double crochet.  I think it is quite nice.

Then we got to the goodies!  The part that I have longed to create since I have wanted to create with crochet - The Granny Square!  I continued with my orange and white yarn.  Mostly because I had a lot of both colors and because it was the easiest for me to see the stitches.  With the help of Dana I did it!  I created a granny square...

My VERY FIRST GRANNY SQUARE!  Not too shabby, eh?!

Mine has an extra row because I wanted it a bit bigger and I wanted more color.

I couldn't stop there!  I made 3 more.  One exactly like the first and 2 that were inverted.

Then I skipped ahead of the class (Sorry, Dana!) and got to the stitching part.  I was soooo excited to get them put together and create a small blanket.  I used her hook through stitching and then I added the same pattern of the granny square to the edges and came up with this...

My finished project.

A close up shot of my Granny Square.

I LOVE IT!  My plan is to finish the lessons this week and become a crochet graduate.  Then I will be buying yarn.  Loads and loads of yarn.  I want to create a granny square afghan for myself.  I am sure with my new found knowledge I can create it.  I am very excited about this new skill and plan to make some dish clothes and hot pads for myself as well.

Can you crochet?