LEARNING TO CROCHET

crochet course single crochet

WHAT KIND OF "LEARNER" ARE YOU?

What kind of learner are you? One thing I understood through the years is that everyone learns things in a different way. Some people need more time than others, some are very quick learners instead; some need a visual aid, they need to see how things are done in order to be able to learn how to do them correctly; others still want to read from written instructions, they want to have a text they can look up whenever they want. Often we like to learn things using all of the above mentioned techniques. Personally, for example, what works for me is REPETITION: once I learn something and I learn the right movements or procedures, I need to repeat them over and over again in order to fix them once and for all in my mind.

But I’m an impatient learner, too, and I get easily frustrated if it takes “too long” for me to grasp how things are done. When I learned to crochet I had to be patient at the beginning, of course, but I guess you can say I was a quick learner. I am convinced that nothing makes you more ready to learn something than the strong INTENTION of learning that thing. And I did want to learn to crochet so much!

CROCHET FOR IMPATIENT "LEARNERS"

Now that I’m a rather skilled crocheter – I crochet since almost 10 years – if I look back at the time I started out, I remember my enthusiasm at learning the most basic stitches. As I mentioned before (see my previous blog post “Crochet Course for Beginners”), I learned from the internet, looking at videos and following crochet blogs. Mastering the Single Crochet was the first big achievement for me and you can well understand why: it allows you to start crocheting for real. You can start creating useful items by using a simple Single Crochet: scarves, cloths, pot holders, glass coasters, placemats, and so on. Also, once you learn the movements for the Single Crochet, learning all other stitches is much easier and it takes less time. Now what boosts your enthusiasm more than being able to learn faster?

Looking back at the time I started crocheting I see now that I did waste quite some time looking at videos that were not clear enough (at least not for me) and trying to learn from teachers who were not able to explain things in a way I could understand them. Even now, if I want to learn a new stitch or technique and I look them up on YouTube, my frustration level immediately rises if I click on videos that have not the requisites I look for. This is why I came up with the idea of creating my own series of videos. What I look for now are SHORT videos (possibly less than 10 minutes), with CLEAR images, straight to the point and no chit-chat about this and that, no boring introductions. Now this is exactly what I am trying to do with my videos.

"QUICK AND EASY" CROCHET COURSE: THE SINGLE CROCHET

My “Quick and Easy CROCHET COURSE FOR BEGINNERS” is made out of several video lessons that have all the qualities I mentioned above, i.e. the requirements I look for when I personally want to learn something: shortness, clarity, straight-to-the-pointedness. My crochet lessons aim at teaching people to crochet really quickly, by simply following my movements on video and the few relevant written instructions (in English) I add now and then. I am aware that many details could be added to complete the lessons – and indeed it was not easy for me to decide what notions to include and which ones to leave out – but I like to think that my instructions are really the strictly necessary ones to learn the techniques. There is still plenty of time for people to learn details, once they have learned the fundamentals. If you learn things like me then this Crochet Course will do for you, too.

My latest video lesson is on the Single Crochet: Lesson #4 “The Single Crochet”. Like I promised, things are getting “serious” with this stitch and you can start crocheting your first small but totally gratifying projects using this stitch. Want to have a go at it? 

Don’t miss my previous lessons if you haven’t seen them already:

Lesson #1: “How to hold hook and yarn”

Lesson #2: “The Slipknot”

Lesson #3: “The Chain”

Do let me know your opinion: I would so love to hear from happy students! Watch out for future lessons: I will be publishing on a weekly basis.