Learn to Crochet - Maplewood Road

Crochet is no longer just for old ladies, sitting in a rocking chair, making granny squares all day, while trying not to rock over their cat’s tails. Okay, the part about the cat is true, but crochet has made a big comeback for all ages! Just do a quick Google image search and you’ll be amazed by all the beautiful things you can learn to crochet...blankets, clothing, stuffed animals, and so much more!

To learn how to crochet for beginners, let’s start by going over a few crochet basics you’ll want to know to get started in this Intro to Crochet tutorial video:

Yarn comes in all kinds of different materials and weights

Materials include wool (lamb, alpaca, merino, etc), cotton, bamboo, silk, acrylic, and more.
Weights include lace, fingering, sport, worsted, chunky, & more.

Crochet uses hooks (not needles)

Hooks come in a variety of sizes, from B (2.25-mm) to T (30-mm). The smallest hooks are very tiny and are used for lacy projects, like lace or doilies; while the largest hooks are just huge and are often used for super-chunky blankets.
To get started, you’ll just need a crochet hook and some yarn. Choose one or two hooks that are “normal” size, like G, H, or I. Hooks are often sold in multi-packs in the craft store.

Crochet hook sizes. — Photo courtesy of AllFreeCrochet

Learn to crochet many beautiful crochet stitches -

single crochet, half double crochet, double, treble, and more!

The most common stitches are slip stitch, chain, single, half-double, double, and treble. There are many other beautiful stitches, which are more advanced. To begin, we’ll learn the slip stitch, chain, & single crochet.
We’ll learn more about turning chains in further lessons, but for the first lesson will learn that there is one chain stitch for single crochet.

Types of stitches and turning stitches. — Types of stitches & turning stitches (Photo courtesy of www.dummies.com)

Crochet Abbreviations

When looking at patterns, you’ll notice that there are a lot of abbreviations. This is done in order to simplify the instructions and also to explain the pattern in a shorter manner; if full-length words were used for every stitch, the pattern could wind up being many pages long! We’re not going to discuss patterns just yet, but it’s still good to familiarize yourself with them for the future.
Most abbreviations are fairly easy to remember, as they often correspond to the first few letters in the name of a stitch: Slip stitch (sl st), single crochet (sc), half-double crochet (hdc), double crochet (dc), treble crochet (tr), and so on. In the beginning, just print out a list of these abbreviations and keep it handy.