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I’ve been what I consider to be a pretty good knitter for a relatively long time now, but I have never been one to crochet. It just never took the way that knitting did.
I’ve been trying on and off to do something about that for the past couple of years, and it occured to me the other day that it would probably be a lot faster to crochet some baby things than it would be to knit them, if only I had the skill required.
Yesterday I happened to get an overwhelming urge to crochet. So I pulled out some scrap cotton and started knitting baby-sized washcloths.
The first one, in single crochet, was pretty successful, if I say so myself, for a first real crochet project ever:
I decided to keep a good thing going and worked a bit of a half-double crochet cloth, until I ran out of that color of yarn:
It might still be useful despite its small size. You can see the wheels were starting to fall off the wagon a bit, as this one gets progressively skinnier.
Then I decided to give double crochet a whirl. I’d never even practiced double crochet before, and I tried to crochet while watching anime in semi-darkness, all of which goes to explain the freakish nature of my last effort:
Clearly I do not yet know where the row is supposed to end. But I imagine this will wipe up baby spit and other things just fine, even if it is completely misshapen.
What I Learned from a Day of Crochet
- I still have a long way to go.
- Like any new skill, time and practice is essential. If I could crochet even 10 minutes a day, in a week or so I’d be so much better.
- As in knitting, where casting on loosely is important, making those slip stitches for your foundation row loose is essential.
- My first rows would still take longer than any other row, even if my slip stitches were loose.
- I need to pay more attention to where the end of the row is supposed to be, and maybe even count my stitches every now and then (shocking!)
- I need to not be so excited about trying a “real” project that I skip the fundamentals. More easy flat stuff (hopefully with straighter edges) is in my future before I try a sweater, or even a baby hat.
Not bad for a day’s work. If anyone has good beginner crochet resources (or patterns, especially for little ones) they’d like to share, I’d love to see them.
