Books and Articles by Julie Holetz

You're never too old or too young to discover crochet. The skills you master, the benefits you receive, and the beautiful heirlooms you create can last a lifetime and be passed on to future generations. To get started with crocheting, you need to decode crochet symbols and abbreviations so you can follow patterns with ease, and you need to find out what gauge is (and why it's so important).

People have experimented quite a bit with the art of crochet over the years. They've taken the basic stitches and found unique ways of manipulating them to create variations on the original art form. They've also combined the use of the crochet hook with other tools to produce totally new techniques. They've even experimented with a variety of materials to broaden the scope of the craft.

As more and more plastic grocery bags are being replaced by cloth totes, why not turn your leftover plastic bags into a reusable crocheted bag? Plastic bags can be crocheted like yarn; they just need a little bit of prep work to become plastic yarn, or plarn. If you don't have enough plastic bags to make the bag shown here, ask around and help relieve your neighbors of their unwanted bags.

You can recycle your old sheet sets into crocheted pillow covers to create a wonderfully textured effect. You can cut sheets into strips for crochet in several ways. The most basic way is to simply cut the fabric into equal-sized strips and then knot, sew, or loop them together into one long, continuous strand.

This is a great project for all those old T-shirts hanging around. Use one for a trivet or multiple for a set of placemats. See the figure for an illustration of the instructions. Trivet stitch diagram. Materials and vital statistics 1 Large tie-dye T-shirt, or in color of your choice Hook: Crochet hook size P-15 U.

Here's a crochet pattern for a simple throw rug made from several pairs of old jeans. If you'd like a larger size rug, increase the stitches in the foundation row, work more rows, and cut strips from more pairs of jeans. Materials and vital statistics 3–4 pairs of jeans, depending on size Hook: Crochet hook size Q U.

You don't have to be an expert in crochet to make a difference with it. The moment you found out how to guide your hook through the stitches you became empowered to make positive changes in the world. here are nine ways that you can do good things with crochet — for your friends, your community, and your planet.

It is to get frustrated when you're struggling to slide your crochet hook into stitches. Following are a couple of reasons your stitches may be too tight (along with a couple of easy fixes): You're pulling the working yarn too tight as you work. Try loosening up your tension by adjusting how you hold the yarn.

You're crocheting along when suddenly you realize that your work is getting skinnier — something it's not supposed to do. This problem is a common one for those who are still getting the hang of crocheting. If your project is growing narrower as you work, then you probably lost one or more stitches somewhere along the way.