Monthly Archives: December 2011

Hooks: Your First Hook

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Crochet hooks come in lots of flavors. Head style, handle style, size, and material are all factors to consider and can have a huge effect on whether you enjoy crochet or just hate hate hate every minute of it. And it’s a very personal choice (other than size) and what works best for me will not work best for you.

Great, I have no idea what I prefer, how do I know what to buy? This sucks!

Relax – starting out, none of us know which we prefer. And it’s entirely possible that our preference comes from what we happened to learn on. So it’s not likely that you’ll get it terribly wrong. Also…until you know what you like best, it’s CHEAP.

Do not spend a lot of money on hooks until you are somewhat proficient and know what you prefer and why.

Really, I’m not being a spoil sport, I’m just trying to save you money and frustration and make you a happy crocheter. I don’t want you to spend a lot of money on this new hobby, get disillusioned, and then toss it all in a pile in the corner.

Let’s just take the issues one at a time here, and you’ll see that it’s entirely possible to just accidentally get the right thing from the start.

Size: H, maybe an I. That’s it. Those are the hooks most often used with worsted weight, and that’s your training yarn size, so that’s the size you buy.

Material: Aluminum. It’s ubiquitous, it’s cheap and lightweight, and it’s slippery enough for acrylic yarn, but not so slippery that things will get out of control. Don’t go with plastic – that will stick to the acrylic yarn and frustrate you. Plastics are great with slippery bamboo yarns, bamboo and aluminum are so slippery together that it’s the edge of chaos. Match the materials and you’ll be happy. So…for training it’s acrylic yarn and aluminum hook.

Handle: If you have arthritis, you may want the bamboo handle type, or some sort of gripper to make the part in the palm of your hand bigger. This is just a hand comfort thing, so you’ll know what works best for you.

Head style: Here’s the risky part, I have a DEFINITE preference for inline style, I can’t use the other type AT ALL. But when I decided to learn to crochet, I grabbed a kit at Michaels or wherever I was, and just learned on that. Turns out it was a Susan Bates “learn to crochet” kit so I was learning on the Bates inline-style head. Is that my preference because that’s what I learned on? If I’d gotten a Boye kit would I prefer that type of head?

So I can’t exactly advise either way. You’ll be tempted maybe to buy one of each and see which you prefer. That’s dangerous, because when you’re just starting out, they’ll both feel uncomfortable.

I’m going to suggest you just buy one, and start learning. Get through a couple of lessons, make a couple of rows of single crochet, get familiar with the yarn, the stitch. Try some other stitches, make at least 12” x 12” of fabric with a hook. Do multiple sessions over multiple days. Then, if you’re still feeling EXCEEDINGLY uncomfortable, haven’t figured out a good hook hold, haven’t ever felt like you could get a rhythm going, have ZERO idea how people could enjoy this activity, then try the other hook type. And give that the same tryout.

Different styles of crochet, and different hook holds seem to lend themselves to the different head type. I’ve noticed that a lot of thread crocheters, with a knife hold, use the Boye head, and a lot of tension. I’m a loose tension, pencil hold yarn user who prefers the inline Bates style head.

Just grab a hook and get started!

Yarn: Choosing the one to learn with

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Your first yarn is important. You’ll be spending a lot of time with it, and it should be easy to work with, supportive of a tentative hand. But…you will end up not liking it very much, because there will be frustration. So what do you do?

Pick a plain, inexpensive, worsted weight acrylic in a light color that you neither hate nor love. For me, that was Red Heart Super Saver in a lilac color. I’ll explain each aspect of your decision.

Plain: No fun fur, no ribbon, no sparkle or glitter, no boucle. Those types of yarn make for some pretty and interesting end products, but they are HORRIBLE for trying to learn. You need to see every bit of the stitches you’ll be making, without other stuff getting in the way.

Inexpensive: You’re not expecting to make anything you’d keep, this is for practice – would you teach a child how to write on parchment? No, you get the Big Chief tablet.

Worsted Weight: It’s the “average” size, you’ll find it the most plentiful in the stores you go to. It’s big enough to work with easily, but not so big as to be clownish. It’s the #2 pencil of yarn.

Acrylic: Tough, durable, you can rip back and do-over many times. Other materials can be slippery or fragile or not provide the stitch definition you want. Again, acrylic is the standard.

Light color: You want to be able to see your stitches easily. Trust me on this. Even red is too dark. The baby colors are great for learning.

Color you neither love nor hate: You’ll be spending a lot of time holding on to this color and looking deeply at it. If you hate it, you’ll find lots of reasons to NOT sit down and practice. If you love it, you won’t for long and then your wardrobe will remind you of your crochet struggles and…yikes! So, just pick a color you don’t care about either way.

Now, as for the brand, you should get your crochet supplies at a “big box” retailer – you don’t want to spend a lot of money at this stage. So you’ll go to Michael’s or JoAnn or Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart. There are some basic brands that you’ll consider for your training:

Caron Simply Soft: Not for training. It’s very soft, and a bit finer than the other two here. I love to work with it, but it’s too soft and splitty for training purposes.

I Love This Yarn!: Not for training. Hobby Lobby store brand, and you WILL love this yarn. I use it all the time, adore it. It’s too soft for training.

Caron One Pound: Would be good for training, but you really don’t need that much yarn yet!

Red Heart Super Saver: Yup. This is the training recommendation. The old standby, the one your grandma used. It’s NOT a joy to work with, it’s kind of hard, but for training, it’s perfect. The stiffness of the yarn will help you with forming the stitches, and the fact that it kind of makes your hands hurt will help you to put it down for a bit and only do the training and practice in 30 minute bursts.