Crochet tools

So, you want to pick up the beautiful hobby of crochet. Good for you! Crochet is art, it brings people together and it helps you relax. Something about having cakes of yarn, and watching it slowly turn into a blanket, a plushie, or an accessory, is amazing. Picking up a new hobby can be pretty overwhelming, so let me help you out! This will be your one-pit stop guide to all the information that any beginner may need. Lets start off with the tools that you will need. There are multiple craft stores and online websites that sell the tools you will need. I will show you the single purchase you will make so you can begin your crochet journey.

I purchased this kit on Amazon. There are other bag designs to pick from, florals, stripes, polka dots, but this is the one I picked. This kit has two zippers, and it opens up kind of like a book. If you are interested in finding it, go on the Amazon app and look up crochet kits. It should be one of the first few that pop up.

Inside this crochet kit is an assortment of tools that will come in handy for any crocheter, from beginner to intermediate and beyond. This kit is a great way to start off and explore what preferences you have. Shopping around for tools can be confusing, but this kit will facilitate this task. Let's talk about the most important thing you will need, (other than yarn of course), your hooks. The handles of the hooks, (the part you are holding on to while you crochet), can be made in different materials. Sometimes the whole hook is the same kind of material, but the handle doesn't have to be exactly like the actual hook area that you use to loop the yarn. The handle area is meant to be comfortable for YOU and is meant to meet YOUR needs. The handle should be comfortable for you to use. There are wooden, acrylic, gummy, and metal handles. This kit comes with two sets of metal crochet hooks. One set of the hooks is just full metal, and the other set is metal with a soft gummy handle.

This kit is perfect because it has different hook sizes on both sets. Hook sizes are measured in mm (millimeters), and the hook you use depends on how thick the yarn you are working with is and how tight you want the crochet piece to be. The side of the hooks come either engraved or painted on the side of the handles. Here's an example.

The next thing that this has is a measuring tape! A measuring tape might sound a bit random. You're probably thinking "What am I going to measure? The length of the yarn I need?". Although some projects do require you to use a specific amount of yarn of a certain color, measuring tapes are more often used to measure the length and height of your clothing projects. This measuring tape has a button that helps release the tension of the tape and retracts it back into its place inside the storage part of the tape. This way, when you finish measuring, you can easily remember how much you measured.

Knowing how to sew is very helpful when you start off crochet. Sometimes you will need to stitch crochet items such as beanies or headbands. Other times you'll want to add adorable faces on your plushies or maybe you just need to close up your project. Either way, you'll probably need needles to sew your crochet projects. The first kind is the standard needs for regular thread, the second set is big eyed needles. These are used to sew but with yarn instead of regular thread. Luckily, this kit comes with both of these kinds of needles! You don't have to worry about not having the right kind of needle thanks to this kit!

Standard needles

Big eye needles

Now, sometimes you mess up and sew something wrong, and that's okay! This kit includes a seam ripper, and you'll be able to use it if you sew something wrong.

Keeping track of the number of stitches you have in each row can be hard and overwhelming. This kit has tools that can come in handy and facilitate this task. There are a couple of ways to keep track of the stitches and rows. The first way is using 'stitch markers' They are essentially plastic safety pins and hold the place of a stitch so that you can keep track of where you started. The kit comes with a number of stitch markers in various colors.

The second way of keeping track of the stitches and rows is by using a stitch counter. There are manual and digital kinds, but they all do the same thing. This kit comes with two of the manual kind of stitch counter. There is a dial on the sides, and you turn it to change the number shown on the counter.

Yarn comes in different colors and styles. Sometimes you can have multi color or even glittery yarn. Either way, you have to be able to measure how thick the yarn in in order to find the right sized hook for your project. This kit comes with a pallet that measures the yarn for you. You have to put the yarn through each hole on the pallet until you find one where the yarn can go through easily but doesn't get stuck. This comes in handy when you are trying to make sure that the yarn sizes of different colors are the same thickness. It also helps figuring out what size of hook works best for the yarn you are using.

The next tool that is in the kit is a thread snipper. This is used for cutting your yarn without tearing up the ends. Some scissors will cut your yarn uneven, and this tool helps cut yarn in a neatly form. The snipper comes with a lid that fits when the snippers are closed.

The kit has a few other add ons that could be useful once you get a grip on crochet. These are just some of the more important tools that you will need as a beginner and they all come in this single kit! As I mentioned earlier, you can find this kit on Amazon. You can try shopping around craft stores and buy the tools separately or as you continue your crochet journey, but keep in mind it'll probably come out a little more expensive. I hope you fall in love with the art of crochet and have fun making your first creations!

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