It’s taken me about an hour to crochet a single chain of 20 stitches. That’s not good, is it? Even for a beginner. Things had better improve.
I looked up the instructions in Stitch ‘n Bitch
They made it look oh so, oh so easy.
And I’m sure it is, when you can work out what to do with all those spare fingers on your left hand. Some of them have to hold what you’ve already crocheted together, some of them have to pull the wool tight, one of them has to stick up in the air and act as a feeder for the incoming wool, even though it feels so much more natural to curl it around and use it to pinch the incoming yarn.
I naively thought that knocking up a quick scarf by the end of winter would be a doddle, but when I got to the end of my first chain of stitches I realised that I didn’t understand the instructions for turning around and going back on myself to make the next row.
But I will persevere. I think a bobble hat may be too ambitious for a beginner like me, but seriously, how difficult could a scarf be?
Related posts:
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Knitting takes practice to become easy – it’s not something that you can just sit down and do. Looking at your picture – your tension is fairly good – the stitches are fairly evenly loose/tight. A lot of us older ones learned to knit by making squares for charity blankets (someone else sewed them together). I’d suggest that you cast on say 20 stitches and knit a small square then cast off. Then do another with the same number of stitches, do one row kit and one row purl till you have the same size as the other one and cast off. Now do one more – same size but knit two, purl two, knit two purl two all along one row and coming back purl two knit two, purl two knit two and repeat these rows till you have a third square and cast off. Your next trick is to get two balls of different colour wools. Cast on, knit two rows of one colour and then join in with the other colour for two rows, go back to first colour and so on. Cast off at the end. The loose ends of the colour where you have to cut the ball off can be sewn into the edge of the square. You now have the very basic skills to do knitting. Now you can think about your scarf. Good luck and lets see pictures to follow eh?
Thanks, Christine. That sounds like a lot to get my head around, but I’m going to give ‘proper’ knitting a go. I remember my grandmother teaching me when I was a kid (although she always did the casting-on and -off), so I’m keen to see how much I can remember.
On the subject of crochet – I am an avid crocheter and I have to say that the chain and first row are always the most difficult for me, just because there’s no weight to your work. It keeps twisting and moving. When you’ve got a bit done, it’s much easier to hold it and control it, and therefore to focus on the hook.
And crochet is so much fun – doing funky patterns and flowers and motifs and things, which you can then attach to other things. It’s very versatile, and you don’t have to worry about dropping stitches, which is what I struggle with on knitting.
Check out attic24′s website, if you haven’t already. She’s got really easy-to-follow guides on some simple things like snowflakes for Christmas decorations.