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It's almost not worth it calling this "relearning" -- I learned crochet for the first time when I was about nine or so, and when I picked the craft back up again a few months ago to edge a scarf I'd made, nothing in the directions looked at all familiar. My hands did remember how to twist the hook so's not to lose the yarn off of it as I worked. But that was pretty much it.
There's a couple of very important differences between crocheting rows and crocheting up the side of a piece of knitting.
When I'm edging a knit piece, the places I insert my crochet hook are frequently the first stitch in each odd row. This means that between what holds up one crocheted stitch and the next, there's a whole two rows of knitting. I can yank on that knit stitch until the cows come home, and it's not going to affect the next place I have to crochet. When I'm crocheting rows, the places I insert my crochet hook are generally adjacent stitches in the previous row. If I yank on that, it tightens the next stitch I need to put my crochet hook into. People who crochet know this and don't yank. Crocheting into my knitting has left me with a bad habit.
When I'm knitting, I never have to ask, "which one of those is the next stitch?" The next stitch is the one on the tip of the left-hand needle. The stitch I just finished with is on the tip of the right-hand needle. When I'm crocheting, the next stitch is "the stitch that has not yet had my hook stuck into it this time around," and while that's usually fairly obvious if I *look*, I'm not used to having to even look. Spoiled me. I'm sure that I'll get a better feel for where the stitch is as time goes on, too.
This 300 Crochet Stitches book is exactly what I needed. The handful of extremely-basic information at the beginning is densely-packed enough that I'm sure the authors meant it as a review for people who already pretty-much knew it, but was exactly what I needed to knock the knitting-based assumptions that were getting in my way of reading crochet patterns. And then by page 20 it's just pretty stitch after pretty stitch, four or six to a page, which is just what I want when I'm looking to crochet something quickly up the side of a knit piece. Not to mention the nine edging-specific stitches , none more than three rows long.
I think that at some point, when I'm much better at this, I'm going to really enjoy the many pages of lace and motifs at the end of this book. My grandmother crocheted lace, long ago, and I've always been fascinated by it.
There's a couple of very important differences between crocheting rows and crocheting up the side of a piece of knitting.
When I'm edging a knit piece, the places I insert my crochet hook are frequently the first stitch in each odd row. This means that between what holds up one crocheted stitch and the next, there's a whole two rows of knitting. I can yank on that knit stitch until the cows come home, and it's not going to affect the next place I have to crochet. When I'm crocheting rows, the places I insert my crochet hook are generally adjacent stitches in the previous row. If I yank on that, it tightens the next stitch I need to put my crochet hook into. People who crochet know this and don't yank. Crocheting into my knitting has left me with a bad habit.
When I'm knitting, I never have to ask, "which one of those is the next stitch?" The next stitch is the one on the tip of the left-hand needle. The stitch I just finished with is on the tip of the right-hand needle. When I'm crocheting, the next stitch is "the stitch that has not yet had my hook stuck into it this time around," and while that's usually fairly obvious if I *look*, I'm not used to having to even look. Spoiled me. I'm sure that I'll get a better feel for where the stitch is as time goes on, too.
This 300 Crochet Stitches book is exactly what I needed. The handful of extremely-basic information at the beginning is densely-packed enough that I'm sure the authors meant it as a review for people who already pretty-much knew it, but was exactly what I needed to knock the knitting-based assumptions that were getting in my way of reading crochet patterns. And then by page 20 it's just pretty stitch after pretty stitch, four or six to a page, which is just what I want when I'm looking to crochet something quickly up the side of a knit piece. Not to mention the nine edging-specific stitches , none more than three rows long.
I think that at some point, when I'm much better at this, I'm going to really enjoy the many pages of lace and motifs at the end of this book. My grandmother crocheted lace, long ago, and I've always been fascinated by it.