How To Crochet For Beginners: Free Step-by-Step Guide

Why should I learn to Crochet?

Crochet is a wonderful hobby which is great for relaxing and helps with improving mental health. After publishing many crochet tutorials on YouTube, I’ve had countless messages from people around the world telling me that learning how to crochet has changed their lives.

Is Crochet difficult to learn?

I truly believe that anyone can learn how to crochet at their own pace. After following this ‘crochet for beginners’ guide, you will understand the key elements which will lay the foundation skills in order to move onto creating your own projects.

As with most things, it takes time and practice and perseverance. I HIGHLY recommend that you feel confident with each technique before progressing to the next technique.

Where to start when learning how to Crochet?

Luckily, crocheting doesn’t require a great deal of tools in order to get started. To begin, you need to have a few tools on hand:

– Yarn

– Crochet Hook

Lets look a little further into these as there are option within the two that are more suited to a beginner.

Yarn

It may be a little overwhelming when it comes to choosing a yarn at first. There are many different materials and yarn weights. Yarn materials are generally split into natural fibres such as cotton yarn, wool, alpaca, and merino and factory-made fibres such as acrylic, nylon and synthetic yarn. Which you choose may come down to what type of project you are making and your own personal preference.

Weight

When it comes to the different weights in yarn, you may find a few terms being used for the same weight. I write a little bit more about this in my book ‘You Can Crochet with Bella Coco’ and it may be something you want to explore further down the line.

I would recommend a DK (Double Knit) weight yarn or an Aran weight yarn (worsted-weight yarn/medium weight yarn) to begin with. A few affordable option to get started are Stylecraft Special DK or Paintbox Simply Aran. These are an all acrylic yarn with a huge variety of colours available.

Crochet Hook

There are many different crochet hook sizes to choose from. This is because you need to match a crochet hook size to the yarn weight you are using. You will need to look at your yarn label (also known as a yarn band) to see what size HOOK you will need. The instructions usually give you details for different measurements used around the world, Please watch the video here where I show you where to locate these details. You can also find a handy conversion chart here. In my demonstration, I am using a 5mm aluminium crochet hook.

Other tools needed

You will also need a pair of EMBROIDERY SCISSORS for snipping your yarn (they are sharp and better for yarn) and a DARNING NEEDLE (a large sewing needle with a wide head) for sewing in your ends. STITCH MARKERS also come in handy, however they are not essential at this point.

So to recap, you will need:

• Yarn 
• Crochet Hook (or Hook Set)
• Embroidery Scissors
• Darning Needle (yarn needle)
• Stitch Markers (not essential at first)
• Measuring Tape (not essential at first but handy to have in your crochet kit!)

How to Crochet Step-by-step guide

Step 1: Holding the Crochet hook

You can hold you hook in whichever way feels natural to you. I’ll be using my right hand as that’s my dominant hand, however, for you, it could be your left hand. Here are two of the most common holding methods but I must stress that I have seen many variations of these over time. So give both ways a go and see what comes most naturally to you. You’ll be using your dominant hand to hold your hook.

Knife Hold

As the name suggests, you’ll be holding your hook like a knife with the handle of the hook in the palm of your hand and holding the hook with your index finger and thumb.

Pencil Hold

You’ll be holding your hook like a pencil, gripping with your index finger and thumb (supporting with your middle finger).

Step 3: Slip Knot

We need to begin by making a slip knot to put on our hook.

To make a slip knot:

1. Wrap yarn around index finger from front to back, bringing the tail end to the front.
2. Loop the working end of yarn over the finger from front to back.
3. Pull the back loop over the front loop.
4. Continue to pull the back loop off your finger. Remove remaining loop off finger and insert crochet hook.

Step 4: Foundation Chain

A foundation chain forms the base of many crochet projects. This will create chains in which the following stitches will be worked into.

After you have made your slip knot, you will form your foundation chain.

1. Insert your hook into the slip knot, holding your hook and yarn as described above. Use your thumb and middle finger to hold onto the slip knot. Then, wrap the yarn around the hook from back to front, this is called a ‘yarn over’.
2. Pull the yarn through the loop on your hook. You may need to rotate your hook downwards slightly in order to stop the hook catching on the loop.
3. Your first chain has been made.
4. Continue to yarn over and pull through the loop on the hook to make a chain.

The key here is to ensure you are not pulling too tightly on your stitches, as this will make it harder to work the following row into. You can experiment by using a larger hook at first if this helps. 

Now that you have your chain, let’s take a deeper look.

Front of the chain

When a foundation chain is made, it creates small V’s on the front of the chain. Each V is a chain and these are the spaces that will be worked into when working your stitches.

Back of the chain

Some patterns will call for you to work into the ‘back bumps’ of a chain, these are the ‘bumps’ that can be found at the back of the chain. Ultimately, this will give the work a neater finish. I would suggest you working into the v’s as above until you become a little more confident with starting a project.

With this in mind, I’ll demonstrate how to work into the front of foundation chain. Depending on what stitch you will work, will depend on which chain you will begin working in first. You will be working into the centre of each V.

Video tutorial (What you need, slip knot and chaining)