the way we learned to crochet

[hooked2]

I have that little green book!! My grandma bought it for me so I could learn to read patterns. The first doily pattern I tried is in that book. I found 2 copies at a yard sale and gave them to 2 people learning to crochet.

It also has knitting , embroidery & tatting I believe. I haven't looked at it in a while.

 

Sheryl

 

Sheryl,

 

It does have knitting, embroidery and k-tting! Amazing what you used to be able to buy for pennies really ()! I keep mine for sentimental reasons ()!

[angieInCA]

My Aunt Suzi put a hook (probably and H) in my hand and a skein of Red Heart at my feet when I was 5. For years I thought Red Heart was the only yarn there was. I guess because it was the only yarn in the Woolworth store in my tiny town. I did switch over to thread for a while when I was about 10. I really got into making thread dresses for my barbies.

 

I remember the very first time I saw yarn other than Red Heart, I think I was about 13. I remember thinking"OMG there is so much more for me to play with". I had died and gone to heaven right there in the middle of the brand new K-Mart store I was the odd ball kid in the 70's that was making crochet gifts for all my friends. But they loved and wore all the belts, ponchos, purses that I made for them.

[adagio]

How about: it's been 40 years, and I've slept since then, and I have no clue what yarn, what hook, or if there was even a pattern!

My first project though, was worsted weight, hook size c-f (can't remember) doing an afghan stitch! Made squares, then assembled them.

[ErinLindsey]

I voted for the last choice.

 

Approx. 30+ years ago, I learned from a little green "Learn How to" booklet from the 5 and 10. (I still have the book somewhere - still unpacking from our move 2 years ago .) I used acrylic yarn (what else was there then?) and an aluminum Boye hook to make a shell vest for my then little boy. I don't remember the size of the hook though - . What I do remember is the thrill of creating something really cute () for my beautiful baby () with my own hands ()!!

 

Did the little green booklet have the word "star" in it's name?? I have a copy of that book that has a red cover, and it's from 1953. I inherited it from my paternal grandmother when she died.

[Nilliem]

because while I learned to knit around 5 or 6 years old, the crocheting didn't start until a friend's mom tried to teach me with a hook and acrylic when I was 10. The hook size I have no clue, this was 30 years ago, heh. What I do remember was that I ended up figuring it out on my fingers! Could not figure out how to use the hook! I'm thinking maybe the mom was a lefty.

 

Anyhow...I would chain until I used more yarn than the beginning of an afghan. Kept the hands busy...

 

I re-taught myself to crochet properly, and to knit evenly late '06 and I'm still going strong.

 

Anne

[cgd]

I'm in the majority. Our family never had much money, so RHSS and Boye hooks were it. Now that I'm grown and am middle class, I still use RHSS, along with PnC/SnC cotton yarn, and the occasional Bernat Softee Chunky. I look at pretty, expensive yarns, but can't justify the $100+ it would take to make a project from them until I get a LOT better and/or my son is grown up and financially independent!

[Knit Happens]

Worsted weight and a G hook. My step siter's mom taught me, and she was all about aphgans. I didn't question her

[lilmari]

my mother taught me when i was 4, after i spent the previous 3 years obsessing and stealing her hooks and yarn.. i was weird even then

she taught me with what she had: a steel 00 hook and DK yarn.

i didnt even know there were different size hooks until my early adulthood! yes i probably did live under a rock...

[Elle]

Missed me, but not completely! I learned with worsted weight yarn, but with a G hook. In fact, for about the first six months I was crocheting, I thought that the G hook was the only hook there was. When I wanted to make something chunkier or larger, I made it with rug yarn. Hey, what did I know?! Then one day we went to visit my aunt, and she was sitting there with a J (:::gasp and swoon!::, and she reported that she had found this "new, really big hook" at the 5 and 10 when she was in town the day before. I will never forget my grandmother's reaction, she giggled and took out her hook collection, and she had everything from steel hooks used for thread up to about a K. She didn't have any of the large hooks, but she did have the doohickey for making broomstick lace. She was the one who was teaching us how to crochet, and it turned out she had started us all off on G hooks because she had about six of them, and this way we could all have the same hook to work with. Something that amazes me to this day about my grandmother - she never went to school of any kind, she could barely read a word other than to know numbers on a BINGO card (another passion of hers), but that woman could read a crochet pattern like it was in her blood! Maybe it was, I don't know, but she sure was amazing!

 

Elle

[Lavelle26]

When I was a girl, I was taught with cheap worsted weight yarn and an H hook. It might have been RH but I am not sure on that part. (heck...I was 8 years old...like I can remember the brand ) When I picked crochet back up at 19, I taught myself how to crochet with thread. I started with size 10 thread and a size 7 steel hook and that was how I learned all the stitches beyond a single crochet stitch. I also learned by making a doily...not by doing swatches.

[nana5boys]

I remember the first time I ever made a crochet chain.

 

I was about 3 or 4yrs old, and almost every time my parents would take me and my sister out to eat, we'd get balloons. My dad would make a slip knot and we'd have the balloons tied to our wrists that way.

 

For some reason, I was really interested in knots then. I wanted to make a slip knot in the string, so I put the string thru the slipknot my dad made. Did that a couple of times, and then realized I was making a string of knots.

 

I had a lot of fun, making the chain on the balloon strings whenever I got a balloon. I'd make the chain till I ran out of string on the balloon, and then I'd let the balloon fly up to the ceiling while holding the other end of the string and watching the balloon frog the string.

 

A few years later, when I was probably about 6yrs old, my sister was in Girl Scouts, and she had to have some purple yarn for a project. I was stealing a lot of her yarn (I'd go and snip off a few yards a lot of times) and making chains with my fingers, and then using the chains as hair bands. My sister saw that I was making crochet chains, and she was starting another yarn related project. She was learning to crochet. She asked if I wanted to try it too.

 

So my parents took us to Target (Target sold yarn years ago!) and my sister got me a skein of RHSS Pink and a big purple Boye hook. (wrong hook for me to learn on, I hate the hook end of Boye hooks) She taught how to make chains with the hook, and then showed me the slip stitch. (all she'd learned to do) My sister did her GS project and never crocheted again till last year (I think)

 

I, on the other hand, was constantly making bags with the slip stitch. I made purses to carry my lunch money to school. There was a yarn store about 2 blocks from my house, and I bought another hook (a Susan Bates, dont remember the size, I lost that hook) and my crocheting started looking better.

 

I was probably about 10 or 11 when I took my hook and yarn to my grandmother's house one day. She had crocheted all her life, but hadnt crocheted for a couple of years, and that day she had a half finished afghan that she was working on. I saw it, and asked my grandma what she was crocheting and told her I could do it too. She showed me the afghan, and I was confused because her stitches were bigger and didnt look the same as mine. She said I was only doing slip stitches. She asked if I wanted to learn more stitches. I told her yes, so she showed me double crochet (turns out it was half-double, my grandmother was taught by her mom, who was from Luxembourg, so the names for the stitches were different)

 

I did the half-double stitch for years, making small bags and one really ugly scarf that I was going to give to a friend at work for Xmas when I was probably about 16 (the scarf was stolen from our party room at the store Xmas party at Bonanza. I'm kind of glad my friend never got to see it. It was an ugly scarf)

 

My grandma asked me again one day when I was 17 if I wanted to learn new stitches, so she ended up showing me a bunch more, and then all of a sudden I was making afghans and nice looking scarves. My grandmother and I started to mess around with the rectangle granny pattern and I am so glad that we did that when we did, and that I'd memorized the pattern. (never had a written out pattern for that until I got someone to help me write it out just before I posted it to my blog)

 

I didnt learn to read patterns until I was probably in my mid-20's, and that's probably when I started doing more complicated projects. My grandmother started to develop Alzheimer's and I didnt realize it that quick, that if I wanted to learn more, I'd better mine her brain for all her crochet knowledge. Plus, asking her questions probably helped her keep her mind going for awhile longer.

 

Everytime I saw grandma, I took her something crocheted, and I'd ask questions about stuff she'd made, and how she made it. She couldnt always tell me coherently how she did stuff, but I'd usually get enough info to figure it out.

 

When my grandma died in 2004 (2 days before my birthday) I visited her on Mother's Day in the hospital, she'd broken her leg. I took her a little blue doll that I'd crocheted (no pattern). She hadnt recognized anyone for several months. She looked at the doll and said "Erin, you always crochet so perfect". I was super excited about that. She recognized me! I think it's because of the crochet. She always remembered what crochet was, and she must have associated me with crochet.

 

Now that she's gone, I've had to branch out for learning new crochet stuff instead of having her teach me. I consider myself an expert crocheter now, but I'm still learning new stuff...and then there's the knitting. Except that I dont have anyone but my dad to learn knitting stitches, and he only used one pattern, so he's not the biggest help, except that he knits continental and I make him knit and purl a few rows sometimes in vain attempts to figure out how to do the purl stitch continental style.

 

 

I just wanted to say that is a nice story on how you learned.

 

jaye

[WendyLee]

I learned in High School. They were trying out a new course called Home Arts. Knit and Crochet were a part of it. They weren't specific about what you should use. Just taught us based on the pattern we chose. We didn't have to complete the project for the class but had to at least show some progress. Like an afghan had to at least be 1/4 done. Crochet is the only thing that stuck.

[lhasaapsolady]

I don't remember the hook size, but my great aunt taught me when I was 7. Using ww yarn, she made me do a big swatch first the sc, then when I had that down, the dc, then eventually the tc. After that was made she made me frog it. Then she taught me the granny square.

[CLLinda]

My granny taught me with some Wintuck from Woolworth's and an H hook.

 

[Trinket]

I picked an H hook because it was blue. I had a choice of several, but the blue one got my eye because it's my favorite color.

 

As for the yarn I started with, it was varied. There were all sorts of different yarns to pick, and I picked a couple balls of worsted, which was probably Red Heart Super Saver, and a few that were cotton or thinner yarn.

 

I learned from Gina Renay, who was a very lively lady that started a short lived crochet club at the Library in Moss Point, Mississippi. I am very grateful to her and to the other ladies at that club for helping my mother and I learn how to crochet!

[soliloquies]

I've just learnt to crochet (my second week!) and taught myself from books and the Internet with a size 3mm hook and some DK yarn.

 

Really wish there had been someone to show me though, I'm sure it makes much more sense with an experienced hand around.

[ddkitten]

A friend at work taught me the basics (chain, sc, dc) but then I have built up what I do from there. My first projects were bags and then amis (out of cotton). I've made a skirt for DD and several other ami and bags. I'm currently working on my first scarf (for me) and round ripple (for a friend due Nov). I play with everything from thread (I'm not quite ready to do sewing thread ) to super bulky.

[Cocoa Cream]

I can't decide how to vote on the poll because my learning was kind of a disjointed evolution over several years time. I do remember my mom teaching me to do a chain with yarn when I was really young, but I don't think she really knew how to do much more than that herself. Plus, she is a lefty and always felt really incompetent at trying to teach me (a righty) how to do anything crafty!

 

When I was about twelve my grandma taught me how to crochet rag rugs, but again, I didn't really learn much more about crocheting because I didn't know what stitch I was using or anything beyond the few instructions she gave me.

 

Then, in college a friend of mine taught me how to make a scarf with some boucle. She actually is the one who taught me how to crochet in rows of dc. After that, I just started experimenting on my own, so I really consider myself mostly self-taught from pattern books.

[texasredhead]

My first experience was when I was 5. I lived in a duplex and there was an elderly lady on the other side. She knew how to crochet and I was interested. So, her husband made me a wooden spool with 4 nails in it and she started me a chain in it and taught me with a steel hook to pull the thread over the nail. I had so much fun making this long chain, which was all I could do at that age. But I learned to use the hook and use the thread. Later on, in my junior high years, a friend of mine knew how to crochet with yarn. She showed me how to crochet granny squares and I made my first blanket. I made some other things too until later my new SIL gave me better directions and got me going into harder items. I've been doing it for 50 years now!!

[amandapace]

I tried to learn from the book "Learn to Crochet in Just One Day" by Jean Leinhauser, and I used the supply list to buy the worsted weight yarn, H hook, and needle. The book was somewhat useful, but I personally stuggle to learn things directly from books. My husband got me started on a chain (after much frustration on my part), then my sister-in-law taught me more. I also took a class through community ed, but I left that still thinking that I was supposed to crochet though the back loop. I had made several items before I realized that I wasn't crocheting through both loops. Opps! Oh well...all the washcloths I made had nice ridges to them! I wonder how many of us made this same mistake. And then how many of us--for a brief moment--thought we had created a brand new stich! LOL!!

 

Now that I'm out of the Army, I'm going through all the stuff I stored before I went in, trying to finish half-done projects from six or seven years ago, when I had just taught myself how to crochet. It's really hard to go back to stitching in the back loop only! I never knew there was any other way when I started out - the hazards of learning from a book...

[amandapace]

I vaguely recall a friend in junior high showing me how to chain and single crochet, but not how to work rows (so, basically, we could crochet ropes). It was an H hook and bright pink RHSS.

I returned to it in college when I saw a thread tablecloth that a coworker of mine at Wal-Mart had made. At the time I thought afghans were the only crocheted items in the whole world! So I bought a how-to book that had a lefty section, wedgewood blue RH, and an H hook. I learned by making swatches, but I frogged each one and started over each time because I was too broke to waste any yarn. It took me at least three months to figure out how to crochet in the round (granny squares mystified me). I finally caught on when I tried to crochet around a ponytail holder!

With all that yarn experience, the first project I actually completed instead of frogging was a 2' wide doily! Of course, it's probably more delicate than most, since I only crocheted in the back loops ...I didn't know you were supposed to crochet through both loops until I saw a pattern that specified "back loop only". OOPS...

[My2suns]

I learned to crochet when my dad was stationed in Newmarket, England. A friend of mine started lessons with an elderly lady who owned a yarn shop down town. Her mom asked me to walk with her, so the nice lady taught me how to crochet for free. She also taught me how to knit, but only the very basics. I enjoy knitting, but I need to learn more. I'll never forget my time with my friend Teresa Kasprowitz and the yarn shop lady, crocheting and knitting for hours in her backroom.

[cat3crazy]

Well to be honest, it's been such a long time that I don't remember the hook size but I do know that it was worsted weight yarn.

[Huskerlady]

I learned from my Aunt, with thread and a steel hook, when I was around 5 and have never stopped crocheting.

[kannd86]

My grandma taught me.