How to Crochet by Luca Budofsky

When I was a kid, I would sit on the puffy couch in my grandfather's living room and watch in awe as my aunt weaved the colorful string that trailed from the balls of yarn sprawled across the carpet into a row of sturdy stitches. As a kid, there was nothing I wanted more than to be able to do the same, to which my aunt promised she would teach me.

By perhaps 4th grade I was able to make all of the stitches on my own, and would spend hours looping yarn around a blue plated hook until the array of stitches formed a little square. While I rarely would end up with a finished creation, I loved being able to make something with my own hands, and taught myself everything I could.

Crocheting in a monotonous yet fulfilling task. It forces you to slow down for a second, and provides a little space to clear your head. While I have drifted from it since I was a kid, I keep coming back to the rows of little knots out of the comfort I find in it.

Whether through crocheting or music or art, it is important to me to have little places to escape to, where I have to think of nothing else other than what I'm doing in that moment.

With that hear is a little tutorial of how to crochet!

How to crochet:

1) Make the slip knot- Make a loop. Draw the long end of the string through the loop to create another loop and slip it onto the needle. Tighten the knot.

2) Chain stitch- Hold the short end of the yarn between your left thumb and middle finger, loop the long end over your index. Loop the yarn around the hook, back to front. Pull the yarn through the loop already on your hook. Repeat several times until desired length.

3) Single Stitch- Insert your hook into the second chain from your hook. Loop the yarn over the hook and pull through the chain stitch. Loop the yarn over the hook again and this time pull through both loops on the hook. Repeat until you reach the end of the row. Chain one and insert the hook into the first stitch from the hook. Repeat this entire step over and over until your knit is as long as you would like it to be.