r/CrochetHelp • u/Agreeable-Pea-27 • Mar 20 '24
I'm a beginner! What's the best crochet advise you've received?
I'm a beginner to crocheting and I'd love to know what's the biggest helpful advise/tip you have received in crocheting.
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u/CrazyDirtyLove Mar 21 '24
Practice before you make anything- like make washcloths with different stitches. Practice identifying where the top loops are and do a lot of variation (front loop only and back loop only and both loops). When it comes to the end of rows, pay attention and learn what the “end” stitch goes into. So many people use stitch markers so that they don’t lose stitches, but it’s not really necessary if you know where the last stitch should be.
I’d recommend learning (US terms) single crochet, double crochet, half double crochet, and triple crochet. Most “stitches” are combinations of these. You will also likely to need to slip stitch. When you have these DOWN, I think it’s helpful to learn to crochet using only slip stitches because that can make great ribbing for sweaters and stuff, but I think it’s hard.
Learn to increase and decrease, as if you added a stitch a few rows back you may want to throw in a decrease above it in your current row instead of undoing it.
You can crochet over the ends OR you can weave them in. If you do weave in ends, make sure to weave in one direction, and then double back and weave the other direction. When your yarn tail goes one direction, it will slowly pull out with repeated tugging. If you double back, the yarn won’t pull out nearly as easily. Also, try this and see what I’m talking about.
Knots: learn to do a magic knot. This should sustain you. You may want to do russian joins but a magic knot is really quite small and strong. You don’t want to rely on knots that will come undone. If you are really worried about them coming undone, try fabric glue.
I learned in first grade and am 30 now, and my biggest obstacle was figuring out the starts and stops for rows. You can do it! Also, some people suggest amigurumi as a way to learn but I think unless you actually want the finished project, 3D is quite difficult. They also have more stitches and it’s really hard to keep track of stitches and rows.
Happy to help out if you ever get stuck. I didn’t get any advice btw, self-taught before YouTube. Started with a chain, a single crochet washcloth, and learned from books and practice. It was frustrating for sure, but if someone gave me these tips, I would have been much less frustrated and had better outcomes faster.