CROCHET TUTORIAL

FOR BEGINNERS

CROCHET
BASICS

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Table Of Contents

03 HOLD A HOOK & YARN

07 COUNT STITCHES, ROUNDS, AND

ROWS

09
IDENTIFY THE RIGHT SIDE OF
CROCHET

11 USE STITCH MARKERS

13 CROCHET ABBREVIATIONS

14 READ A CROCHET PATTERN

15 YARN OVER
 HOW TO HOLD A CROCHET
HOOK AND YARN
As a crochet beginner, one of the first things you’ll need to learn is how to
get a grip on your crochet tools. The wonderful thing about crochet is that
you only need 2 things – a hook and some yarn. If you’re right-handed, hold
the hook in your right hand and yarn in the other. If you’re left-handed,
switch sides.

How to hold a crochet hook

(step-by-step with photos)

1. Overhand grip
Hold the hook like a knife.

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 2. Pencil grip
Or hold the hook like a pencil, resting the hook on
your middle finger and holding it between your
thumb and pointer finger.

How to hold crochet yarn

(step-by-step with photos)
Hold the yarn with your right hand. There are lots of ways to hold yarn—the
way I hold it is the way my mom taught me. Just like with the hook grip, do
what’s comfiest for you. The most important thing is to keep constant
tension with the working yarn, so that your stitches come out evenly. Did
you read that last sentence and wonder—does my yarn have a 9-to-5 job?
Let’s pause and cover some terminology:

WORKING YARN: The yarn connected to the

ball. It’s the yarn you’ll literally “work” with to
crochet.
TAIL: The end of the yarn.

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1.Turn your left palm to face you. Hold 2. Wrap the working yarn once around
your piece in front of your hand. your pinky, so that the piece ends up
behind your hand.

3. Bring the piece up the back of your 4. Hold onto the piece with your thumb
hand until you can drape it over your and middle finger. Move the yarn tail
pointer finger. behind your piece. To tighten or loosen
the tension of the working yarn, move
your pointer finger towards or away
from you. The loop for the hook should
be in the upper right-hand corner, and
your next stitch will be crocheted to the
right.

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 TIP
If your working yarn is super loose after following these steps,
try doing step 2 as close as possible to your piece.

When you put it all together, the hook should be in front of your working
yarn. Your final crocheting position should look something like this:

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 PARTS OF A CROCHET STITCH
When you’re new to crocheting, you’ll probably ask yourself: “where, oh where does my
crochet hook go next?” after almost every stitch you make. Unless a pattern says
otherwise, put the hook under both top loops. Sometimes a pattern might tell you to
put the hook through the front loop only (flo) or back loop only (blo). To do that, first
make sure the right side of your piece is facing you. Then insert the hook under only one
of the top loops. The loop closer to you is the front loop, and the loop further from you
is the back loop.

Crochet through both loops

Unless the pattern says otherwise, This creates an even look

start a new stitch by inserting the throughout your work.
hook under both top loops.

CROCHET THROUGH FRONT LOOPS ONLY (TFLO)

With the right side of your This will create a ridge on the
work facing you, insert the wrong side of your work.
hook under only the front loop.
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 CROCHET THROUGH BACK LOOPS ONLY (TBLO)

With the right side of your This will create a ridge on the
work facing you, insert the wrong side of your work.
hook under only the front loop.

How do you tell where to insert your hook into next? If you’re right-
handed, the next stitch is to the left of the one you just completed. If you’re
left-handed, the next stitch is to the right. Either way, with the right side of
your piece facing you, a completed stitch looks like a vertical V. To find
where to insert your hook to create the next stitch, look at your piece from
the top down and look for the next horizontal V.

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 HOW TO IDENTIFY THE RIGHT AND
WRONG SIDE OF CROCHET
There’s a so-called right and wrong side of crochet. That sounds a bit
harsh, so another way of thinking about it is that there’s a front and back
side to your work. Here’s a picture of the same pattern, with the wrong side
versus the right side facing out.

The wrong side has horizontal bars throughout the piece (left). The right
side looks like a bunch of Vs (right).

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 TELLING THE RIGHT SIDE VS WRONG SIDE IN
CROCHET (STEP-BY-STEP WITH PHOTOS)
When crocheting in a round, your piece will naturally curl at some point. The
direction it naturally curls will make the wrong side face you. To make the
right side face you, follow these steps:

1. Make sure the wrong side is 2. Push the middle of the piece until
facing you. The wrong side has it flips inside out.
horizontal bars.

3. The right side will now be facing 4. Rotate your piece until the open
you, but your piece will be upside edge is on top of the piece, and the
down. To make it easier to keep loop for the hook is on the side of
crocheting . . . the circle closest to you. The
outside of your piece should now
look like it’s made of vertical Vs.

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 HOW TO USE A STITCH MARKER
Beginner crocheters are often guided towards working on projects that are
crocheted in rows (i.e. scarves). Crocheting in the round starts with
crocheting a circle, and then working your way around the circle to build
more rounds. It’s easy to lose track of where you are when crocheting in
the round because, if things are going well, it should be impossible to tell
where one round ends and another begins.

HOW TO USE A STITCH MARKER TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR

PROGRESS (STEP-BY-STEP WITH PHOTOS)

Always put a stitch marker under the top loops of the first stitch of your
current round. Future you will be oh-so-grateful for a number of reasons:

You’ll catch mistakes early on. Every time you finish a round, count the
number of stitches in the round and make sure it matches the pattern.
Use the stitch marker as the starting point for the count.
When you lose count of your stitches, just start counting from the
stitch marker to find your place again.
When you inevitably make a mistake, undo your stitches up to the
stitch marked by the stitch marker. (Otherwise, you’ll have to undo
everything every time you make a mistake. And trust me, that’s no fun.)

So do future you a huge favor, and learn how to use stitch markers to
properly keep track of your stitches.

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1. Crochet the first stitch of the 2. Insert the stitch marker under
round. both top loops of
the stitch you just made, and clip
it closed like a
safety pin.

TIP
Insert the stitch marker
3. Crochet the rest of the round as from the front to the
you normally would. When you’ve back of the piece, with
crocheted into the last hole before the open edge on the
the stitch marker, you’re done. bottom. This way, you
Count the number of stitches in can use your thumb to
the round, starting with the one help push the stitch
marked by the stitch marker. marker open.
(Remember, the loop on the hook
does not count as a stitch.) If it
matches the pattern, then
congrats! You can move onto the
next round.
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 HOW TO READ CROCHET ABBREVIATIONS
At first glance, crochet patterns look like a foreign language. They use a lot of
abbreviations and symbols, but once you get used to decoding them, they actually
make it easier to read a pattern.

Before diving into a pattern, check to see if it’s written in US or UK terminology. The
same stitches are named differently based on the country. Here’s a list of the
abbreviations used in US terms, plus their UK equivalent:

US TERMINOLOGY UK TERMINOLOGY

blo through back loops only bl through back loops only

ch chain ch chain

dc double crochet tr treble crochet

bobble stitch,
bobble stitch, treblecrochet 5
doublecrochet 5
dc5tog tr5tog stitchestogether (or any
stitchestogether (or any
numberof stitches)
numberof stitches)

dec decrease dec decrease

flo through front loops only fl through front loopsonly

hdc half double crochet htr half treble crochet

inc increase inc increase

rnd round rnd round

sc single crochet dc double crochet

single crochet 3 double crochet 3
sc3tog dc3tog
stitchestogether stitchestogether

sk st skip stitch - miss

sl st slip stitch ss slip stitch

sl st
slip stitch join ss join slip stitch join
join

st stitch st stitch

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 HOW TO READ A CROCHET
PATTERN
At first glance, crochet patterns can look like a foreign language. That’s because they
use a lot of abbreviations to save space, and make it easier to keep track of where you
are in the pattern. Over time, you’ll begin to appreciate the brevity of crochet patterns
and become a pro at reading them. There are really only 2 things you need to know
when reading a crochet pattern:

1. What country are the crochet terms from?

Different countries have different words for the same stitches. For example, the British
English term double crochet (dc), is actually the same term as the American English
term single crochet (sc). As you may imagine, this can get confusing fast. Most patterns
begin by defining which country’s terminology they use, as well as any abbreviations
used. Here are some common abbreviations used in amigurumi written with US
terminology:

rnd: round
yo: yarn over
sc: single crochet
inc: increase
dec: decrease
ch: chain

2. How do you read crochet patterns?

Different crochet pattern designers use different formats to convey their instructions.
This is also usually defined at the beginning of the pattern. You can expect that there
will be repetition of stitches, which is probably the most confusing part to reading a
pattern. Some patterns use brackets ((…), […]) or multiplier indicators (*, x), to convey
which stitches you should repeat and for how many times.

Below is an example of Crochet patterns written in US terminology :

Rnd 3: [sc, inc] x 6(18)
This means that for round 3, repeat the sequence of [1 sc followed by 1 inc] a total of 6
times.
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Which also could've been written as:
[sc, inc] [sc, inc] [sc, inc] [sc, inc] [sc, inc] [sc, inc]
Or with a lot more words:
[single crochet stitch in the first stitch, then 2 single crochet stitches in the next
stitch] for a total of 6 times
(Are you starting to dig abbreviations yet? 😉)
Since 1 increase stitch = 2 single crochet stitches, 1 increase stitch counts as 2 stitches.
1 single crochet stitch counts as 1 stitch.

Therefore, that's [3 stitches] repeated 6 times, for a final count of 18 stitches.

HOW TO YARN OVER IN CROCHET

Yarning over, abbreviated yo, is one of the basic building blocks of most crochet
stitches. To create different types of stitches, it may be used before or after the hook is
inserted into the piece, or multiple times per stitch.

1. Position the hook in front of the 2. Bring the yarn from behind the
yarn. hook to the front of the hook, over the
top of the hook.

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