14-Day Learn to Crochet—Yarn and Supplies

Hi, welcome to the 14-day Learn to Crochet series. In this video we're gonna be talking about yarn and supplies, and we're gonna talk about all the things you'll need for this class, and then talk a little bit more about them in general. So when you're shopping for yarn, one of the most important things when you're shopping for yarn is the CYCA number. This is a number that you can find on a ball of yarn, right here. It says four right there. Or for example, this one, there's another little symbol. It's a little smaller, but it says five. That's the CYCA yarn number for weight. So when you're talking about yarn weight, it actually isn't how heavy the yarn is, like you would think. It is actually how thick the yarn is. So here in front of me, this is a little set of pieces of yarn that I've put together so that I can show you the difference between different yarn weights. So the CYCA yarn weights go from number one all the way up to a number seven. So one would be the thinnest and seven would be the thickest. And for this class and just for when you're beginning, you're starting out, I would definitely recommend going with a yarn weight of number four or five, just to begin, because that is a thickness that is easiest for people to handle when they're first beginning, 'cause things can be a little bit awkward when you're learning how to hold the hook and how to hold the yarn and all that type of thing. So if you look for a four or five on your yarn band when you're just beginning to do your swatches, then it'll make things a little easier for you. In this class, I would recommend buying yarn that's not only just a four or a five. This is a five, this is a four. But also look for yarn that is smooth. You don't want anything that's super fuzzy or fluffy or textured in any way because it'll be harder to, it'll be harder to actually manipulate it, but it'll also be harder to see what your stitches look like. So look for something that's smooth. And another thing I would suggest if you can get two balls of yarn, you can get one that's an acrylic or a wool blend or wool. And then for your second option, if you get a skein of dishcloth cotton, this is just a smooth cotton yarn. Usually it's a CYCA number, weight number of a four. If you look for that, then you'll be able to make your swatches as you work along with me in the video. And then you'll end up with a bunch of dishcloths that you can use. So, yarn comes in all these different ways that it's wound, that's called the put up. So this is a skein. This is what a skein looks like. And this is a ball of yarn. This is a hank. And I have a joke for you. What kind of cake has lots of fiber and no calories? A yarn cake. This is a yarn cake. And you can see why it's called that. It looks like a little piece of cake. So when you're shopping at the store, I would recommend getting one of these three styles of the way the yarn is wound up, or what you saw previously, the yellow or the gray yarn, because those will be easy for you to pull the yarn off. If you end up getting a hank of yarn, although these are beautiful, you will have to take the label off. Actually. You'll have to take the label off and then this whole thing comes apart and flips open into a giant loop of yarn. You can see what's happening here. So if you buy one of these, you're gonna have to wind all of this yarn before you even start. So even though this is lovely yarn, and a lot of hand dyed yarns and specialty yarns come this way, I would say resist buying this just for now until you learn a little bit more about crochet, and we'll learn about how to wind this into a ball later. So once you've chosen your yarn, then you can figure out what type of hook you need. So hooks come in all different sizes. And also, as you can see here, they come in different materials. There's really no wrong kind of material. Whatever works for you and whatever's comfortable for you, that's the right hook for you. So I would say when you're starting out, it's good to try out different types of hooks, not only different materials. Like this one is plastic, this one's metal. This one has, these two have ergonomic handles built in, this one is a plastic, metal up here, and then this one is made out of wood. People like different size of hooks for different reasons. And they feel comfortable in your hand, different types of hooks will feel comfortable to you. So I would say, you know, try out one hook and don't buy a whole set yet if you haven't already bought them, until you try it out. And if you like it, you can stick with that and buy a set. But if you don't like it, then you can try out some different styles. Another thing to look at when you're talking about hooks is there's an inline hook and a tapered hook. So a tapered hook, if you look straight down on this, that means this part of the hook is wider and it goes narrower here towards the head of the hook. If you compare that to this hook, this one is a straight line all the way up to here. It is pointed at the top, but it doesn't, it doesn't taper in right here. So, and then if you look at the side of the hook, this hook sticks out a little further in front. I think of this as like a little beak sticking forward in front of the chest. So this hook sticks forward in this direction from this part of the hook, and this hook over here, it's all in line with it. So there's just a little notch cut out here. So it doesn't, there is no right choice for a hook. It's just something that feels comfortable for you and it's how you feel when you're crocheting. If your yarn is getting tangled or splitting, or if your hook is getting stuck in your stitches, I would say just try a different hook and see if that makes a difference for you. So when you're choosing a hook for this class, if you're using the worsted weight yarn, which is the CYCA number four, I would start with either an H, an I, or a J. The H, I, or J, that is the size of the hook. So this hook is an H and then I would be a little bit bigger, and then a J would be just a little bit bigger than that. But if you're not quite sure, and you don't remember when you're at the store when you're shopping for yarn, a lot of the yarn bands will have a suggestion of what hook to use right here on the label. So this is a CYCA number five and it's suggesting that you start with a hook that's somewhere between a K and an M. So that would be a K, an L, or an M. This doesn't mean that you have to use that size of hook. Everybody crochets differently, so this is just like a jumping off point, a place to start if you don't quite know where to start. So once you've selected your hook and your yarn, let's talk about some tools. You will definitely need a ruler. It doesn't have to be a short, little ruler like this. It can just be a household ruler that you already have. And it is helpful, too, if you have a tape measure, if you could get a tape measure. And the reason, why would you want to have two different things that both measure? You don't have to, but it is helpful to have a straight ruler like this for measuring gauge. And we'll talk more about gauge in one of the next videos. But that is how many stitches per inch, basically. You need to know how large your stitches are, so a ruler like this should be at least four inches in order to check that, and it's helpful if it's straight. A tape measure, usually I use my tape measure to measure parts of my body if I'm making a sweater or a hat or something like that, or you can use it for measuring longer, just distances. Like if you're working on a blanket or something like that. And also tape measures, you may have seen these before, they can come like this so you can pull 'em out. And these are great for just throwing in your project bag. So I love having these around. So another thing that you will need for this class is you will need something called a tapestry needle or a yarn needle. These types of needles have a blunt tip, so they're not sharp, so they can go in between the yarns instead of splitting through everything. And you can see here there's different types of yarn needles and tapestry needles. This one's a little smaller. This one has a bent tip on it. A lot of people like those for weaving in their ends. I actually, my personal preference is, is I like the straight needles better, but this is another thing where you just have to try it out and see if you like it. And also I just wanted to show you this plastic yarn needle here. It has a really large eye, so that would be good for really thick yarns. You need to have a variety of yarn needles in order to, you know, if you crochet with very thin yarns, you can get away with smaller yarn needles, but if you want to crochet with some thicker needles you're gonna have to have a yarn needle where you can actually thread the yarn through the hole to weave on your ends. So let's talk about scissors. These are my tailor points and I was a sewer first, so I got used to this size of scissors. And I love that they're small, but they're big enough to make larger cuts and things. But for crochet, you really only need, usually you really only need a small blade of your scissors, so you can get away with something as small as these. You can see these are really tiny. They're great for snipping your yarns. And they come with this really nice little protector on the outside so you can just throw it in your bag and not worry about the point coming through your bag. And for that reason, I love these scissors. I've had these scissors since I was a little kid, but I know that they still sell these scissors. And these scissors, you can open them up like this and turn them into scissors. And I love them because you can even put them, they're so small, you can just put them in your pocket even and they won't poke you or jab you. So any kind of scissors will work. Even big craft scissors if you just happen to have those. You don't have to go out and buy a new pair of scissors just for this class. But I just wanted to show you these 'cause as you learn how to crochet and you get more excited about it, it is nice to have some tools that are a little bit easier to carry around with you. Next thing I wanna talk about are stitch markers. So these are used to keep track of where you are at or to mark certain things on your project. Like you might want to mark the front of the piece that you're working on or the back of the piece you're working on, or you might want to mark a stitch that you did so you can count a certain amount of rounds or rows after that. So what these do, it's kind of like a safety pin in a way. You just hook it through your stitch or whatever you're trying to mark, like this. And then you can close it like that to mark whatever you need to on your project. So for crochet, you need to have stitch markers that can open in some way. Don't buy the knitting stitch markers that are just a circle, because it's just a it's just a plastic ring, because those are used to slip from needle to needle in knitting, but you can't do that in crochet. You need to have one that opens up like, either like this, this is called a locking stitch marker. Or you can use these. These are called split stitch markers or like a split ring stitch marker. So you can just push it onto your project like that. And if you're taking them in and in and out and in and out of your project, these are kind of nice because you don't have to make that extra motion of hooking it all together. You just push it in. But the locking stitch markers are great because they actually stay put really well. And you can use them instead of pins when you're seaming things together, which I love. If you need to try something on and pin your sweater front to your sweater back, you can actually use these to pin and you can try it on. So I have lots of these. So those are the basic tools that you'll need for this class and in general for crocheting. But I just wanted to show you a couple extra things that I use a lot and I find are really helpful, but you you don't need to get these. This is just if you find them helpful with your crocheting, I just wanted you to know that they exist. So this is a crochet hook gauge sizer. So if you have a lot of hooks that are like this and you can't see what the size of the hook is, if it either rubbed off or if it's some of the wooden hooks don't have, or bamboo hooks don't actually have the size on them, you can put this in here to check what size it is so that you know what size your hook is instead of just guessing. So you just lay it in here, and if it's loose and wiggly, you have to go down one size to check what size your hook is. So this is helpful, and you can buy these on Etsy or in certain craft or yarn stores. And this is a yarn bowl. This is great, especially if you have pets who have lots of pet hair all over the place, to have your yarn in the bowl and then you can just run it right through. Usually there's a little notch that you can put your yarn through, or sometimes there's holes like these. And this just keeps your yarn ball spinning around in here and it's not gonna jump all over on the floor or get tangled up. So I love using my yarn bowl. And the last thing I wanted to show you is a small scale. This is, actually you could use a kitchen scale, or this is actually made by a yarn company for weighing yarn. You definitely don't need one of these, but these can be really helpful, especially if you're the type of person who likes to use up all of your ball of yarn and you're trying to guess if you can get one pair of mittens out of something. You can divide your yarn in half, and you know when your yarn is divided in half because you can weight each half and make sure that they're even, and that way you will know that if you make one mitten out of this half, you have enough for the second mitten, for example. It's also a nice way to, if you lose the ball band, the paper that is on your skein, if you lose that then you can measure out a couple of yards of your yarn and see how much that weighs, and then measure all of your yarn to figure out how much yardage you have left. So I find this to be a super useful tool. Again, it is not something that you need when you're just starting out, but I just wanted to let you know about it in case you need it in the future. So the cool thing about crochet is you really do not need to invest a lot of money into the tools and the materials that you need. You really just need the basics. You know, yarn, stitch markers, scissors, and a hook and some way to measure. And that's not very much. There are also all kinds of other cool things that you can get to help you with your crocheting, but you don't need to have those things. So I love it. I love the fact that you can teach people how to crochet and it doesn't require a large investment in order to learn such a cool craft. So next up, we are going to talk about terminology, how to speak the language of crochet.