Getting started with crochet: a complete beginner’s guide
The four supplies you actually need, the three stitches that cover 90% of patterns, and a first project you can finish tonight.
What you actually need
Craft shops will sell you a forty-piece kit. You need four things: a 5 mm hook, a ball of light-coloured worsted acrylic, scissors, and a blunt yarn needle. Light colours matter more than people expect — on dark yarn you cannot see your own stitches, and every beginner mistake becomes invisible until it is too late to fix.
Three stitches carry almost everything
The chain starts the work. Single crochet builds the dense fabric amigurumi needs. Double crochet works up twice as fast and drapes, which is what blankets and scarves want. Nearly every pattern in this shop is single crochet with shaping.
Tension is the only hard part
New crocheters grip. Tight stitches are painful to work into and produce a stiff, curling fabric. If your hook is fighting the loop, you are pulling too hard. Let the yarn slide.
Your first project
A dishcloth: chain 25, single crochet into the second chain from the hook and across, then chain 1, turn and repeat until it is square. It is useful, it is finished in an evening, and it teaches you tension better than any tutorial.
When it goes wrong
Count your stitches at the end of every row. A row that gained or lost a stitch is a five-minute fix now and a two-hour unravel later. Everyone frogs their work. It is part of the craft, not a sign you are bad at it.
