How to Crochet
Crochet a flat piece in single crochet (US terms). Make a slip knot, chain a foundation, work and count the rows, fasten off, and start a cotton dishcloth.
You will end up able to make a slip knot, chain a foundation, work rows of single crochet, keep the edges straight, and fasten off. That is enough to make a flat piece of fabric, and the closing turns it into a first project, a cotton dishcloth.
Crochet uses one hook and has one open loop at a time. If the hook slips out, only that loop is loose. To fix a mistake, you pull the yarn to undo stitches back to it and work them again.
The stitch names in the steps are US terms. UK patterns give the same stitches different names, and FAQ 3 below shows how to tell which terms a pattern uses.
A ball of medium-weight yarn (also called worsted weight or weight 4) and a crochet hook in size I/9 (5.5 mm). The Craft Yarn Council's standard yarn weight system recommends hooks from I/9 to K/10.5 (5.5 to 6.5 mm) for this weight, and the label on your yarn will name the size its maker suggests. An H/8 (5 mm) hook also works. The Council's teaching guide asks beginners to bring an H or an I hook, and Lily gives the gauge of its Sugar'n Cream cotton with a 5 mm hook. Choose a light-colored, smooth yarn so you can see your stitches clearly. Avoid dark colors and fuzzy or textured yarns for your first project because they make it difficult to see where your hook should go. Basic acrylic yarn is fine for practice swatches. For the dishcloth in the closing, buy worsted-weight cotton instead. Lily, for example, sells its Sugar'n Cream cotton for dishcloths and potholders and labels it machine washable and dryable. You also need scissors, a yarn needle (a large blunt needle with a big eye) for step 7, two stitch markers or safety pins for step 6, and a ruler or tape measure for the dishcloth.
Hold the hook and yarn
Hold the crochet hook in your dominant hand the way you would hold a pencil or a knife. In the pencil grip, the hook sits between your thumb and forefinger and rests on your middle finger. In the knife grip, your hand goes over the top of the hook, the way you hold a butter knife. Neither is the correct one. The Craft Yarn Council's teaching guide tells instructors to let a student hold the hook and the work however is most comfortable, so make a few chains with each grip in step 3 and keep the one that feels easier. The yarn goes in your other hand. Drape the working yarn, the strand that runs to the ball, over your index finger, under your middle finger, and over your ring finger, then close your ring finger and pinky on it. Your index finger holds the yarn up where the hook can reach it. The last two fingers set the tension, which is how freely the yarn feeds. Set it so the yarn pulls through with slight resistance. Once you are making stitches, read them to adjust it. Stitches too tight to push the hook into mean you are gripping the yarn too hard. Loose, uneven stitches mean the yarn is running through your fingers with no resistance.
Make a slip knot to start
Make a loop with the yarn about 6 inches from the end, with the working yarn crossing over the tail. Reach through the loop, grab the working yarn, and pull it through to create a new loop. Put this loop on your hook. Pull the tail to snug the knot, then pull the working yarn to close the loop around the shaft of the hook. It should slide easily but not fall off. This slip knot is your first loop on the hook, and it does not count as a stitch. The 6-inch tail is the end you weave in when the piece is finished (step 7).
Chain 20 to make the foundation
Pinch the slip knot between the thumb and middle finger of your yarn hand. Bring the yarn over the hook from back to front, which is called a yarn over, and catch it with the hook. Pull it through the loop already on your hook. You now have one chain stitch and one loop on the hook. Repeat until you have 20 chains, moving your pinch up the chain every few stitches so it stays close to the hook. Keep the chains loose. Let each new loop sit on the full thickness of the hook's shaft, and do not tug it smaller afterward. The chain should look like a braid of small V-shaped links. Count the Vs, and do not count the loop on your hook or the slip knot. The chain is right when it lies flat and the hook fits into each link. If the hook will not go into the links in step 4, pull the chain out and make it again more loosely.
Good to know: If the chain still comes out too tight, make it with a hook one size larger, then switch back to your regular hook for the rows. The Craft Yarn Council's teaching guide starts beginners on a larger hook for the same reason, to help them get the feel of the correct tension.
Work single crochet across the chain
Work back along the chain. Skip the first chain from the hook, the one next to the loop on your hook. Insert the hook into the center of the second chain, yarn over, and pull the yarn through the chain. You now have two loops on your hook. Yarn over again and pull through both loops. One loop remains on the hook, and that is one single crochet. Insert the hook into the center of the next chain and repeat: yarn over, pull through the chain (two loops on the hook), yarn over, pull through both (one loop on the hook). Work into every chain, including the very last one. The center of the chain is where the Craft Yarn Council's single crochet lesson puts the hook. In single crochet you never work into the chain you skipped, and it does not count as a stitch. Count the row. A chain of 20 gives 19 single crochets. If the Vs are hard to see, move to better light.
Turn your work and start the next row
At the end of the row, chain 1. This turning chain raises the yarn to the height of the next row, and in single crochet it does not count as a stitch. Leave the hook in the loop and turn the piece around so the other side faces you. Turn it in the same direction every time. Now work back across the tops of the stitches you just made. Each one shows as a V along the top edge. Insert the hook under both loops of the first V, the one directly below the turning chain, and make a single crochet as in step 4: yarn over, pull through (two loops on the hook), yarn over, pull through both (one loop on the hook). Work one single crochet into each stitch across, and make sure you work into the last one. A pattern sometimes calls for the front loop only or the back loop only. Unless it does, go under both. Count again. You should still have 19. Chain 1, turn, and work the next row the same way. This back-and-forth motion is how you build a flat piece of crochet fabric.
Count your stitches to keep edges straight
Count your stitches at the end of every row, which is also the Craft Yarn Council's hint to beginners. Every row should have the same number, 19 on the practice piece. If you have fewer, you skipped a stitch. Look at the end of the row first. The Council's lesson gives the same reminder for every row, to be sure to work into the last stitch. If you have more, you worked into the turning chain or put two stitches into one. Either way the piece narrows or widens and the edges slant. To fix it, take the hook out and pull the working yarn, which undoes the stitches one at a time. Crocheters call this frogging. Stop when you reach the mistake, put the hook back into the open loop, and work the row again. Nothing unravels past the point where you stop pulling. To make the ends of a row easy to find, put a stitch marker in the first and the last stitch of each row as you make it. A safety pin, a bobby pin, or a scrap of contrasting yarn looped through the stitch does the same job. Move the markers up every row.
Fasten off and weave in the ends
When the piece is the size you want, cut the yarn, leaving a tail about 6 inches long. Yarn over with the tail and pull it all the way through the last loop on your hook, then pull it tight. This closes the loop so the work cannot unravel. Do not tie the tail in a knot against the fabric, because a knot leaves a lump. Thread the tail onto the yarn needle and weave it through the stitches along one row for at least 2 inches, then turn and weave back the other way for another inch. The change of direction keeps the tail from sliding straight back out. Trim what is left. Weave in the tail at the slip knot the same way. On a piece that will be washed again and again, such as a dishcloth, weave in a longer length.
Make the dishcloth next. With worsted-weight cotton and the hook its label names, chain 25 and work rows of single crochet, 24 stitches in each, until the piece is square, then fasten off. Lily gives the gauge of its Sugar'n Cream cotton as 13 single crochets and 14 rows to 4 inches on a 5 mm (H/8) hook. At that gauge, 24 stitches come out a little over 7 inches wide, and about 26 rows make a square. Your own stitches will be tighter or looser than that, so measure the piece and stop when the height matches the width. If the edges slant, count every row and mark the first and last stitch (step 6). If the fabric is stiff and the hook is hard to push in, loosen your grip on the yarn or go up a hook size. If it is floppy with gaps between the stitches, go down a size. If the yarn splits when the hook goes in, pull that stitch out and make it again. After the dishcloth, learn double crochet, a taller stitch that FAQ 4 below sets out. Then come increasing and decreasing, which add or remove stitches to shape a piece, and working in rounds, which makes a tube with no seam, such as a hat. FAQ 2 covers pattern abbreviations, and FAQ 3 the difference between US and UK stitch names. For work with a needle and thread, our guide on how to sew teaches three hand stitches.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
The tools, and how many stitches are open at once. Crochet uses one hook and finishes each stitch before starting the next, so one loop is open at a time. Knitting uses two needles and holds a whole row of open stitches on them. The Craft Yarn Council's comparison of the two says knitting has long been the favorite technique for sweaters because of the supple, drapable fabric its stitches produce, and that textured and raised stitches are especially easy to make in crochet. It also says crochet fabric depends on the yarn. Lighter or softer yarns give a delicate, drapable fabric, and a thicker yarn gives a sturdy one. The Council ranks neither above the other and says it hopes you learn both.
Patterns shorten every stitch name. The ones the steps use are ch (chain), sc (single crochet), st (stitch), and yo (yarn over). You will also meet sl st (slip stitch), dc (double crochet), and rep (repeat). The Craft Yarn Council's guide to reading a crochet pattern works through an example: "Ch 15. Row 1: Sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across." That is steps 3 and 4 with 15 chains, and it gives 14 single crochets. A pattern never tells you to make the slip knot. It shows the count you should have at the end of a row in a form such as (14 sc). An asterisk marks instructions that you repeat. The same guide covers brackets, parentheses, and working in rounds.
No, and one name can mean two different stitches. Single crochet, the stitch in the steps, is the US name. In UK terms the same stitch is called double crochet. The US double crochet is the UK treble, and the US half double crochet is the UK half treble. The Craft Yarn Council's abbreviation list has a table of the US and UK names. Before you start a pattern, check which terms it uses. A pattern that calls for single crochet (sc) anywhere is written in US terms, because the UK column of that table has no stitch by that name. UK patterns also say tension where US patterns say gauge.
Double crochet (US terms) is a taller stitch with one extra step. This is the method in the Craft Yarn Council's double crochet lesson. On a foundation chain, yarn over first, then insert the hook into the fourth chain from the hook. Yarn over and pull through the chain, which leaves three loops on the hook. Yarn over and pull through two of them. Yarn over again and pull through the last two. That is one double crochet. Work one into each chain to the end. The turning chain changes too. At the end of a row, chain 3 and turn, and count that chain as the first double crochet of the new row. So you skip the first stitch and work your first double crochet into the second. At the end of the row, you work the last one into the top of the turning chain from the row below. The three chains you skipped at the start count as a stitch in the same way, so the Council's example of 17 chains gives 15 double crochets.
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