The internet is a wonderful place where we all can learn new skills and develop new abilities.
While for many people these skills are high-tech coding or other techniques that have only become common knowledge or been developed in the last few years, this is simply not the case.
The internet is the biggest database in the world, and it is the place where you can learn all the skills that either time or your family forgot.
Knitting, blacksmithing, foraging, all these skills that many of our ancestors had been available online for us to learn and pick up.
One of these skills is crocheting, which is something that people have practiced for many years, but it fell out of practice in more recent times.
Now, people want to learn it again, and they want to know where they can learn how to crochet online. As such, we have written this article to teach you how to crochet.
What Is Crochet?
Crocheting is a type of needlework textile art and fashion. It is a method of making different textile products by using a specialist implement that is a thin rod with a hook on the end (called a crochet hook) to interlock loops of thread, yarn, or strands of other materials together.
The hooks can be made from a variety of different materials, including metal, wood, and plastic, but the textile must always be something that is fairly flexible, in strands, and quite comfortable.
Many people wonder what the difference between crochet and knitting is and while one of the biggest differences is the implements that they use – knitting has needles and crochet has hooks – there is one other big difference as well.
When you crochet, the stitch that has just been done is completed before you move on to the next one, whereas that isn’t necessarily the case in a knitting piece and many stitches can be open at a time.
Due to this fact, crochet pieces are generally more sturdy than knitted ones, as the completed stitch means that if it breaks, the stitches around it will remain intact, which does not generally happen in a knitted piece.
Another thing to note is that crocheting is often more personalized and time-consuming as it can usually only be done by hand, whereas a knitted piece can be completed by a machine.
That is why you will often find completed crochet pieces as more expensive or more intimate than knitted ones.
Best Online Courses To Learn Crochet
With our understanding of what crochet is out of the way, it is time to take a closer look at the art form itself.
There are many places and courses you can learn to crochet from on the internet, and we are going to take a look at just a few of them.
Skillshare
If you don’t know, Skillshare is an interesting learning platform as it is more of an online learning community that helps each other out.
While the courses are not accredited, many of them are thought of highly and can take you from a beginner to a pro within a few months.
The main reason for this is how the courses are set up. First, you create an account and – if you are a student – you pay for a subscription, which is $13 a month.
You can access any of the courses available on the platform and there can truly be any courses, as long as people are willing to teach them or learn them.
You see, the teachers are people who also sign up to
- Learn new skills
- Explore your passion
- Take classes on the go.
"1 year in and still going, their content and courses are great"
The number of people taking their course will be a deciding factor in how much they are paid.
This incentivizes them to make professional and engaging courses that students want to take.
The courses are also more interactive than a lot of other courses online, with each lesson normally having a walk-through video that is carefully explained, and you are asked to perform whatever task you want along with it, before finishing and having an end of class homework assignment or project to practice the skills you learned.
As for crocheting courses on
- Modern Crochet 101: Create a pair of Fingerless Mitts.
- Crochet Basics: From Skein to Scarf.
- Crochet for Absolute Beginners.
These courses are actually some of the shortest on the platform – with the longest being just over 2 hours – but they are absolutely worth it, especially for those just starting out.
Modern Crochet 101 and Crochet Basics take you through the process of making a product from start to finish – a pair of fingerless mittens and a scarf respectively – and Crochet for Absolute beginners teaches you important techniques, especially the importance of gauge stitches.
While none of these courses will make you a master crocheter, they will allow you to learn the basics and give you a good foundation of knowledge when it comes to crochet, as well as teach how to actually craft different pieces.
The first two courses also cover how to choose your hooks and yarn, as well as techniques you can use on other pieces you may want to crochet.
The best part is that both instructors, Jess Coppom and Connie Lee Lynch, both have other crochet courses on
Udemy
Udemy is another useful online learning platform that people can go to when learning different skills.
It is an online learning platform that promotes itself to both professionals and students, and while – like
The model of Udemy’s learning platform is that you can look at the courses individually without paying to get onto the platform, however the courses are normally behind a paywall. Some courses are free, but most come with a price tag.
The structure of the lessons are also more in a lecture format, instead of being interactive, as they tend to be videos or have slides with text and other materials in between.
While this is a great way to learn for some people, it can be quite limiting for others.
This – along with the ranging price – is why we would recommend that you use Udemy if you are sure of the value of their courses, and you can afford it.
On Udemy, there are 3 different courses that we would recommend to learn crochet from:
- Crochet Basics – Learn to Crochet Within a Week!
- The Ultimate Course for Beginner and Intermediate Crochet.
- Crocheting for Beginners with Crochet Projects.
- 210,000+ online video courses
- From zero to hero
- Learn in your own time
"I am happy to learn in my free time after work."
All three of these courses have good ratings, with each of them being around the 4.5 out of 5 stars mark and each one is under 3 hours long, meaning you can watch the lecture and hopefully absorb all the information that you need to start crocheting in that time.
The first course, Crochet Basics, is great for nervous beginners of crochet, as it takes you through the absolute basics and the projects you do are all very small in nature, so you don’t have to deal with the daunting task of potentially messing up a larger project you have been working on for a while.
The second course, the Ultimate Course, is a great jump from this first course as it takes you through more essential skills once you have the foundation down, and it is a great course to come back to if you are an intermediate crocheter, to brush up on your skills.
Finally, the third course, Crocheting for Beginners, is a great one to get if you are looking to complete some projects with your beginner skills that you may not have been able to before or been able to find any projects in your skill set.
The main problem is that each of these courses cost money, and buying all of them will set you back.
The cheapest is the third course – at $20 – but the other two courses are around $60 and $50 respectively, which is a lot of money to drop on three courses even over time.
You can get them in deals, but it depends on whether they are on offer at those times.
YouTube
If you are not up for spending any money, there is one place you can go to get lessons for absolutely free: YouTube.
YouTube is the largest video sharing website in the world and while many of the videos on there are purely for entertainment purposes, there are a great many that are educational in nature.
In fact, many of the professionals on the other websites we mentioned actually started life as YouTubers before plying their professional trade on a certified platform.
As such, you can find a lot of people – who may be just charismatic hobbyists – teaching you how to do things, including crochet.
The best thing about YouTube is that for the viewer, it is completely free.
Since YouTubers make their money through advertisements rather than payments by you, all you have to do to learn is to watch their video and the advertisements embedded in them without paying a cent.
Now, the format of learning from YouTube leaves a little bit to be desired, as it is purely a video format and there are no projects or notes for you to complete, but again the entire thing is free, so there really is not much to complain about.
The best channels to learn to crochet from on YouTube are:
- The Crochet Crowd.
- Bella Coco.
- Kristin’s Crochet Tutorials.
All these are great ways to learn crocheting, but they all present in different ways, which is useful.
The Crochet Crowd should be watched from the ‘How to Crochet for Beginners’ episode and go from there. This is great to find a vast range of designs, patterns, and techniques to learn for yourself.
Bella Coco is the perfect channel to begin from in general and gain a great foundational knowledge of the art form.
She has a fantastic absolute beginners playlist and her voice is very reassuring throughout, so you shouldn’t be nervous starting out in this fun little activity.
Kristin’s Crochet Tutorials is a good one for people who struggle to learn from videos or lectures.
This is not because they are interactive, but when she is presenting the tutorial, she goes very slow and also slows down the visuals, so you can grasp what she is doing very easily.
She also has an entire playlist dedicated to learning different tricks and helpful tips to make crocheting easier.
These three are probably the best places to learn crocheting on YouTube, so you should go check them out if you want to dip your toe in the water.
There are also tons of other channels devoted to crochet and crochet designs on YouTube, which you only need to search in YouTube’s search bar to find them.
The best thing about all this – as we mentioned earlier – is that all of these channels are absolutely free, which means all you need to do is pay for the crochet equipment yourself before starting out.
Are There Any Other Places To Learn Crochet?
There are plenty of other places that you can learn to crochet online.
Websites like Creativebug or Bluprint are always there to help you out, it’s just that we felt that these were the best places to learn crocheting when weighing up the costs and what they each individually offer.
Conclusion
Crocheting is a timeless skill that is beloved by many people as both an art form and a textile fashion statement.
Learning to crochet from online resources is easy, you just have to know where the right places to look are.
