What Is Crochet?
Crochet is a process of creating textiles by using a crochet hook to interlock loops of yarn, thread, or strands of other materials. The name is derived from the French term crochet, meaning 'hook'. Hooks can be made from a variety of materials, such as metal, wood, bamboo, or plastic. The key difference between crochet and knitting, beyond the implements used for their production, is that each stitch in crochet is completed before the next one is begun, while knitting keeps many stitches open at a time. Some variant forms of crochet, such as Tunisian crochet and broomstick lace, do keep multiple crochet stitches open at a time. Knitted textiles survive from as early as the 11th century CE, but the first substantive evidence of crocheted fabric emerges in Europe during the 19th century. Earlier work identified as crochet was commonly made by nålebinding, a different looped yarn technique.
When Were Crochet Patterns First Published?
The first known published instructions for crochet explicitly using that term to describe the craft in its present sense appeared in the Dutch magazine Penélopé in 1823. This includes a colour plate showing five styles of purse, of which three were intended to be crocheted with silk thread. The first is "simple open crochet" (crochet simple ajour), a mesh of chain-stitch arches. The second starts in a semi-open form (demi jour), where chain-stitch arches alternate with equally long segments of slip-stitch crochet, and closes with a star made with "double-crochet stitches" (dubbelde hekelsteek: double-crochet in British terminology; single-crochet in US). The third purse is made entirely in double-crochet. The instructions prescribe the use of a tambour needle and introduce a number of decorative techniques. The earliest dated reference in English to garments made of cloth produced by looping yarn with a hook—shepherd's knitting—is in The Memoirs of a Highland Lady by Elizabeth Grant (1797–1830). The journal entry, itself, is dated 1812 but was not recorded in its subsequently published form until some time between 1845 and 1867, and the actual date of publication was first in 1898. Nonetheless, the 1833 volume of Penélopé describes and illustrates a shepherd's hook, and recommends its use for crochet with coarser yarn.
Why Crochet Today?
You can make so many things from blankets and stuffed animals to shirts and pants! What you can make with yarn is endless.
