How to Hold a Crochet Hook
By Rachel Choi – 26 CommentsThis isn’t going to be a tutorial on how to hold a crochet hook. I believe there isn’t one correct or incorrect way to do it! I mean if you can hold the hook with your foot and crochet, that’s amazing! There are however, some popular ways to hold your hook. Here are some examples (mouse over the pics for left handed pics):
The Pencil Method…yes you hold it like a pencil (although some people hold pencils differently)
The Knife Method…yup, you hold it as if you are using a knife (although knifes can be held differently too)
The Rachel Method…well it’s more of a modified Knife Method, being that I don’t actually cut my vegetables like this. Also my pinky finger has a weird obsession with wrapping around the hook!
So the moral of the story is to just try out different ways to find what’s comfortable for you! If you already have a way that works, by all means don’t change it.
How do you hold your hook?
Thanks again, Rachel! Actually, I hold my hook a lot like you do, and my thumb is very active when I crochet… this makes me feel better! Thanks. 🙂
i hold my hook the same way! :] i feel like i have more control when i wrap my pinky around it
I love that I’m a Rachel and I also use the Rachel method! =)
Wow! This is awesome, I thought I would be the only one who held my hook like that LOL
Another Rachel who uses the Rachel method. My pinky has a mind of its own, too.
[…] like there isn’t one way to hold a crochet hook, there sure isn’t one way you have to hold your yarn. It’s all about experimenting and […]
It’s all about experimenting and finding what works for you. It’s taken me 45 yrs to work that one out. I hold my hook like you Rachel with my pinkie wrapped around it for dear life. I suppose it helps me control the hook better. Not sure why other than it comfy for me. Glad to see I am in such prestigious comany as you Rachel.
My yarn/thread wanders over my index finger on my right hand and under my palm, held with my fingers and worked through as I need it. Never had a problem with my tension doing it this way. I have tried it wrapped over my index finger, under the middle one and wrapped around the pinkie. I find it just too tight to control the tension that way. Being left handed I taught myself what works best for me.
I’ve tried the pencil way but it makes me crochet slower. So I guess I use the Rachel method, I never knew anyone else did it that way! =)
Thank you Rachel for showing me that I really am odd. 😉 I don’t hold my hook at all like anyone else. I have my hand a lot tighter around the crochet hook with my thumb in the same place as your method. I guess you would call my hold “the fist method”. LOL
I was kind of experimenting with holding the hook. When I first learned, the girl teaching the panel made it seem like the was one way to hold it so I stuck with that until it started really making me hand crap. I’ve settled on a sort of back and forth method, going between the ‘Rachel method’ and sort of just grasping the hook right at the end. Sounds weird I guess but it works for me.
I never wondered about the way I hold my crochet, when I started crochetting for the first time, I didn’t even think about it !
I hold it a bit like you do, but I wrap all of my fingers around it, except for my index finger and my thumb !
I hold it kinda like a knife, and my pinky and my ring finger wrap around it. I kinda switch around between ways to hold it as I crochet.
I primarily hold my crochet hook like the pencil method but I have sometimes I will switch to the knife method when my hand get tired.
I am the same as Michelle M. mine is kind of “Fist like”
[…] and you have a free, not awkward, motion when holding your hook. You can learn more about ways on How to Hold a Crochet Hook and How to Hold Yarn in […]
[…] crochet stitches, let’s review some fundamentals you’ll need to know before starting. How to Hold a Crochet Hook – there are lots of different ways to hold a crochet hook. In fact, there isn’t a […]
Had to get it out to see how I hold it! Never thought about it. I would say I’m a “fist hold” too. But my pointer finger floats around and doesn’t much hold the hook!
“Had to get it out to see how I hold it! Never thought about it. I would say I’m a “fist hold†too.”
Ditto this! My index finger holds the yarn on the hook, my middle finger and thumb hold the hook, and my ring finger and pinkie are wrapped around the hook. My mom taught me and my brother to crochet, and I taught my husband, so we all hold it the same way.
While evaluating my stitches [doing dc], I noticed that my pinkie moves up and down as the hook does — no reason whatsoever for it to do that, but it’s totally involuntary. Weird.
I hold it pencil some of the time and knife some of the time. If my hand gets uncomfortable one way, I switch 🙂
i taught myself how to,and the way i do it is i hold my hook kinda like a knitting needle; my thumb, pinkie and ring finger hold the paddle in the middle, while my middle and index fingers hold the tension. as you can imagine, all of the sweet elderly women i’ve crocheted with have never let me hear the end of it (i’m a teenager, so)
I’m still learning the basics, but the most controllable (NOT the most comfortable, though) has been a fist-like grasp, where my entire palm is over the handle. Not good because the back end of the hook is jabbing in the bottom middle of my palm, directly on the place where one dreads capral tunnel.
I’m trying to become more comfortable with a pencil grip or some other grip that doesn’t put pressure on this area, else my affection for crocheting may be cut short! Yikes!
I use the knife method. That’s the way my mother taught me. I didn’t know there was any other way until recently when I started seeing different ways on tutorials. If I held it like a pencil it would drastically slow me down.
I hold my hook somewhat like your “Rachel” method, too – except that both my pinky and ring finger wrap around the hook.
I hold it like a Chinese chop stick.
I learned to thread crochet first and hold hook like a pencil. However for heavy yarn I hold like a fist.
Definately Rachel!