Partyness

How Do I Start Crocheting? A Beginner’s Guide

Welcome to Partyness! Crocheting is a great craft to start, no matter your age or how much free time you have. I have been crocheting for over four years now, and I have learned quite a bit about crochet. I have even helped teach many people how to crochet. This post is your complete beginner’s guide on how to start crocheting!

Materials

To start crocheting, you really only need two things: yarn and a hook. Other people may say to get more things, but you really don’t need anything else if you are just starting out. For yarn, go to any local store that sells craft supplies, or buy yarn online. I recommend buying a medium weight yarn, which on the label would say weight 4. You will also need a crochet hook. You can either get a pack with multiple or a single hook. They come in different sizes, and they are labeled differently depending on where you get them. I would recommend buying a 4-, 4.5-, or 5-millimeter hook, or get a pack with one of those sizes. These would be a G or H in US sizing. You may notice this quite a bit in crochet- different names or terms for the same thing. I will go into this further later in the post. 

Other materials include scissors, stitch markers, and needles. You most likely have scissors at your house already, so you won’t need to buy new ones. For basic projects, you won’t need stitch markers, but you can use things you already have in your home as stitch markers. If you start to create finished crochet pieces that you want to use, you will need to purchase large sewing needles called darning needles in order to weave in the ends of your yarn.

Yarn – What to Look for & Reading Labels

As you are starting out, you may be overwhelmed by the different types of yarn in stores. It is important to understand how to read a yarn label when choosing yarn. 

On a label, you should be able to identify 3 things:

Type – There are multiple types of yarn, including acrylic, cotton, wool, etc. As a beginner, you should go with acrylic yarn because it is often the cheapest option and it is the easiest to work with. You can typically find this on the front of the yarn label, like in the example image. You can also find the yarn blend on the back of the label, where it will give exact percentages of the materials used.

Weight – Yarn weight refers to the thickness or thinness of the yarn. As you start crocheting, you should stick with medium weight, or weight 4, yarn. You will always be able to see the number weight, but not all yarn labels show the size as medium, bulky, etc. This will also be on the back of the label, most likely near the hook size.

Hook Size – The hook size is the recommended size crochet hook to use with the yarn. This will also be on the back, near the yarn weight. Remember that this is only a recommendation, and if you find that another size hook is more comfortable for you, then use that instead. For example, although the yarn used in the example image says to use a 5mm crochet hook, I typically use a 4 or 4.5mm hook.

Online Resources

A great way to learn how to crochet, especially if you don’t know anyone who would be able to teach you, is through YouTube. You can find so many great tutorials for beginners, including Bella Coco’s series for “Absolute Beginners.” She does use UK terms for stitches, which are slightly different from US terms, but she will show the name of both on the screen. You should learn some basic stitches first before jumping into any project.

Stitches

There are tons of crochet stitches, but you should learn a few basic ones which will serve as a foundation for all other stitches.

Chain – A chain is just the beginning part of most crochet projects. 

Single Crochet – A single crochet in US terms is a double crochet is UK terms. This is one of the smallest stitches you can make, and it is one of the simplest. Other crochet stitches, like half double, double and triple crochet are very similar to single crochet. It is very important that you learn how to single crochet before doing anything else!

Half Double, Double, Triple, etc. – These stitches are others that you should eventually learn in order to make larger projects. These stitches get increasingly longer, and each are important for different projects.

Here is a conversion chart for US and UK stitch terms!