When I started to crochet, I had not only trouble pronouncing the word “crocheting”, but also would have appreciated some sort of guidance. 
I was eight years old.
Mum doesn’t do crafty stuff at all, Nana hasn’t done it in ages, because she’s busy being the town’s gossip girl #1 and my Kiwi host-mum prefers knitting over crochet. So that left me to myself and I learned it the hard way.
By the way, my English-speaking friends couldn’t help me with the pronunciation-problem either, so if you have a solution, please tell me about it.
Anyways, if you want to learn to crochet, I am sure you can profit from my experience – which is, admittedly still limited, but I think there is a reason why they call it “life-long learning”.
To start with, you need a crochet hook and yarn. At the beginning, it doesn’t really matter what type or colour of yarn, because it won’t look that great anyway (but it helps to start with a colour you like – I used some ugly brown, that was the first mistake!).
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I) So you grab your yarn and lay a snare of some sort:
This is the place where your hook will go through and then it’ll be easy as: from underneath, you pull your hook around the thread, sort of “grab” it with the hook and pull it through the snare (first loop of the chain).
Now that was easy. Repeat that a few times, depending on how wide your piece is supposed to be.
And voilà – this chain is the beginning of your needlework.
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II) For round patterns that start off with circles, it is quite handy to use the magic ring:
From underneath, pull the working end and “wrap” it around your crochet hook.
Now start like you would otherwise: wrap the crochet hook around the working end, then grab the working end once again, this time from underneath the two circular strings.
Pull the working end through – and that was your first single crochet. Now continue as many times as required inside the circle.
Once your needlework has the required length (e. g. 5 stitches in the first round), just pull the loose end:
I always like to add one chain (just like in the example above: wrap your crochet hook around the working end and pull it through the loop) and then one slip stitch to close the round:
For the slip stitch, just put your hook through the next stitch and pull the working end through both.
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It’s always easiest to try it out yourself, but I hope this helps a little bit.
If something is not clear, please ask. I will reply as quickly as possible.
However, I warmly welcome any tipps and tricks from those of you who know more that I do.
Next time I’ll show you what you can do with those crochet skills you are developing now. Until then: have fun and practise a lot!
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