Crochet Baby Blanket With Flower embellishments

Yellow crochet baby blanket with three white flowers in each corner and a simple white border.

 

 I originally planned to publish a pattern for this blanket. Then I was crunched for time and didn’t design my own crochet flowers. Then I decided a tutorial aimed at helping you design your own baby blanket would be more helpful anyway.

The blanket I made is fairly simple. It is yellow with a white border and three crochet flowers in each corner. They are small five petal flowers that I learned how to make from this blog post.

The first thing you need to do to make your own blanket is to figure out your gauge in the stitch pattern you want. I chose to use a plain single crochet background so I made a swatch of about 20 single crochet stitches and worked even until I had about 4 inches of fabric. My gauge ended up being 10 stitches per 4 inches. It really doesn’t come out that even very often. I wanted the blanket to be about 36” including the border. Allowing an inch for the border on each side it would need to be 34” so with my gauge of 10 stitches per 4 inches, I would need 85 stitches. Simple enough. Then I just continued working row upon row of single crochet until the blanket was square. I added a border of 4 single crochet rows in white. I was going for a classic and clean effect but you could use any kind of border you wanted. A lace border would be really pretty. There are a couple of things to note when working a crochet border in the round. You need to work three stitches into each corner stitch/ this makes the corners square. Another thing to remember is when you get to the end of the round you join the stitch you just finished to the first stitch of the round with a slip stitch. Then you chain 1 for single crochet and turn the work to start the next round.

 

Closeup of white crochet flowers in the corner of a yellow baby blanket. Also shows a white border.

 

I added 12 flowers to my blanket. They were small and I put 3 in each corner. You can use as few or as many flowers as you want. It would even be nice to use just one large flower or none at all. Be creative and experiment.

The yarn I used was Bernat Softee Baby in Lemon and White. I double stranded the yarn and needed 4 balls of Lemon and 1 ball of white. You can make a baby blanket as thick or thin as you want it. Just figure out your gauge and how many stitches you need.

This is the baby blanket I made for my cousin who is due any day now. Her first two children wore holes in their baby blankets so I’m hoping this one holds up a little longer. One thing I know is that it will be very well loved.

Getting Through the Boring Bits

Aside from socks, my favorite knitting project is capes, groovy substitutes for sweaters or jackets. The concept is simple enough: I make a collar or neckband as I would for a sweater; then I increase at regular or irregular intervals until the garment is 2 feet (60 cm) long. I just finished one, in fact, a frothy thing in spring pinks and greens made of a tulle-like cotton-silk ribbon yarn.

There one big drawback is that rows get longer as the cape grows, so the rows in the last few inches before the bind off can take one to two hours, depending on the number of stitches and on the complexity of the stitch pattern being used. Not surprisingly then, however exciting the project was in the beginning and however high my motivation is to wear it, the last vertical third of the cape turns the Zen of knitting into a twitchy fear of boredom and an unwillingness to keep on keeping on.

So how does one plod along?

By doing something else at the same time.

I think I’ve mentioned here that my mom taught me to knit when I was in kindergarten, but beyond a few scarves, shawls, and blankets for my dolls and an anomalous blanket for myself in college, I didn’t do much with the craft until my mid thirties, When I took up the needles again.

Initially, when I returned to knitting, I could not do anything while I knit. I had to concentrate on what I was doing, especially once I started working with interesting stitch patterns. After a year or two, I found my mind wandering, so I started knitting while my favorite TV shows were on, saving the tricky needle maneuvers for commercial breaks. Over time, I realized that I was getting wild and exotic with my needles even during the most dramatic scenes, a discovery which gave me confidence to try stitches that were more involved while my shows were on.

By this point, I had wholeheartedly embraced the power of multitasking during tedious stretches of yarn craft. My first intentional use of the power was when I came to terms with the fact that I’d put off fringing a shawl for over a year, so I cranked on AC/DC, Candlebox, and GodSmack, and fringed away. That worked so well that heavy metal became my cure for every-tedious-craft-related-thing from swatching to weaving in ends.

It occurred to me that I could move from music and TV to audiobooks. There really is no end to my gratitude for MP3 players and their capacity to play hours and hours of audio books without human intervention (the victor Stream rocks). I began with the comfortingly formulaic, steamy bodice rippers and murder mysteries, genres I read frequently and know well. I noticed the same pattern with audiobooks as for television: simple stitches (like stockinet, garter, or ribbing) at first with pauses for tricky knitting or complex listening, fewer pauses over time, and eventually, steady forward movement in both activities.

Since I learned to listen to books while I knit, I’ve gotten more knitting and more reading done, two fabulous outcomes. There are still times, of course, when I need to stop one activity in order to do the other well. Just yesterday, I got so caught up in a book that I kept screwing up the knitting. But for the most part, having an interesting distraction–like TV, music, or audiobook listening—is the best way to get through a long boring stretch of yarn.

Solids, Heathers, Jewels, and More

Colors can be something of a headache, and asking sighted people for clarification doesn’t help because each has a different notion of what color matches what and which color looks good on whom. So I’m not even going to pretend to go there. Instead, I’ll mention a few general bits and pieces about colors that may come in handy while working with yarn.

Some Basic Characteristics

Light and dark are contrasts. If you’re musically minded, think of light as one octave above middle C and dark as one octave below it. Think of muted, a dull version of the color, as quiet (piano), and think of vivid or saturated, a bold medium dark to dark variation, as loud (forte).

While most colors can be light medium or dark, white, yellow, pink, and lavender are light by definition, and black and red are dark by definition.

Solid yarns are the same color all the way through and make fabric that is uniform in color. A textural equivalent is the smooth public side of a store-bought knitted sweater.

Tweed yarns are solid yarns with flecks of different colors and make fabric that is uniformly not-solid. We all did a little weaving in elementary school or summer camp. (Remember the potholder?) The yarn and loom were big enough that the fabric we made had a definite grain and a clear textural pattern: the longer lines of the weft lay across the vertical warp, which was mostly hidden to the touch. This texture is like tweed: the solid background color is like the horizontal lines of the woven potholder that are easy to find with our fingers, and the flecks are like the tiny vertical bits that we can also feel. The foreground and background colors are so uniformly distributed that the fabric isn’t described as being two different colors though the two colors are seen.

Heather yarns are different muted shades of a single color. The different shades would be something like light blue, light-medium blue, medium blue, maybe a turquoise that’s more blue than green. Muted means that the colors are visually soft or grayish, like a dusty or fuzzy surface. The overall textural equivalent of a heathered fabric is like the fabric that results from working with slubby yarns, the yarns that are thick in some places, but thin in others. This type of fabric is full of subtle, but unmistakable variation. It has loose, almost lacey areas where thin yarns form a meshlike fabric; it has dense areas where thick loops interlock; and it has normal areas where thick and thin loops come together.

Variegated yarns are a dramatic version of the heathers. Variegation progresses through unmuted shades of the same color or more commonly from one color to another. The cape I’m making now has several shades of pink and peach, , a related lavender, white, and green. Texturally, the general effect is like making a slubby fabric, only imagine that the different fabrics—mesh, dense, and standard—are made of different yarns, maybe silk, wool, and cotton, so while the way one color or texture blends into the next is subtle, the over all effect is not.

Jewel tones are vivid medium or dark colors resembling gemstones (e.g., ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue). They’re usually solid or nearly solid (meaning subtle variations of the same bold color), and they draw the eye, so they’re best for items that make a statement, comparable to a melody heavy with fortissimos, allegros, or slinky syncopations.

Colors and Stitch Patterns

To show off stitch patterns, solids and heathers in light to medium shades work best.

The darker the yarn, the less likely people are to see the stitch patterns and the more impressed they’ll be by the person who could see well enough to knit or crochet with the color.

Variegated yarns are best for no-frills crafting, like stockinet, garter, or ribbing for knitters. People never see the stitches amid all the interesting color activity, so take it easy and let the variegation do the work.

Jewels are also good for no-frills stitching. The colors tend to be darker, and their vividness is pretty damn interesting in and of itself.

All of these are generalizations, of course. A sighted friend with color and craft sense can discourse on various nuances or, more likely, point out a specific yarn that does or doesn’t do well with intricate stitch patterns, but knowing broadly what these color terms mean and how they affect our work is takes some of the uncertainty about what to do with our yarn.

JKnit Knitting Project Assistant for IPhone

I recently invested in an IPhone. It has been amazing to be able to use every feature of a phone. I haven’t been able to do that since I lost my sight ten years ago. But, rather than gushing on all the wonderful things I can do with the phone, I’ll just tell you about one app I found.

JKnit is a knitting assistant app. It costs $5.99 so I was very hesitant to try it out. Luckily for me it works perfectly with voiceover. The app allows you to keep track of your projects by the piece and by the row. You can use the online web portal to input all your project directions along with the row numbers they affect. Then you sync the app and all the information transfers to the phone. JKnit has a built in row counter and each time you get to a row it shows the directions for that row.

I’ve really enjoyed having an easy row counter. I turned off screen lock within the app so all I have to do is position voiceover to the counter plus button and sinply double tap each time I start a row. It will keep your place on multiple projects and it’s just so easy.

I can’t say enough wonderful things about JKnit. As a blind knitter it’s even more helpful since it allows me to have an accessible version of the pattern wherever I am. It’s true that I can also read online and text versions of patterns with the IPhone but having one integrated with a row counter is even better. The online web portal is also easy to use. Copy and paste your individual pattern instructions and you’re ready to go. I highly recommend it and the price is well worth it.

Here are some links to more information on JKnit:

JKnit Knitting Project Assistant App

JKnit User Guide

Ravelry Group for JKnit App Users

Direct Link to JKnit in the ITunes Store

Winding Yarn the Modern Way

One of my favorite yarny gadgets is my Knit Picks Ball Winder. There are few things in life as miraculous and elegant as the center pull skein, a cylinder of yarn you just pull and pull from. Its one flaw, though, is that it gets misshapen and battered as it shrinks, so rewinding the leftover yarn becomes necessary when the project is finished or when yarn havoc is reeking as the work is still on the needles. “Grab a piece of paper, and wind around that,” you say. I can, but the paper slips out or loops of yarn drop off the ends, and I’ve got a tangled mess to take care of. This problem gets even bigger when I need to wind the yarn that comes in hanks, the braid-like twists expensive and handmade yarn is often sold in. For these jobs, nothing beats a ball winder or the cute cake-like center pull skeins it makes, and my favorite part of the ball winder made and sold by Knit Picks is that it gives users the option of a handle or a clamp, so they can pick where and how to use their winder.

This post is mostly about how to use a ball winder. The one I have is the Knit Picks Ball Winder, which sells for about 20 dollars, a good price, but the instructions should work for any ball winder since they all have a standard shape and work more or less the same. Mine is made out of durable plastic and is light-weight, so it’s easy to carry around the house. It’s relatively small, accommodating about 3.5 ounces or 100 grams of yarn, though thinner yarn works a little better than the thicker stuff.

The ball winder itself is a square platform with a tall wide-brimmed hat on top. One side of the platform has a crank, like the handle used to roll the windows in a car up and down, and on the other side of the platform is a sturdy L-shaped guiding wire that starts underneath and points straight up to the ceiling, like an arm bent at the elbow. These are the four important parts. The platform or base is the part that is clamped to a table. The “hat,” which is called a spindle assembly, is what the yarn wraps around. The crank is what turns the “hat” and causes the yarn to wrap evenly. The guiding wire is what keeps the yarn from tangling around the bottom of the spindle assembly and also lets the operator (you or I) put more or less tension on the yarn. The fifth part of the ball winder is the clamp or the fixed handle, depending on which either one of us is in the mood to use.

Clamping the Ball Winder to a Flat Surface

The clamp is a big L-shaped screw. The long leg of the screw has a wing nut and a large plastic wedge. The short leg of the screw has a small screw with a large head. To clamp the ball winder to the edge of a table, follow a few simple steps:

1. Remove the short screw from the short leg of the large screw.
2. Turn the ball winder so that the bottom of the base is facing the ceiling.
3. Locate a hole on the side of the platform. It is near the crank.
4. Insert the short leg of the clamp into this hole.
5. Locate a rectangular hole on the part of the base that is facing the ceiling now. It is inside a large recessed circle. You should have no trouble feeling the short leg of the screw in that rectangular hole.
6. Wind the short screw back into the short leg of the clamp. Make sure the long leg is pointing toward the ceiling.
7. Turn the ball winder right side up so that the bottom of the platform is facing the floor.
8. Set the ball winder on the edge of a table, slide the plastic wedge up to the underside of the table, and tighten the wing nut until the ball winder is firmly in place. For best results, place the ball winder near the corner of the table.

I position the ball winder so that the turn handle is to my left and the vertical guiding wire is to my right. Well, I guess I should say that I clamp the winder close to the corner of a table or counter and position myself in front of it so I can turn the crank with my left hand.

Winding the Yarn

Winding the yarn is essentially a three-step process, which involves running the yarn through the guiding wire, securing it on the top of the hat-shaped spindle assembly, and turning the crank. Here’s how that’s done:

1. Running the yarn through the guiding wire — Notice that the top of the guiding wire has a coil, really just a loop with a hanging tail. Lay the yarn between the two loops at the top of the guiding wire. The Yarn tail should be in front, and the ball end should be in back. Next, pull the yarn tail down, behind, and to the left of the wire tail. Then pull the ball end down, in front of, and to the right of the guiding wire. The yarn is now through both loops, with the tail end closest to the rest of the ball winder.
2. Securing the yarn — Notice that the top of the hat-shaped spindle assembly has two grooves, where the bullet grazed the wearer as she ducked down. Turn the “hat” so that one of the grooves is close to the guiding wire. Then lay the yarn across the “crown of the hat,” positioned in both grooves. I like to leave a longish tail, at least 6 inches (15 cm). Some people like to put a stitch marker or safety pin around the yarn at the “crown” so they can find it easily.
3. Turning the crank – Pull the guiding wire toward you as far as it goes. Place your right hand on the guiding wire, loosely holding the yarn against the wire itself or against the table near the wire. Then turn the crank clockwise with your left hand at a slow steady rate, and use your right hand to put a small amount of tension on the yarn that is being fed to the ball winder.

When I was new to winding yarn, my preferred method was to cup my right hand around the guiding wire. I could use my palm to keep track of the yarn being fed to the winder, and I still had my fingers free to check that the yarn was wrapping correctly around the spindle assembly. Now I don’t bother checking the spindle assembly because I can tell I’ve got problems when I feel heaviness or lightness as I turn the crank.

Winding While Walking

If, like me, you don’t have very many good flat surfaces to clamp your ball winder to, you can remove the clamp from the Knit Picks model and attach the fixed handle. The handle is about as long as the guiding wire, and its general shape is like the handles at both ends of a big rolling pin.

Attaching the handle is simple.

1. Turn the ball winder so that the bottom of the base is facing the ceiling.
2. Run a finger around the flat end of the fixed handle, noticing two small tabs around the edge.
3. Locate a large circular recess in the center of the base.
4. Run a finger around the circular recess in the base, noticing two small notches around the edge.
5. Position the fixed handle in the circular recess so that the tabs fit into the notches. (This is where technical manuals get all male-and-female).
6. Twist the fixed handle clockwise until you feel it click into place.

The winding process is the same. The yarn is run through the guiding wire, secured on the spindle assembly, and wrapped around the device with the crank. In fact, the first few times I wound yarn, I balanced the winder on my stomach or thigh while I did exactly what I described in the previous section.

Once I felt comfortable with the process, though, I grabbed the winder by the fixed handle, catching the yarn between the handle and my palm, and cranked away. I paused to check frequently the first few times, but eventually learned to trust the yarn and the crank to let me know what was going on.

I decided to get a ball winder because I had a few hanks of yarn to work with, but I bought the cheapest one I could find because I thought I wouldn’t use it very often. It’s turned out to be one of the handiest gadgets I have, and I really do use it fairly often. I’m glad I got the Knit Picks Ball Winder because, aside from selling at a great price, it gave me a chance to experiment with the clamp and the fixed handle. I discovered I’m a fixed handle kind of gal, so much so that I didn’t try the clamp until today as I was preparing this post.

Clump

I’m going through one of my intense knitting phases. This means I’m thinking, reading, and doing knitting more than usual. The current obsession involves polygons, poetry, and grafting, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s uppermost in my mind is my loyal assistant Clump.

Clump is a sloppy ball of worsted acrylic yarn that is the remnant of a finished project. The name comes from his or her (depends on the color) blobby form when rolled into a fist sized ball. S/he serves me for two or three years, roughly the time it takes my mother to point out that I have lots of yarn around the house, none of it as scraggly. Other unpleasantness may occur between the remark and clump’s forced removal, but such memories are too yarn-tragic for this venue.

Anyway, Clump is always acrylic because acrylic is more forgiving than vegetable fibers and less dainty than animal yarn, so I get a fairly realistic sense of what I can expect. S/he is always accompanied by a longish needle so I can work my swatch flat or in the round, and the reason for choosing worsted is that the yarn is big enough to examine the work carefully.

Clump and the needle sit on my desk. I reach for them and work up a sample when I happen to come across a new technique while researching the translation of “drive-by shooting” or reading up on the Braunte brother. They sit on my nightstand or next to my favorite chair. I reach for them to exorcise the various possibilities for whatever I’m trying. They sit in the knitting basket with my project yarn. I reach for them when I want to make sure the experimental venture that just popped into my head won’t screw up my lace project.

And no, there’s no doubt in my mind that, when the nuclear bombs go off and life forms are down to a few mutant humans and the roaches, we’ll be wearing Red Heart Super Saver ponchos, leggings, and thongs, not any of the higher yarns, and we won’t have to worry about ruining our clothes. So why not make friends with Clump’s kindred?

I can’t imagine a knitting life without Clump and highly recommend that all yarnies adopt their own Clumps too.

On Display at the Smithsonian

Contributed by Dixie

My name is Dixie. Yep, from the deep south … of New England on the Connecticut coast. I have been crocheting and knitting for nearly forty years, the last seven of them in the dark. I also learned to spin a couple of years ago. I just returned home from a trip to Washington D.C., which involved my stitching and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

I was one of the volunteers who crocheted pieces of coral for the Hyperbolic Crocheted Community Reef, which was on display in the Smithsonian until last Sunday, April 24, 2011. I wanted to visit the reef while it was on display.

I guess I should explain what the reef was exactly. It was a three-dimensional reef made up of crocheted pieces of coral. The finished reef was huge, measuring 16 feet long, 9 feet high, and 10 feet deep.

Before going to Washington D.C., I contacted Jennifer Lindsay, the designer and organizer of the reef project, to ask what accommodations were available for those of us who are blind. She told me there were docents on duty with some touchable pieces, and she also said she would come into the Smithsonian when I was there so she could meet with me.

Sure enough, when my husband and I arrived, a docent was on hand with some samples that the public could see and touch. I got to check out a piece made into bell coral, which was very much like one of the pieces I submitted last autumn. I also got to touch a few pieces of dead coral crocheted out of VHS video tape, cassette tape, and plastic grocery bags. The very coolest piece I handled was a jelly fish. I have to find directions to make myself one: it was so very cute!

The reef itself was made out of 4,000 pieces submitted by 800 crocheters, who ranged in age from 3 to 101. There were three submission categories. the first was the healthy coral. These pieces were done in vibrant colors, all shades of reds, pinks, greens, blues, and purples. The second was the bleached coral, the coral that is dead. These pieces were in light neutral tones, various beiges, tans, grays, and whites. The third was the toxic corals. These were worked in found items and trash (like the plastic shopping bags) to show pollution in the coral reefs.

The highlight was touching my own pieces. They fell into the bleached coral category. One was a cream colored bell coral, and the other a tan brain coral with brown spots. When the reef’s designer met with me, she researched where my 2 pieces were placed, and she allowed me to reach into the display to touch them. This was not something others were allowed to do, but an accommodation she kindly made for me.

My husband took pictures of me standing by the reef, pictures of the 2 pieces I submitted, and a picture of the plaque on the wall with the names of all of the crocheters who contributed pieces.

The reef is now going to be moved, but no definite destination has been set. I am hoping it goes on tour to other museums so it can be seen nationwide. Still, it is very cool to say, “I have a couple pieces on display in the Smithsonian!”

dixies crocheted brain coral

hyperbolic coral reef at smithsonian

Learn to Crochet

Knowing how to crochet can be a great thing for knitters as well as those who have never picked up a ball of yarn. Even if you’re not planning to crochet a lot, it can be used for borders on knitted items, embellishments, ties for bags and other little things. If you really get adventurous, you can do a whole project with crochet. There are some wonderful afghan patterns out there.

I recently did a few posts on the basics of crochet. It’s worth taking the time to learn. I wanted to list all the posts together in one place so here they are in the order you would need them to learn how to crochet. I hope you find them helpful.

The Art of Crochet – An article on my personal experiences with crochet as well as some highlights on the history of crochet.

Slip Knot Tutorial – A slip knot is the first step in both crochet and knitting.

Chain Stitch Tutorial – The chain stitch is used to make the foundation row in crochet.

Single Crochet Tutorial – The single crochet is the most basic stitch in crochet.

More Crochet Stitches – A short explanation of the most used crochet stitches.

more Basic Crochet Stitches

All the basic crochet stitches are a variation of the single crochet stitch. The only difference is when and how often you yarn over. You also pull your hook through different numbers of loops. I’ll explain the basic idea behind each stitch. See this post for a detailed description of how to do a single crochet stitch.

Half double Crochet

 

The half double is the same as a single except there is an extra yarn over before you insert the hook into the next stitch. The half double is exactly half way between a single and a double in height. To work a half double, you yarn over, insert your hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull your yarn through so you’ll have three loops on the hook, yarn over and pull through all three loops on the hook. You should end with one loop remaining on the hook. .

Double Crochet

 

The double crochet stitch is twice as tall as a single crochet stitch. To make a double, yarn over and insert your hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull the yarn through so you’ll have three loops on the hook, yarn over and pull the yarn through only two of the loops on the hook, yarn over one more time and pull the yarn through the last two loops on the hook. You’ll want to use your right fingertip to control which loops get worked and which ones stay on the hook. By holding the loops that aren’t going to be worked with your finger, it makes it easier to work only the ones you need.

Triple Crochet

 

The triple crochet stitch is one of the more difficult stitches for me to work. Luckily, it doesn’t come up very often. To work a triple crochet stitch, yarn over twice and insert your hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull the yarn through. There will be a total of four loops on the hook. Yarn over and pull the yarn through only the first two loops. There will be three loops on the hook. Yarn over and pull through the first two loops on the hook. Now you should have two loops remaining. Yarn over one more time and pull through the last two loops on the hook. You should be left with only one loop on the hook. To simplify that a little, you would yarn over twice, insert your hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull through. Now you’ll yarn over and pull through only two stitches a total of three times to complete the triple crochet stitch.

Slip Stitch

 

The slip stitch is used to connect your rounds as well as being used in some more complicated stitches. To make a slip stitch, insert your hook in the next stitch, yarn over and pull the yarn through all the loops on the hook. You will most likely only be doing this stitch when there is only one loop on your hook to start so you’ll be pulling the yarn through the next stitch and the loop on the hook all at one time.

Spend some time practicing these stitches along with the single crochet. The half double and double will be used a lot more often than the triple so if the triple is too awkward, don’t worry about it very much. There are a lot of other stitches in crochet but they all use these few stitches in different combinations. Once you feel fairly comfortable with the hook, find a simple pattern and get going with your first crochet project. They can be a lot of fun.

For a list of crochet pattern abbreviations, as well as some free patterns, see the Purple Kitty Website.

Also be sure to check out Crochet Pattern Central for a directory of free patterns.

Crochet Tutorial: Single Crochet Stitch

In crochet, there is one basic stitch called the single crochet stitch. Variations of this stitch include the half double, double and triple stitches. Once you can do the single crochet stitch, it will be easy to learn the other stitches.

Keep in mind as you read this tutorial that it will make more sense with yarn and crochet hook in hand. These instructions also assume that you are holding your crochet hook in your right hand. I am left handed and still hold the crochet hook in my right hand. If you do hold your crochet hook in your left hand, you can reverse these directions. The basic steps will still be the same whichever hand you use.

Working Single Crochet Stitches Into The Foundation Row

 

1. Chain 11. Remember not to count the slip knot or the loop on the hook. There will be 11 completed chain stitches between the slip knot and the loop on the hook.
2. The chain will have a flat side with two strands of yarn facing you while a third strand of yarn makes a bump on the back. You want to work into the chain with the top strand from the front and the bump on the back both above the hook. From the front, insert the crochet hook into the second chain from the hook so that there are two strands above the hook and one strand below. When counting chain stitches from the hook, don’t count the loop on the hook. There will be one skipped chain stitch between the one you put your hook in and the loop on the hook.
3. Make sure you are holding the chain with your left thumb and fore finger. The working strand of yarn should go over the top of your left fore finger and go under your left middle finger. When you insert the hook into the chain, it should go underneath that strand of yarn. Now pull the hook back toward you, making sure to catch the strand of yarn as you pull the hook back and through the chain. You should have two loops on the hook.
4. Let go of the work and wrap the yarn around the hook. The strand should go away from you, up behind the hook, over the top and back down in front of the hook but still behind the work. When you’re done making the yarn over, you should return to holding the work just as you did in step 3. Pull the strand of yarn through the two loops on the hook. Turning the hook so that it is facing the spot where your loops meet the work will help you draw it through without getting hung up. You have made your first single crochet and should have one loop on the hook.

 

Continue steps 2 through 4 in each chain stitch. It is easier to feel the next chain by finding the bump on the back. From right to left on the back you will feel the vertical strand of the stitch you just completed, the knot where the chain you just put a stitch in meets the next chain and then the bump of the next chain. You’ll want to hold your fingers where the bump is and try to get the crochet hook inserted as in step 2. Don’t worry about it too much if you can only get the hook under the top strand for now. This isn’t the most important part of learning to crochet and I don’t want this to frustrate you too much.

Working A Regular Row Of Single Crochet Stitches

 

1. When you get to the end of the chain, you should have worked 10 single crochet stitches. Yarn over and pull through the loop on the hook. This is called the turning chain. With single crochet, you always chain one and then turn. After you turn your work, the crochet hook with the loop on it will be to the far right with your work to the left. The same row you just worked will still be at the top of your piece.
2. Now you will work another row of 10 single crochets. Don’t count the turning chain. The first single crochet will be worked in the stitch directly at the base of the turning chain. Insert the hook under the two strands at the top of this stitch. Complete the stitch the same as in steps 2 through 4 from above. A short version of steps 2 through 4 are put the hook through, yarn over, pull the yarn through, yarn over again and pull it through the two loops on the hook.  Continue working a single crochet in the top of each single crochet across the row.
3. When you get to the end of the row do not work into the turning chain. The other crochet stitches skip the stich at the base of the turning chain at the beginning of the row and use the turning chain at the end of the row to work the last stitch. With single crochet, you do not have to do this.

Keep making a new turning chain at the end of the work, turn and make another row. Make as many rows as you like. When you want to tie off your work, simply cut the yarn, yarn over and pull it through the last loop on the hook. Snug it up, weave in your ends and you’re finished.

As you practice, try not to get frustrated. Nothing is perfect the first time you try it. The wonderful thing about yarn is that it’s very forgiving of mistakes. Just pull it out and the mistakes are gone. Try again and again, and eventually you’ll have it down. It’s not as hard as it sounds and before long the whole process will be second nature.

These instructions have been very detailed. For a more concise tutorial or to see pictures, see one of the following links.

Lion Brand Learn To Crochet

Wool Crafting’s How To Crochet Page