History Of Crochet

When it comes to arts and crafts, crochet is often overlooked, however it is something that requires lots of concentration and talent. Knitting and crocheting are two very different things, while both have a similar result, the process is very different. There are different styles of both, however at their basic levels both are threading loops to create shapes that can later be used to create clothing, blankets, or even stuffed animals. The main difference between crochet and knitting is they style of loop twisting, with crochet, if you mess up a row or a loop you can just pull the yarn and redo it, whereas knitting is kind of like a series of knots, where you can’t undo it easily.

Crochet dates back to the mid 1820’s, but compared to many other art forms Crochet is considered to be a modern art. Additionally, Crochet wasn’t even truly known until around 1830-1840. A book from Britain first stated a Crochet pattern in the instructions of a woman’s purse, being a section in the book written in french. This book was called The Ladies Knitting and Netting Book, and would be known as something of cultural significance. Despite how far back crochet dates though, crochet didn’t start to be popular until the late 1940’s, and took off in the 1970’s. This sudden spike in popularity actually occurred due to people getting back into an interest in at home crafts. The interest in home crafts actually became so widespread that it began to be called The Art and Crafts Movement, the movement was meant to be an anti-industrialization movement to attempt to “reform society”, after the brutal WW1. 

Nowadays, crochet has become an art form that has struck the arts and crafts world. Many people have benefited from and uploaded tutorials on popular internet websites, and have used crochet as a fun hobby to do in order to calm down, relax, or to simply make something new. Additionally to how fun crochet can be, it is a decently easy hobby to pick up. The art form is very beginner friendly, as stated before, there are many tutorials that professionals have made for beginners, and there are a lot of different resources available for people who want to learn crochet. 

Crochet Club

One of those resources in Tahoma high school is the Crochet Club.Here at Tahoma we have our very own Crochet Club led by Kit, along with another club led by Hannah Mcdunnuh If these clubs seems interesting to you then you can visit the club in Portable 4 at Power Hour A, or at room 321 at Power Hour A, these clubs are welcome to anyone, beginner, intermediate, or skilled crocheters are all welcome. The general work the clubs do are projects, where everyone learns how to crochet something new, as stated by Kit “we do projects to help people learn what they like to do, our most recent project was a bee,”. 

The goal of the Crochet club is to create a safe community for anyone who might be afraid of making mistakes, crochet takes a lot of skill and a lot of patience. They also provide tips and have very helpful members, some ways to begin learning to crochet outside of the club (as suggested by Kit) would be to “Start on youtube and you’ll learn more and more,”, as well as “Using a 0.5 smaller hook than recommended,” when it comes to making animals.

Crochet Club is also meant to be safe place for people to come together and share the same hobby together, as well as to learn more about Crochet. The environment is seen as extremely cozy and warm, and the members are very patient towards learning Crochet, open to having new members. As stated by Hannah Mcdunnuh, when asked what she enjoys about Crochet club, “I think this is a really good opportunity for me to meet new people, and create an environment where people can share their hobbies, and to just have a space where they can be.” 

Following the sharing of their interest in crochet, this Crochet Club also has a lot of different projects that they work on as a group, and lessons for beginners. As of now, they are working on a granny square blanket. In this project, each member makes one or more granny squares and then the group puts them together in order to make one big blanket. 

Afterwards, the Crochet Club will donate their projects to the community, to help give back. Overall, the Crochet Club is an amazing club full of wonderful people who want to simply crochet and have fun with some friends who share the same hobby as them. A club, which if you join you could learn about a fun new hobby while also making new friends in the process.