Crochet for Kids

Late last spring, E got involved in crochet. She's loved fiber arts (or just fibers) since she was a toddler, learned to spin cotton balls into string when she was 5 and started spinning on a drop spindle the same year. Grandma taught her to knit a couple of years later, and she became quite proficient. But crochet is her newest thing - and she's excelling.

In addition to help from friends, we've found some nice resources at the library and online. E says the best book for beginners is "Chicks with Sticks Guide to Crochet."  She said it's also good for patterns as are her two other favorites, "Learn to Crochet" by Sue Whiting and "Doilies in Color."

Online, we've found an AMAZING community of helpful, creative folks at Ravelry. It's free to sign up, and there are LOADS of ideas and plenty of helpful hints and straight-up tutorials there. Forgot how to cast-on? Click! We also love the YouTube community for directions.

To crochet, you need only one crochet hook and yarn. We started with lower-quality (ie. cheaper) polyester yarn that we could abuse, but you can start with anything. E has used everything from wool she gathered (from sheep shearing at La Purisima Mission), washed, carded and spun herself to
beautifully roved wool from Yarns at the Adobe, a nice yarn shop with friendly staff in SLO. She's also been working her way through a great bin of yarn gifted to her by a fellow Sweet Adeline. Some of it was vintage wool complete with the original 1950s tags. VERY cool!

Crochet projects including casting on, crocheting, and casting off.

First, cast on:


Then crochet your pattern. There's single crochet:


Or you might want to go with double crochet:

When you have the piece you'd like, you'll need to "cast off" or "bind off:"
Happy Hooking!