How Did You Learn to Crochet?
By Caissa "Cami" McClinton – 27 CommentsIn my first post on Crochet Spot, I asked why you decided to crochet. It was really interesting to hear stories from all over the globe about why people crochet. Since the Craft Yarn Council’s I Love Yarn Day was focused upon stitching it forward this year, and teaching someone to crochet, I began to wonder how Crochet Spot readers had learned to crochet.
Image via flickr modified photo by Kim Piper Werker
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In her post Learning to Crochet, Rachel explained how she was so insistent on learning to crochet that her mother taught her with a chopstick because they didn’t have a crochet hook right there. Wow!
image by Mandy Greer
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I once shared Four Great Ways to Boost Your Crochet Skills, and truthfully, a person could learn the basics from any of those methods as well.
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I am mostly self-taught, having learned to chain and make every stitch other than double crochet from books or written online manuals. However, I am forever grateful to my coworker Evelyn for teaching me where to stick the hook when I was trying to do a double crochet! She helped me to get past a roadblock and after her tutelage, I was off and running.
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Allison Stillwell Young (License)
So what about you, my friends? How did you learn to crochet? Please leave your thoughts, ideas and questions in the comment section below. I am really looking forward to hearing your stories!
I learned in March of 2013 after many tears and tantrums. I didn’t know anyone who could crochet so for the longest time I kept trying and giving up because there was no one to point out what it was I was doing wrong. YouTube changed all that. Now I feel pretty confident that I could tackle any crochet project, it’s just my sewing skills I need to work on now!!
My great grandmother taught me how to make a chain, while we were waiting for my little sister to be born, I was 6, and hooked. A few years later, while we were stationed on an Army base in Germany, one of the neighbor ladies taught me how to single, then double, and how to make granny squares. I made a lot of necklaces, braclets, and many ugly granny squares… I gave up crochet in my late teens, until my mid forties. I picked up some yarn and a hooks, and picked it right up again. Other than a single and double crochet, everything I have learned has been self taught. Made alot of messes, still do, but I love it.
My mother taught me when I was four or five. Crochet is one of my favorite hobbies!
I’d wanted to learn crochet and knitting since I was very little. Finally, when I was about 10yrs old, a family friend who was like a grandma to me, taught me to crochet. Somehow never got to knitting, so crochet has always been my first love and what I keep coming back to.
in elementary school my best friend’s grandma taught her and she in turn taught me. For years I just had a single ball of yarn and one hook. Every once and a while I would make a granny square just to see if I still could, then I would un-do it, rewind the ball and store it away again. Last year I decided I was going to actually make something. I now have finished many small projects and I am eyeing up an blanket pattern for my next step
Three or four years ago, I asked a friend to teach me to crochet. She just taught me how to do chains and was going to teach me more, but I got sick of waiting for her schedule. I learned single, double, and triple crochet from youtube and then learned how to read patterns. I have gone on learning from books, magazines, and websites. I have made many afghans, baby blankets, and stuffed animals as well as smaller items like potholders, coasters, and granny squares. I am starting to learn to knit from a book and youtube, but I don’t like it as well as crochet.
When I was 11 years old, my Mom signed me up for some summer craft classes offered in our town. Crochet was one of them and, you can say, I was instantly hooked! I crocheted several gifts for Christmas that year. That was 46 years ago! While life has taken me in many different directions since then, crochet has always followed along. I didn’t always enjoy the “process” during my younger days and felt like it was taking forever to complete my projects. Thankfully, I now enjoy that process. I find crocheting very therapeutic. I no longer focus on the end result, but just enjoy the journey that a hook and some yarn can bring. My favorite projects to work on remains the same – gifts for friends, family and charity.
Growing up, my Grandmother crocheted. For years, I’d ask her to teach me how to crochet. With my parent’s blessing, they bought me crochet hooks and yarn. I finally realized my Grandmother wasn’t going to teach me how to crochet! Computer Age, wasn’t on the horizon until a few years later, so I had no YouTube tutorials to learn from.
I was 9 years old, so tired of waiting for someone to teach me how to crochet! I taught myself how to sew on a sewing machine at 7 years old, I taught myself how to crochet at 9 years old!
That’s what I did, teaching myself how to create. I created instead of playing, while growing up. Today, I can sew, crochet, macrame and knit.
I was very young when my grandma taught me to make a finger chain. Like everyone else that has the “crochetbug”, I was “hooked”!!! I am 69 yrs. of age and I crochet everyday since I have retired. I use to “wish” everyday of work that I would be home, working on my afghan! I love your place, great JOB!
Jeanne Speaker
I was taught by my grandmother when I was about 8 years old. Now at 75, I’m teaching my great granddaughters. Never was able to teach my daughter or granddaughters but for some reason the great granddaughters have learned. They are 8 and 12.
When I was 10 my mom would have me help her ball her yarn. Then she taught me simple stitches and I learned from there.
As a teenager I purchased a dime book, roll of yarn and needle and spent many hours chaining and tearing out. Then a sweet elderly relative gave me some squares she had made, showed me how to make them and put them together. I am now 77 and many, many afghans and hats later…still loving it!.
I learned in the homeroom class the first day of 7th grade 38 years ago. A friend of mine had several hooks and balls of yarn with her, and she offered to teach anyone who wanted to learn. I was in the little group that gathered round, and I was definitely hooked! Later that day she gave me one of her hooks and some yarn, and I’ve been crocheting ever since. We have kept in touch all this time.
I taught myself to seriously crochet after my my mom passed away in 1979. She taught me to sew, embroider, spool knit, crochet and how to do many other crafts. I took apart her purchased crochet kits and granny squared for 2 weeks. (Back in the day kits were the way to go.) When my was born he cam home in a granny layette.
My mother taught me to finger-crochet when I was about 3. I was supposed to do things that would help me build fine-motor control (I have neurological issues), and so she gave me a ball of yarn and got me started. I made endless chains and then learned how to do a (big, sloppy) granny square. When I was 4 or 5, she started me with a hook, once she trusted me not to lose it! I’ve learned a few stitch patterns from books, but all the basic stitches and techniques (increase, decrease, joining new yarn, etc.) I learned from my mother. As a kid, I mostly crocheted in the summers–it was stifling hot in the afternoons and we didn’t have A/C, so we would sit on the porch with a big pitcher of water and our crochet bags (because my mother did not believe in sitting idly).
I was 17 when I borrowed a couple of dollars from my mom. With that money I purchased a How to crochet book, a crochet hook and a skein of yarn. I taught myself to crochet. Later that year I purchase enough yarn and crochet my grandmother a white granny square afghan. It would have fit a queen sized bed.
I was around 30 years old when I wanted to learn to crochet. I didn’t know anyone who crocheted, but I saw a Learn To Crochet kit in an Annie’s Attic catalog. It came with the yarn and hook to make an afghan, and an instruction book, and a VHS tape with instructions. My afghan turned out lovely for a first project. I was hooked! 🙂
I learned when I was 4 years old. My great-grandmother taught me when I would have sleepovers at her house. We would crochet, drink beer and sing songs. What great memories!
A lady in our church, taught all the 9 year old girls how to embroider, we all made a sampler that said “Home Sweet Home”. When we were 10 another lady taught us how to knit, and when we were 11, we were taught to crochet. That was over 50 years ago and I haven’t stopped since.
I learned to crochet and to knit from my Granny. She was always working on something and one day I ask her to teach me and we were off on an adventure and it has spread to my grand daughter. We love to create together.
My mother taught me as a child. As I watched her crocheting I wanted to try too. She learned to crochet at the boarding school as a child too and she was very skilled.
At that time I actually learned only the basics but throughout the years I’ve improved my knowledge a bit by myself but I’m still doing only simple projects. 😉
I learned to crochet when I was 4. I saw a bed cat done in all white and I wanted it. My great Aunt told me it was crocheted and I would have to make it if I wanted it. I don’t think I have stopped crocheting since. My largest project besides afghans is a gunny sack style dress I made for my daughter 24 years ago. It was made with knit cro-sheen yarn. It was my first finer yarn project and used 8 skeins.
I don’t come from a family that encourages creativity. However, I learned to crochet when I was 7 years old. I was in my school’s library one day, looking for a book to check out, and stumbled on a crochet book. I brought it home and read it cover to cover. I asked for and received some yarn and a hook, and proceeded to teach myself how to do it. I’ve been at it for 41 years now, along with other yarn arts and fiber arts, and jewelry arts, all self-taught. That one book opened a portal to my creativity for which I am grateful.
How did I learn to crochet? I taught myself. One of the teachers at high school were teaching the 16 and 17 year old in her class. I wasn’t in her class but I wanted to learn. I went to the local library, checked out a book on “Teach Yourself to Crochet:. After reading the book, bought some yarn and a hook. Practiced the stitches for awhile but due to family commitments I had to put it aside. I didn’t pick it back up until I was 21. I taught my self how to read a pattern. I’ve been crocheting ever since. This past I attempted to teach young ladies how to crochet but the sewing class they were in only planned for an hour for me to speak to the young ladies. They were not interested in learning crochet but doing their sewing project.
I was taught by a girlfriend when I was in elementary school or junior high (at some point between 4th & 6th grades). It could have been as late as 7th or 8th grade, but I’m not absolutely sure (it would have been between 33 & 37 years ago). I pretty much stopped crocheting at some point in high school.
This past July I went back to Wisconsin to visit family, and my dad said he had some boxes of my things in the garage. I went out and looked through them, and discovered my old crochet hooks. I’ve been trying to find a hobby (other than watching TV & drinking beer), so I brought them home with me.
My wife jokes that I’m turning into her mother (wanting to go to craft stores), while she’s turning into her father (spending her spare time on the computer).
I was 17 years old and happened to arrive early one day at high school to find a girl I did not know crocheting in the stairwell. I bravely went up to her and asked her if she would teach me how to crochet and she said to bring a hook and some yarn and she would show me how to do it. After school I went to Ralph’s 5 & dime store and got the hook and yarn she told me to buy and I went the next morning before school started and she showed me how to crochet! I am now 63 years old and I don’t even know the name of that girl that taught me how to crochet, but I am indebted to her forever. I have been crocheting all this time and taught my daughter’s friends in an afterschool elementary school program how to crochet as well as many others in all these years. I love this art craft so much!
I am left-handed but as a child I would sit for hours and watch my nonna make dollies. They were everywhere. Before she got sick I asked if she would teach me, and she said it wouldn’t work because I was a lefty. So years later in high school, my mom taught me counted cross stitch, and I made her mad because my stuff came out prettier than her’s lol.
After I was married I became friends with the mother of my best girlfriend ( who just so happened to crochet) I told her I wish I could learn and what my gram had said and she said all you need to do is sit across from her and do what she does.
Now I’m not an expert, but I have made some very pretty baby afghans and have learned a few different squares. So now I’m turning 50 this December so ….keep in mind…its never too late to learn.