I'm Hooked!

One of my goals this year was to learn to crochet. I've attempted to teach myself several times but I could never get the hang of it. I remember mentioning to my friend, Rae, how difficult I was finding it and she told me that she'd teach me! She told me that she wouldn't tell me which stitches I was learning until after I'd got the hang of it. I thought that was a very clever way of getting me to learn, as I'm constantly getting confused between 'treble', 'half treble' etc etc.

So on Monday night, when I was in way too much pain to sleep and I didn't feel like knitting, I decided to give crochet another go. I kept Rae's idea in mind and headed onto YouTube to find a Granny Square tutorial, as granny squares (and ripple blankets actually) were the reason I wanted to learn to crochet.

I found a series of great tutorials by Bethintx1 (click here for lesson one), she did it really slowly at first to get you started, then as the lessons go along and you get the hang of it she quickens her pace. I was doing really well, until I got to lesson three and I got extremely confused and I couldn't find where in the video I had got stuck. Now having a general idea on what to do, I tried to find a photo/written tutorial on Ravelry and came across 'Granny Square Tutorial Over Simplified'. It's brilliant, as each step is photographed so you can see how it is meant to look.

After about 15 minutes I had my first granny square....

No idea what the yarn is... It was a gift, but had no ball band!
All I do know is that it's DK weight.

It turned out big because of my loose tension. I had no idea if it looked like a granny square or not, so I asked the very lovely people on Instagram and apparently it is a granny square. So, hooray!

I then made another in 'Plum' Special DK by Stylecraft. This one turned out smaller than my first.

By now it was about 4:30am and my body was screaming at me to get to sleep. After I finished crocheting, I started to notice the pain but by then it had softened enough for me to get some sleep. I drifted off thinking, chain one, 3 double crochet in chain 1 space, chain 1, 3 double crochet in corner, chain 2, 3 double crochet in corner - one corner made! 

I woke up in a pain haze, completely forgetting about my crochet escapades. When I saw the granny squares piled up by my bed, for a split second I thought perhaps someone else had left them there. When I did finally remember that I had made them, I was over joyed and immediately grabbed my hook and started making more, just to prove that it wasn't a fluke.

Turns out it wasn't, I can make granny squares!

These ones didn't turn out great...

@blrb on instagram (who is always lovely about my crafting) said that changing the colours would help define the pattern, so I thought I would give it a go.

I found some bright yarn in my stash that I got free from a magazine, it's really crappy stuff but the colours are great, and had a go at another couple of granny squares.

I can't get the yarn to photograph properly, it is really bright in real life!

And because I am now completely obsessed, I crocheted a square while writing this post, this time in rainbow yarn!

I'm getting my room decorated soon, and it is a seaside theme. White, red and blue are the colours being used for my new duvet & curtains, so I thought I would crochet myself a matching Granny Square Blanket (since I have always wanted one). When I get some money, I'm going to get myself a few skeins of Sirdar Hayfield Bonus DK in... Classic Red (for the first round), White (for the second round) and Azur (for the final round. I can't wait to give it a go!!