Beginners to crochet are often pleased to find that the main equipment is just a crochet hook and some yarn. However when it comes to buying these two pieces of equipment it can be confusing and difficult to know what to buy.

For anyone new to crochet I always recommend that they practice their crocheting by making Granny Squares. This allows you to practice your crocheting on something that is a good manageable size and fairly quick to complete. This means that you won’t get discouraged by trying a large project too soon.

The other benefit of crocheting Granny Squares is that you use knitting yarns which are thicker than the crochet yarns. If you are a knitter you will already have yarn left from other projects.

Yarn

The easiest yarn to start with is the double knitting (or double worsted) yarn. This is widely available and comes in a huge range of colours.

Crochet Hook

The next piece of equipment is a crochet hook. If you look on the wrapper of the ball of yarn you will see that there is a recommended size for knitting needles shown, usually beside the washing instructions. I find that using a crochet hook about 0.5mm less than the recommended knitting needle size is about right.

That means that if the recommended knitting needle size is 4.00mm then the crochet hook would be 3.50mm, or if the recommended knitting needle size is 3.50mm then the crochet hook size is 3.00mm

Obviously everyone crochets with a slightly different tension but this is a good starting point for buying your first pieces of crochet equipment.

Check Your Tension

I always do a test Granny Square to check the ‘feel’ of the square. If you think it is too loose try using a smaller crochet hook or if the square is too hard change to a larger size of crochet hook.

If you do your test square in a single colour you will be able to easily pull it back if you decide to change to a different size of crochet hook.

Check out the range of crochet information including How to Crochet video files and patterns, How to Crochet DVD and Manual for the UK, and Crochet Kits in my eBay store Learn and Do