My first crochet project – Baby Blanket

As I’ve mentioned previously, when I was pregnant with my first child, I decided to teach myself to crochet. The first project I tackled was a baby blanket from the Learn to Crochet booklet I bought at my local craft shop. Nice and simple – all single crochet in a rectangle in a baby-friendly wool, and then a couple of rows of single crochet around the edge in a fluffly wool (sorry, I made this a while ago and don’t have the exact details of the yarn anymore).

I studied the diagrams for how to single crochet and plunged into the project (it’s just a blanket, so no worrying about gauge for me!). As I went along, I knew something wasn’t right with my crocheting – it didn’t look quite like the pictures. I decided there was no going back, and continued on – once again thinking, it’s only a blanket so as long as it’s all the same, it doesn’t really matter.

When I started my next crochet project (Square Man and Long Skinny Dude), I did some googling to work out what I did wrong. The instructions in my book only showed making the stitch on the foundation chain, where you only pick up one loop of the previous row, so I did that for all the rows. Trap for young crocheters! I was actually supposed to poke the crochet hook through the two loops of each stitch. Oh well, just makes my blanket all the more special and unique!

It also ended up way too small to use for a baby, but I’m sure will make a great doll’s blanket sometime down the track. You’ve got to start somewhere!

What was your first crochet project? Have you made something where you knew you were doing something wrong, but went ahead anyway? Let me know in the comments.