Do you want to learn to crochet?
But don’t know where to start?
It should be easy to learn to crochet these days – there’s information everywhere you click on the internet. In fact a quick online search yields (about) 103 million sources of information. That’s so many articles even Google can’t be bothered to count them properly.
There are videos (American and UK), courses (online and IRL), books, blogs, vlogs, magazines and printables. There’s even someone in Utah State renting out their grandmother.
(OK – yes, I made that last one up. I haven’t actually Googled it…….)
But it wasn’t always like this.
I did my degree in knitwear design in the 1980’s and I can honestly say the word CROCHET was never mentioned. Or at least, if it was, it was with a kind of pained expression. Many from my generation were still haunted by the ponchos and crinoline loo roll covers of our childhood.
It would have been an extremely brave outlier who introduced even a crochet trim to their knitwear.
Back then if you really wanted to learn to crochet, unless you had a mother or grandmother who could teach you, it required rather more detective work – like loitering around WI meetings, trawling through local libraries and tracking down old issues of Golden Hands magazine incognito.
But by the early 90’s crochet was on my radar and I’d been trying to lay my hands on a copy of the Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches for months as it seemed to be permanently out on loan from the library. It was probably lost and not even the librarians cared enough to replace it
In July 1994 I called into the library (again) to see if it had been returned – it hadn’t – but as I was about to leave for a month traveling in Morocco I did take out Morocco: The Rough Guide to accompany me.
When I returned home at the end of August the library had burnt down.
I told myself I’d return the Rough Guide to Morocco when they built a new one – being far too lazy to respond to the library book amnesty.
The Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches had either gone up in flames or just disappeared into that guilty place where unreturned library books languish – so I thought I’d invest in my own copy.
And then I forgot all about it.
Several months later one of my textile students at the college I was teaching at asked if I knew how to crochet, and if I could show her.
Of course I said yes to both- which gave me exactly 7 days to track down the book and upskill myself.
Happily I found the Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches in a local book store, bought myself a hook and some yarn then spent the weekend teaching myself to crochet.
The following week I was excited to pass on my newly acquired skills and show off my collection of crochet flowers – but by then the student had forgotten all about her request and had moved on to making lumpy paper.
Seven years after the library burnt down the new Norwich Millenium Library was opened. It was time to return my Rough Guide to Morocco. Anonymously of course.
Unfortunately by then I’d moved house three times and it was lost. After trekking up the Atlas Mountains and haggling with me in the souks of Marrakesh it was unable to navigate it’s way around residential Norwich and I felt guilty for not returning it when I had the chance.
But The Universe has it’s own laws and ways of keeping balance and around the same time I realised that I’d also lost my Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches after loaning it to several students over the years.
Back then information was scarce and valuable; you had to be pro-active in your search for knowledge and either look after your books, write things down meticulously, or memorise things in detail.
Today information is cheap and attention seeking. It’s everywhere and it’s amazing – we live in extraordinary times.
But there are some disadvantages to information overload. I know I’m easily overwhelmed – but 103 million ways to learn to crochet! How many hours would it take to trawl through those results?
That’s like having a spare hour to watch something on Netflix then spending 60 minutes looking for something you ‘feel’ like watching. (how to waste an hour and make yourself feel rubbish at the same time – thanks Netflix)
Finding the thing that’s going to teach you to crochet can be even more challenging than actually learning to do it.
So to save you trawling through 103 million articles of assorted relevance I’ve published a FREE Learn to Crochet course. Everything’s all in one place, you can access it as often as you like and for as long as you need it.
It will teach you what you need to know to get started and build your confidence – including:
- Holding the hook and the yarn (possibly the MOST difficult bit to learn!)
- Working a chain stitch.
- Working double crochet stitches in rows and rounds. (that’s a US single crochet)
- Working half treble stitches in rows and rounds. (that’s a US half double crochet)
- Working treble stitches in rows and rounds. (that’s a US double crochet)
- Understanding stitch diagrams and written abbreviations
- Left handed videos and stitch diagrams
If you’d like a peek at the course content before registering you can watch a couple of sample videos on Youtube:
Here’s the Working Double Crochets in the Round
And here’s the left handed Working Half Trebles in Rows
If you’d like to register for the complete course for FREE- you can sign up now and gain access to the content immediately and for as long as you need it.
You can’t loose it, there’s no deadline and it won’t go up in flames.
Happy Hooking
Thank you for being a pioneer.
Why thank you!
Gracias por la excelente iniciativa
¡De nada!