I drive a school bus, and the kids have become... well, annoying, to say the least. I yell so much that I'm sick of myself! Ugh!
What I'm working on right now... well, I have a cute little wash cloth and a matching hot pad that I've made. Also, I have a couple things going on crochet hooks, and I'm knitting! On the hooks - I have 3 Landon's Blankies hooked, a beautiful pink and yellow, a cute blue and brown, and a gorgeous teal and brown.
On the needles - I'm working on knitting a "neck warmer" type scarf. It's my first knitting project, I've knitted a couple of wash cloths before - I kinda suck at knitting, but whatever, at least I try!
Onto the next lesson - the first row in single stitch!
So, how do I go from this...
to this...
Well, let me show you!
Ok, we know how to make the knot, we know how to make a chain... now, if we EVER want to be able to make something more than a chained necklace ;) then we HAVE to know how to do the first row! **Please remember** I do my own thing... if you have been learning from a book, or videos, or someone else is showing you, you may notice that I do a few things slightly different - that's because I'm a crochet snob. I like a certain look and I've figured out how to achieve that look, so that's what I do. And whenever I teach someone how to crochet, I show them "my" way... and that's what I'm showing you.
Now we have a chain, before you can do the first row, you need to make what's commonly referred to as a "turning chain". Usually a pattern will say something like ch2 and turn or turn and ch2 or something similar. I would like you to start with a chain of 15. We are starting with 15 simply because as we work this up, we are going to also practice counting to be sure we are keeping the correct number of stitches so our projects don't look lopsided... crochet snobs don't like lopsided. ;)
Since you are learning a single stitch (sc) you will chain 1 for your turning chain. I like to hold my finger on my last original chain (which would be 15) and then chain my turning link(s), it should now look like this...
You will work into the stitch you are holding. When working the first row, I prefer to only work in one loop of the original chain... I have experimented with several different ways, and I will show you what I like best. You will put your hook in the loop like this...
Now you need to wrap the yarn around the hook (also called looping it around or loop around, etc) from back to front like this...
Pull the yarn through the loop, now it should look look like this...
Wrap the yarn around your hook again, back to front, and simply pull the yarn through the two loops at the same time, I like to turn my hook toward the floor when I pull it through the loops...You have made your actual first single stitch (also known as single crochet or sc).
Repeat in the next loop. Be careful. When I started crocheting, I had an awful time trying to find the next loop that I was supposed to crochet in... look at the arrows I've drawn on the picture, I've counted out the next 5 loops for you.
Repeat this all the way to the end. Now we are going to quickly count our stitches to be sure we have 15, like we started with... Trust me, do this when you are first starting - soon enough, you will be able to just know that you've done it right and you will no longer need to verify. If by chance you only have 14 or less, this can be easily corrected a couple of ways... and if you have 16 or more, this can easily be corrected as well. I will show you these tricks later... for now, if you don't have 15 stitches, you will need to pull it out back to the beginning chain and start over (also known as frogging it) :)Practice this numerous times - and remember, in my opinion, this is the hardest row! Look for the next lesson... the rest of the rows!
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