Crochet, as with all hobbies, you've got your "inside language" to learn so you can understand what your fellow crochet artists are talking about. In crochet you will also learn about the basic stitches, hooks and yarns to use.
Let’s begin with the more common abbreviations used in crocheting:
There are other abbreviations you will use, but as a beginner in crochet, these are the most basic abbreviations you will need to memorize. Before we go into the basic stitches, we’ll mention the foundation chain, a key term in crocheting. Just as a house needs a solid foundation, crocheting needs a foundation as well. The foundation chain is defined as a cross-stitched row that serves as the base of your crocheting. It holds all your stitches and all the succeeding rows you will make.
Single Crochet – this is the first of the basic stitches. It is the shortest stitch and results in a firm, flat product. To make a single crochet, make sure the front side of the chain is facing you, then insert the hook through a chain, yarn over, pull the loop through the chain, yarn over again, and pull through both loops on the hook.
Double Crochet – as in single crochet, pass the hook from the front to the back of the work through the upper loop of a stitch of the previous row. The thread is caught on the hook and drawn through this loop.
Half-Double Crochet – a cross between a single crochet and a double crochet stitch. Begin with a yarn over, insert the hook into a stitch, yarn over and pull through the stitch; do another yarn over and pull through the three loops on your hook.
Triple Crochet – the last of the basic stitches and also the tallest. To make a triple crochet, yarn over the hook twice; insert the hook into the stitch, yarn over again and pull through the first of two loops (the two closest to the end point); yarn over again and pull through the next two loops. Yarn over one last time and pull through the remaining two loops.
Hooks come in various sizes, shapes and the material they’re made of. There are also the small steel hooks which are used with very fine cotton yarns. Aluminum and steel hooks sometimes are manufactured with plastic handles for a better grip (called “soft touch” handles). These plastic handles also put less pressure on the fingers. One thing to be cautious about is that there appear to be no standard hook sizes among manufacturers. The points and throats of different brands of hooks come in different shapes and these shapes affect the size of stitch they produce.
Parts of a Hook: a crochet hook is made up of four parts – point, throat, thumb rest and shank. The point goes into the stitch on the crocheted fabric; the throat catches the yarn. Note that the throat has to be sized accordingly in proportion to the yarn being used.
The shank holds the loops that you’re working with, and is the part of the hook that determines stitch size. Finally, the thumb rest is an area where you rest your thumb to help you turn the hook easily while working. Going from smallest to largest, aluminum or plastic hooks go from size B to Q – 2.50 mm to 15.00 mm (US), and size 14 to 2 – 2.00 mm to 7.00 mm (British). One good thing to bear in mind is that the size of your yarn dictates your hook size.
There is a slight confusion regarding yarn sizes, but don’t let that discourage you. One system classifies yarn into five categories based on the approximate diameter of the yarn:
The other system classifies yarn based on the number of stitches per 4-inch swatch of knitting stockinette stitch:
Pay special attention to gauge, an indispensable component of crochet. It can make or break your project. Correct size of the project depends on gauge. Gauge depends on the hook size, yarn size and the mood you’re in that day. When working with a crochet pattern, the hook size is usually recommended, although you can choose to work more tightly or loosely than what the pattern suggests, but you need to work at exactly the gauge the pattern requires in order to reproduce the work accurately.
Gauge has two parts: stitch gauge and row gauge. Stitch gauge is the number of stitches in a given length of a row; row gauge is the height of the number of rows. Don’t be tempted to skip the gauge swatch. Keep making swatches until your stitch gauge is correct; if you need to change hooks to make the right gauge, do so.
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