Crochet Tutorial: Chain stitch and Single Crochet

Hi to all in Blogland! This is a seriously late post, for which I apologize ;)

The day was hectic and yours truly pulled out hair, bit nails and performed acts like those of an overexcited lemur because the pics took over two hours to load!!!!!! Anyhow, here they are!

The pic below was taken during a hike that the we all did in the beautiful area of Monk's Cowl in the Drakensberg.

Crochet Tutorial: Chain Stitch and Single Crochet

Today I have prepared the first in series of tutorials that I plan to do. I have decided to start with crochet because it is so quick and easy to learn. I will be posting a "Mystery Project" in the next couple of weeks, something that you will put together quite simply, and in the process learn the skills needed to go onto something more complex :)

Step 1. You will start by making a slipknot. It's really very easy...just follow the pics as shown!





Step 2. By pulling the loop through the circle of yarn you made in step 1, you will be forming the big loose open beginnings of a slipknot.



Step 3. Place your crochet needle into the knot as shown. When you pull the length of yarn that you will be working with (ie NOT the tail), the whole knot will shrink nicely to fit your needle. Don't make it overtight!

Step 4. Voila! a single stitch is born...

Step 5. How you hold the yarn, needle etc is a matter of personal taste and what feels comfortable for you. I do it as shown in the pic above and below. First, wrap the working yarn around your little finger.

Step 6. Bring the woroing yarn around to the front again, and gently close your little finger as well as your ring finger. You should have a bit of tension, but allow the yarn to move fairly easily.

Step 7. Closing the fingers...

Step 8. I extend my middle finger, so that the working yarn has an open area that I can easily hook with the crochet hook. It looks really odd, I know, but it works... :)

Step 9. Now, take the hook BEHIND the working yarn as show, you are preparing to pull it through the stitch on the crochet hook, thereby creating a new chain stitch.

Step 10. Preparing to pull the working yarn throughhhhhh...

Step 11. New chain stitch formed...yay!

Step 12. Keep repeating the same procedure to creat new chain stitches :)

Step 13. Once you have several chain stitches, it may be easier to hold the chain stitch tail as shown, to control the crochet that is growing.

Step 14. See....nice little chainy...

Step 15. Keep making chain stitches until you have about 10 stitches or so on the chain.
When counting stitches made in crochet, you NEVER count the stitch that is ON the hook. So, if you need to chain 10 stitches, you will have 10 forming the chain, AND one on the hook.

Step 16. You're now going to learn how to do a Single Crochet stitch, also abbreviated as "sc" in patterns. When you "turn the chain around" (which you haven't yet done...so don't panic about that!), you need to "skip" one or more stitches before putting the hook into the next working space. This is to allow a small bit of height at the beginning of the row, so your crochet doesn't look lop-sided. The number of stitches that you will skip, so to speak, will vary, depending on what crochet stitch you are doing next.
Don't be too concerned right now, it will make sense as you learn the stitches. Suffice to say that for the sc we are going to do now, as a rule of thumb, you will skip one stitch. Have a look at the pic above...it might clarify things...

Step 17. Put the hook through the stitch as shown in Step 16, and wrap the yarn around , exactly in the same way as before, when you were doing the chain stitches.

Step 18. Pull the yarn through. You will now have TWO stitches on your hook...this is OK, you are going to repeat wrapping the yarn around the hook AGAIN, and pull it through BOTH stitches.

Step 19. Wrapping yarn again...

Step 20. Pulling through both stitches...

Step 21. Well done you have completed a Single Crochet stitch...in order to make more stitches, you just repeat the steps above, but next placing your crochet hook into the stitch to the left of the sc you have just completed. See pic below.

Well folks...that all for now! I am going to bed now, will post a tutorial on how to do a Double Crochet tomorrow!


Lots of Love,

Heidi :)