[Nfb-krafters-korner] beginner crochet problems

[Cathy]

Hi all,

 

Sorry to hear about your difficulties with your swatches. . It was difficult
for me to figure out how to explain things and the right and left hand
business made it even more complicated. Perhaps I should have simply said
what to do and let every one figure out which hand to use when.

I have been worried that my instructions may have also not been accurate so
asked some one else to describe a single crochet to me. I will paste in her
reply, and perhaps if you try out her instructions instead of mine, you will
make a square rather than a quarter moon. 

The real clue here is to always count your stitches. If you have 20 chains
to begin, and work your first crochet into the second chain, you should have
nineteen single crochet stitches at the end of the row. It is important that
the chain does not twist and that you always crochet into the space between
the front and back of the chain. Then you chain one and turn your work,
crochet across again and count your stitches, you should have nineteen
again. if not, either you skipped a stitch in the beginning, the middle or
didn't crochet in to the last stitch at the end of the row.

 

Anyhow, here is what a friend wrote, try this out:

Hi Kathy, You should be crocheting across the row from right to left, not
left to right. If you go from left to right, you are doing reverse sc. Let's
say you are beginning a project and you have just chained the number of
chains you will need. You skip the first chain beside your hook, and go into
the second chain to the left. this is equal to your chain 1 at the beginning
of a row. You go through the chain with the two loops on top of the hook and
the one loop on the bottom. Once your hook is through the chain, you yarn
over, bringing the yarn around the hook, coming toward you so that the yarn
is wrapped around the hook, and is behind your hook going away from you back
to the ball. Then you draw the hook through the chain, and bring the loop
from your yarnover through the chain. This leaves two loops on your hook.
One of them is the original loop from the chain, and the other one is from
the yarn over. Then you yarn over again, and take the two loops off over the
yarn over loop, leaving one loop on your hook. This makes your stitch. You
do this all the way across the chain, then chain one and turn your work. You
are again going from right to left across and going into each stitch with
two loops on top. You make the stitches the very same way by yarning over,
and drawing the loop through the stitch, then yarning over again and drawing
that loop through the other two on the hook. That is single crochet. Hope
this helps. Faith