Learning to Crochet

This past July while my husband was traveling, I decided to see if I could learn to crochet. I was greatly motivated by the lovely crochet work of a dear friend and mentor in all things related to being a loving wife & making the home a place of hospitality and beauty. Unfortunately she doesn't live very close by. So with the help of the internet and YouTube, I went about the learning process. I am extremely grateful to:

Crafttown.com's free crochet lesson's page which includes illustrated stitches and a chart explaining crochet abbreviations.

About.com:Crochet Many excellent and helpful links usually with photos. About also hosts some free crochet patterns.

The Knitwitch on YouTube - Crochet videos!

Crochet Pattern Central for free crochet patterns.

Below is a picture of a headscarf, the first thing I actually made (before I realized that you were supposed to pick up both strings of the loop with the hook and not just the front or the back ones). I also decreased in this pattern, but I'm still not certain whether I did it correctly or not.

You can find instructions for this pattern by Sandi Marshall at About.com: Single Crochet Triangle Scarf Pattern.

I recently finished a scarf that I crocheted out of some milk cotton which I picked up on a visit to WanChai Market in Hong Kong. Not being familiar with different kinds of yarns, I had never heard of milk cotton. One website said that this kind of cotton yarn is really soft because it contains 30% milk protein. I just know it had a nice feel and color mixture. I don't often know the weight of the yarn I am using, but I really like working with cotton. This pattern was easy and fun to crochet.

Free pattern by Marie Anne St. Jean is called One Skein Scarf to Crochet. I did use about one and a half large balls of yarn for mine.