5 Tips for crochet newbies

You will spend a lot of time frogging (undoing your work)

When your starting out it's hard to recognise your mistakes early. These often show up later in the form of a misshapen piece of work or a wrong stitch count further down the line. which often means spending a lot of time frogging a piece you may have spent hours on. It can be exceptionally frustrating but one of the best things about crochet is that mistakes don't cost you anything other than time, you can rip out an entire project and reuse the yarn.

There is no right way to hold your hook

Somewhere along the line you are going to meet an idiot who thinks their way of crocheting is the only way to crochet. Ignore this particular brand of fool some people hold their hook like you would a knife, others like a pen and i'm sure their are people who hold there hook in other ways. It doesn't matter so long as it is comfortable for you and you can form the stitches.

How to deal with a knitting snob.

In any art form you will run into those who think their artistic endeavours are far superior to your own so unsurprisingly there those who think of crochet as knitting's poorer cousin. They will feel quite entitled to mutter about your yarn choices being wasted on crochet and worse. the best way to deal with them is to point out there is no such thing as a crochet machine and walk away.

Take it everywhere with you.

Life is busy and often we struggle to find time in the day for the things we enjoy most, yet a lot of our time is wasted. in waiting rooms, train journeys etc. keeping a small project with you is a great way to spend more time doing something you enjoy

This usually attracts an audience

People will be fascinated by what you are doing, after all your waving what looks like a stick and making something appear out of thin air it's magic. Many will silently watch, others especially children will strike up a conversation or ask questions.

Stitch markers will save your sanity

You will count your stitches as you go along, at the end of a round (possibly several times just to be sure). People will interrupt you and you will find yourself counting louder as a cue for them to wait but losing count happens to us all. Stitch markers will become your best friend and sanity saver pop one in every 10 or 20 stitches to save yourself a lot of recounting.

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I am a self taught crochet enthusiast, designer and yarn artist you can follow me on Twitter or read some of my previous steemit articles to find out more.

Steemits first crochet pattern
Grab a seat in the cosy corner while I introduce myself
Why I refuse to crochet blankets for the homeless
The afghan that saved my life