Transcript
Hey, I’m Andrea Lemire, the education coordinator here at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. I’m going to show you some really cool techniques for beginning crochet, and hopefully, you’ll have as much fun as I have with it. Okay, lets get started.
So now that we have our slip knot on our hook, we’re ready to make our beginning chain. And the beginning chain in crochet is how you determine how wide you want your piece is going to be. So I’m going to show you how to make that now. It’s really important that you’re holding your hook in your dominant hand. So if you’re right=handed, that hook should be in your right hand. If you’re left handed, in your left hand. And your yarn is held in the opposite hand. So let’s kind of position ourselves first. So determining what hold you want to use, whether it’s the knife or the pencil hold, you’re going to hold that hook in your dominant hand. And then we’re gonna tension our yarn in our opposite hand. So the goal with tensioning the yarn is just to get that yarn moving away from your hook. Because it’s really important when you’re first starting out. Since we don’t have a lot going on yet, we need to control the yarn so that we can produce things with that hook. And this is the most challenging part when you’re beginning, so bear with it. And just keep trying and eventually you’ll get it the more you practice.
My favorite way to tension my yarn away from my hook is to wrap it once around my pinky to make a loop. And then I’m gonna bring that yarn closest to the hook over my pointer finger so it’s behind those fingers. And so this loop around my pinky allows that yarn to be a little tight. And then this is gonna be my guide finger. So it’s really important when you’re crocheting that this finger pretty much stays straight so that it’s giving some tension on that yarn moving away from your hook. And that’s going to make it easier for you to grab it. If this hold isn’t working for you, what you can do is pinch it between these two fingers and hold it closer to the hook like this. Or, if you wanna drop it and try wrapping it, you know, try things out and you’ll find what works for you.
So once we have our yarn tensioned, you wanna make sure that you have some fingers to keep a hold on what’s on that hook. Because if I don’t, it’s just gonna flop around and not do anything for you. And that’s gonna be no fun at all. So I’m gonna hold on to that slip knot, I’ve tensioned my yarn, so now I’m ready to make my chain.
And the chain stitch is simply two motions. We’re gonna come in front of that tensioned yarn with our hook. So the yarn’s coming over from the back of that hook. I’m gonna swivel down with my hook part of the hook to lock that under. And as I’m gently pulling down on that slip knot, I’m gonna almost tuck through that loop, swiveling back up after I’ve made that chain stitch. Now that I’ve made one chain, you just wanna make sure you have a nice open chain just like the slip knot with enough space for about two chains in there. So let’s make a few more. Come in front of that tensioned yarn with your hook, swivel down to lock it in, tuck it through, and back up. In front, swivel down, tuck through, back up. And move your grip as you’re making your chain. You want your grip to be really close to whatever’s going on just on that hook. So make sure that you’re adjusting your grip as you go. Maybe every few chains or so. You don’t wanna hold too far down, because then that chain’s gonna tighten up, which is not what you want. So move that grip as you’re making that chain. And basically you chain as many chains as you want for the piece. You can stop when it’s as wide as you want it to be, or the pattern will tell you how many chains you need.
