Crochet for beginners...

[CouthyMow]

I'm desperately trying to learn to crochet. I want to be able to do Granny squares.

I can make a foundation chain, I can do double and triple, but after that I just end up in a knotty mess!

I have two crochet books, both of which are meant to be from the basics onwards. Neither of which seemingly explain it in a way that makes sense to me...

Can anyone help me to crochet a granny square?!

Ah. That's a bit of an issue too - I AM crocheting 'left handed'. I just can't do it the other way around. I just reverse the pictures in the book in my head IYSWIM...

An in North-East Essex. Not that near to Norfolk!

My tension appears to be quite 'tight'.

Stick with the 5.5 hook, then. I find the metal ones easier to use than plastic, the yarn slides better on them, tends to stick on the plastic ones, especially if your tension is tight. 5mm or 4.5 mm metal one will be the best for DK if your tension is tight.

I finished off a fantastic mess of a "swatch" earlier this evening. All experimentation- trying to get used to treble crochet!

I'm going to try with the smaller hook in a minute, to see if I can make it work that way!

Argh MN ate my post. I can do the chain of 6. I can slip stitch the chain into a round. I can do the chain of two, and the first treble. But by the time I finish the second treble, it has turned into a knotty mess!!

I managed to do it right ONCE earlier - but DS3 unravelled it!!

I've not been able to get it right since.

I will NOT be beaten by a ball of wool! I WILL work out how to crochet a granny square if it kills me!!

Come up to Scotland and I will teach you.

I would love to!

I think my tension is far too tight. Would I need a smaller or larger hook to fix that?

Please say smaller, please say smaller

I've got it, I've got it!!

Different, less fluffy wool, and a MUCH looser tension, and I have just finished my third row on my first granny square!!

The YouTube thing I am watching is just about to show me how to change colour.

I can crochet a granny square!

I'm so stupidly proud of myself. My mother, my nan, all tried many many times to teach me, and it never worked. Now I can do it.

I want up go and buy wool...

The wool I managed to get the hang of it with is a VERY bright, neon variegated one. Problem is, I think it would look best against a plain black wool. Which I don't have. I think I have tied it off well enough with a different wool that it won't unravel.

I'm going to attempt it with the first wool I tried now - that's a tan / brown variegated one. Which I want to use with a red / orange variegated to match my bedding...

I think I'm hooked....

The bright neon/black one is going to be for DS3. I shall also have to do a bright pink / black one for DD, a purple / black one for DS1, and one in two shades of blue for DS2...

I think I may have my next year's worth of crochet lined up!!

I saw on fb tonight, an old school friend of mine posted a picture of a blanket where she had crocheted the sea, the sky, and a bloody Noah's ark WITH animals...nothing like a bit of amazement of what you can do with some wool and a crochet hook to spur you on!!

First square of orange/brown done. The brown was the wool I started with.

I've done both colours, working the end if the first one into the second, but just need to learn how to sew the ends in.

I'm off to bed now (DS3 didn't fall asleep till 2am, he's hyperactive so the crochet is to keep me sane...), but I will be buying wool in the morning...

My second one, the brown/orange one, looks far better - I have worked out how to get it to go in a square shape.

The YouTube vid I used was an American one, but I knew from upthread that when she said double, she meant triple.

I found the American one easier to follow as they seem to do it what I would call 'left handed'.

This is the one I used - By DzCrochetCreations

Because she went slow enough for me to follow. Plus some of the ones linked to upthread weren't available on the mobile.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a decent online wool shop?!

Yay well done. No stopping you now. I couldn't do the row by row type crochet but i mastered granny sq's 1st and now i can can follow patterns and everything! I still come back to grannies though. I love em. Doing some tiny ones at the mo to sew together for a cushion. As for tension you could use a bigger hook then your loops will be bigger and therefore looser. Or a thinner wool. Thinner wools use thinner needles. If it's only a bit tight though, just make a concious effort to hold your yarn looser as you go. I still have tension issues with crochet. I made 2 slippers. One came out a size 9 and one a childs size 9! Drastically different sizes

Couthy I used Deramores. They have 10% off DK at the moment. I bought a mixed pack of Stylecraft DK for 33quid. Lovely soft acrylic and very easy to work with. I've been using a 4mm hook. Deramores

deramores black sheep wools wool warehouse to name a few. Deramores always have discount codes on their facebook page, currently 10% off all dk wool with code DK10.

it's all sounding fab couthy, put some pics on your profile!!

oops, I was looking at shiny new crochet hooks on ww try again wool warehouse

sallybear

I don't know how to get a picture on my profile from an iPhone...

It was just me realising that you have to hold it far looser than I thought.

Just need to watch the end bit of that tutorial to see how to end the square.

Couthy as you can see there are lots of lovely online shops to purchase your woolly treasure! Ninja told me about Deramores. I am a week into my project and so far I've made 12 squares, though the first stripy one looks a bit like a rhomboid rather than a square......

I second deramores as a really good source for woolly wool. I am crocheting a blanket at the moment - I am doing lots of different squares and rectangles, and it is all going to be pieced together into a random patchwork-y blanket (eventually). I am using James C Brett Top Value acrylic yarn from Deramores - only £1.69 for 100g, with great colours and it feels nice to use too. The blanket is going to be lime green, rust orange, cerise, turquoise, teal, sunshine yellow and purple. So quiet and shy, like me.

Oh - and Deramores have a sale on at the moment - 10% off all their double knit yarn. If you Like their fb page, they send you details of their deals each time they come out.

Well done, Couthy! Your first few efforts think of as a training. You'll get better and your tension more even with practice. If you end up not using your first square, don't worry, you can always undo it and use the wool again.

My first big blanket started off with really loose tension and ended up much tighter, I had to go up from a 3.5mm to a 5mm hook. I now use a 5mm hook all the time for DK as it corrects my tight tension.