Lessons
Class Introduction
00:48 2What You Need To Get Started
12:59 3The Yarn Label and What is Gauge?
08:01 4How To Chain Stitch
04:32 5How to Single Crochet Stitch
07:55 6How to Half-Double Crochet Stitch
06:17 7How to Double Crochet Stitch
06:01 8How to Triple Crochet Stitch
06:17Lesson Info
How To Chain Stitch
All right, so no matter what project that you make at any time, anywhere, you're gonna have to start with a foundation chain. And most of the time, that means using just the regular, plain old chain stitch method, and I'm gonna show you how to do that now. All right, so for the chain stitch, you need to start with a slip knot. And for those of you that don't remember it from your Scouts days, to do that, you just need to leave a little bit of a tail. You're gonna make a little loop or what I think looks like a little cursive e. Push the tail or just part of the tail up through that loop. You can see it come up right there. And you've created the slip knot. I'm gonna show you one more time just for assurance purposes. So you're gonna make the loop. Take the pieces on the top. This is the tail, by the way, and the other strand that's attached to the ball of yarn is called the working yarn. So you're gonna take the tail, push that up through the loop. You've created a new loop. And now yo...
u've got your slip knot. So you want to take your slip knot and place it on your hook, and the cool thing, the reason why you use a slip knot and not just like a regular old knot is that this allows you to loosen or tighten it. So you want to tighten it so it's firm, but not so tight that you can't slide it up and down the hook. Okay, so now you're gonna grasp your hook in your right hand, and you're going to, with your left hand, take the working yarn, put it around your forefinger. And I like to use my other fingers as just a guide, whatever works for you though. If you find a way that's more comfortable for you, by all means, please do it. Then, I use my middle finger and my thumb, and I pinch the knot. What this is, is this is holding this loop right in place. So now I'm going to wrap the yarn around, lasso style, and you'll see that this little thumb area on the hook is made perfectly for you to turn the hook to make it easier to pull that strand through the loop. And you've created your first chain stitch. So we go to the next one. We're gonna grab, scoop that yarn, or wrap it around, whatever helps you to make that happen. And then you start turning the hook and pulling it through. And as you do that, you're going to want to move where you're holding, where you're pinching, up to closer towards it. What that's doing is that's keeping the piece taught. Let me show you what happens if I try doing it without pinching it. It's like maddening (laughs). It doesn't go well, right? So what you want to do is you want to make things easier on yourself, and you want to give it a nice, firm, sort of a bridge to pass through, if you will. So you scoop it and bring it through, and you're just gonna do this for as many of the chains as the pattern calls for. Or, what's cool about crochet is that, depending on what stitch, if you go into crazy stitch patterns, this doesn't apply, but for basic stitches, you can kind of, if you know what you want to make, you can kind of just crochet as many chains for the length that you want something to be. It's pretty cool. So there's less kind of mathiness to that portion of it, which I enjoy. So I'm just gonna show you just a few more. Scoop and around. And that creates this long foundation chain. Now, if you want, you could stop right here, and you could just chain your little heart out. I have had people make these and just chain and then stop, and that's it. And they turn them into bows for presents. I did a super long one once to be garland on a Christmas tree. Old-school hair girl, or girl hair bows are cute, or just in general just a practice piece. I found, with crochet, it's really nice just to practice these individual elements. So this, my friends, is a chain stitch. And when you read it in a pattern, it'll have the abbreviation of ch. But all of the abbreviations that you need for crochet are found in bonus materials online, so you don't need to worry about remembering that right now. All right, let's see what we can do next.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Corrine Radergraham
Excellent presentation by the instructor. Clear, concise and perfect for a beginning crocheter. Informative tips and tricks. Vickie is a sparkler! Check out her knitting course too, it's equally well done.
Shyma Shukri
I loved this course!! Everything is clearly explained. Thank you Vickie💕
Lindsey Little
I'm completely new to crocheting and this class was extremely helpful. It was concise and thorough at the same time. I feel confident that I can complete the sample projects included in the course and I can't wait to get started!