Crochet blanket - where to start

[Almahart]

I would like to make a beautiful crochet blanket.

I'm a good knitter but have never crocheted. I know I could scour Ravelry and order yarn and so on but to be honest, I quite fancy buying a kit.

I've looked at Janie Crowther and all her beautiful things but I think I fancy something a bit simpler.

Any ideas?

I've just tried to learn and can't even get the hang of the chain stitch. Followed a book, YouTube videos etc. Incredibly frustrating and I realise it may because I'm mirroring the instructions as I'm left handed.

I quite like doing granny square blankets....easy to pick up and put down, and I quite like joining them together, I use a zip join technique which is really super as you get a nice flat join, no buckling and lovely if you do it in a contrasting colour.

Recently I wanted to do a Attic 24 ripple blanket but I got about six inches in and was tearing my hair out with the tedium, so I frogged it out and did the Coastal crochet stash buster and am so pleased with it...I'll try and post a pic later from my phone.

Moogly does a lot of CALs, and I often browse through years of those to pick out the nice squares. :o

My hydrangea took about 4 months but I was only working on it for an hour or so in an evening.

SuperPug - keep at it! I found crochet so much harder to learn than knitting, and still now if I don't do it for a while, I almost feel like I have to re-learn, but you can get the hang of it.

If you're left handed, have you tried watching the videos in a mirror?

@SuperPug ..moogly does left handed tutorials for practically everything...have a look on there.

Moogly will be US terms won't it? Or does she do both?

C2C sounds a good idea, or granny squares. The problem with a simple striped blanket is that the first row you need to tackle involves a huge amount of doing the very hardest thing you ever have to do in crochet, which is crochet into a lengthy chain. I sometimes wonder if there’s a business idea in kits where this has been done for you.

I leant how to do a chainless foundation row to avoid the tediousness of the foundation chain - game changer!

But probably not one for a beginner 😂

I like attic24's designs but not the yarn she uses (is it Stylecraft Special DK?). It seemed a bit thin & not so nice to use.

Join as you go is more fun than sewing squares together afterwards, although you can't audition all the colours & are stuck with earlier choices. But the technique always seems a bit magical to me, having come late to crochet after decades of knitting, with the inevitable sewing up at the end of a project. The idea that you can make something without any sewing at all (apart from ends) is wonderful!

What do you think about buying yarn privately at the moment? A type of yarn I really like but rarely find has come up on ebay, but it's only 2 balls from a private seller & has been out of its original bag. Would you buy it? Should I?

I'd probably buy it. I just bought some hand-dyed yarn from Etsy.

YesILikeItToo

Great idea! Not just the chain, but the foundation row(s) of a complicated, multi-row design as well, so that you can just go straight into the repeating rows. I'm often 1 stitch out when I go back along the chain, or I end up with loops in places because my chains weren't all identical.

lazylinguist
I'm soooo tempted. It's a pretty combination of colours, & one I've not used before.

Go for it! I was tempted into the Etsy yarn by a post on Instagram. It was stupidly expensive but so lovely! I'm waiting for the circular needles I've ordered from Amazon to make a cowl with it. How is it that however many gazillions of needles I have, I never seem to have the size I need for the latest project I fancy?!

I'd buy it. Leave it in the package for a week if you're worried about it from a contamination aspect.

Thanks to everyone for their tips on getting over the dread of joining squares. Lots of wise words and practical advice.

I loved the look of the lacy crochet joins demonstrated by the two Scandi guys on the sofa. It really brought the squares into a cohesive whole. A bit like good grouting both spaces and unifies lovely tiling!

And chainless foundation looks amazing, SoupDragon. I don't find the chaining tedious so much as difficult to handle. It flops and spirals because it has no weight to it. So have bookmarked that too.

It's stretchier than a chain too.

ahhh I am not sure about moogly and US vs UK @Soupdragon ....I flip flop between the two, once I see SC for single crochet I fall into it without even breaking stride

Me too :)

A beginner might not notice though.

SuperPug - I can knit but could never work out crochet. Tried and failed multiple times. But, this weekend, I've finally got it! Well, I've worked out how to do a granny square. I keep making mistakes and undoing but I'm not bothered about that yet. I just want to understand what I'm meant to be doing before I work on technique.

I found Jayda good to explain the basics (I only watched the first 5 or 10 minutes) .

And then when I just wanted reminding about how many of this or that stitch this one ilove-crochet.com/how-to-crochet-beautiful-granny-square/ It's Spanish but I can mute it and read the numbers on the screen.

I'll learn some other stitches eventually but, for now, am just thrilled I've finally worked this out .

Edith - the world is your oyster now - go for it!

. And it's so much faster than knitting!

It's the faster than knitting thing that attracts me! I wouldn't dream of knitting a blanket it would take forever....

Would anyone be kind enough to link a c2c square here?

If you look on YouTube for BellaCoCo she's got tutorials for c2c squares, as well as all the basic stitches and other squares.

I was a knitter, too, but taught myself to crochet using BellaCoCo 5years ago because DS2 wanted a blanket to take to uni. There was no way I was knitting one. I did him Attic 24's coastal ripple. I did a small baby blanket for my niece first so I got the hang of it.