Behind the Line: Crocheting Practice Tips

Hooray! 
We have discussed and gathered what we need to crochet.  Here are my previous posts in my Behind the Line series to get caught up: crochet hooks, yarn, crochet patterns, and crochet notions.

Now it is time to sit down and practice.  Just like with any new endeavor, there is patience and practice involved with learning crochet.

Crochet Tension

Tension is how tight or loose you crochet, or how you feed the yarn from the yarn holding hand to the hand holding the hook. The goal is to keep the tension even throughout the whole project.  If you are making a blanket or scarf you may either start loose and end tight, or start tight and end loose.  The part that you crocheted loose will be wider than the part you crocheted tight.  If your project is misshaped it could be because you changed your tension in the middle of the project.

I find I have to adjust my tension from yarn to yarn.  Cotton yarn doesn't slide through my fingers like 4 ply acrylic yarn, so I find I have to loosen my tension when working with cotton yarn.  Last year I tried working with furry yarn.  It took me awhile to get used to crocheting with a huge hook and having to keep my tension loose.  So even when you know how to crochet there still is a learning curve from crochet project to project.

Crochet Stitches

I have talked a little bit about the basic crochet stitches such as chain and single crochet.  If you are looking to add a texture or a pattern to your crochet project, there are countless other stitches built upon the basic crochet stitches.  There are too many to mention and ones that I am still discovering.  I have recently come across some interesting 3D crochet stitches when browsing ideas online.  Before you begin any project with a stitch you are not familiar with I would recommend practicing the stitch first.  This way you know how hard, or time consuming it is.  Then you are not stuck in the middle of a blanket with a stitch that you don't like, or is just taking more time than you realized to make.

Crochet Pattern

Sometimes it is the pattern itself that takes practice and patience.  It may take a few reads or even different eyes to understand what it is asking you to do.  One person's way of writing a pattern can be different from another person's.  Then there is the pattern typo that can mess with your head if something doesn't look right in the product.

Crocheting Practice Tips

One good thing about crocheting is you can pull on the yarn to unravel it and redo if a mistake is made.  If you happen to get frustrated with a project though, before you unravel, try stepping away from it.  You may even want to start another project.  Sometimes something I learn from one project clicks and then when I go back to a work-in-progress with this new information, I can then continue the project.

Shop LiLphanie's Line for fun holiday hats and accessories.