As crocheters, we sometimes pick up bad habits over time, but these are 14 super bad habits that every crocheter needs to break right now. Hi, I’m Elise from the blog le petitsantcrochet.com and crochet is such a wonderful hobby that people of any age and skill level can enjoy. However, like any other activity, there are bad habits that we all need to break so that we can improve the quality of our work and get the most out of our crafting experience. And and in all honesty, I have done most if not all of these 14 super bad habits that every crocheter should break right now. So don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself doing any or all of them too. Before we get started, tell me in the comment section what is your worst crochet habit?

The first bad habit that every crocheter needs to break right now is having bad posture. Good posture and support is the key to being able to crochet for the long haul. This quote from Interweave.com is a fantastic reminder about the importance of having the right posture and the right support. While you’re sitting there having a lovely time with your hook and yarn, take a moment to check in with what your body is telling you. Pain is simply information, not the enemy and it can help you avoid permanent injury. If you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable or have twinges of pain, pay attention. Do you need to change the way you’re sitting? Often, small adjustments to your posture or the addition of support accessories can make a world of difference.

The ideal posture for ergonomic crochet is sitting upright with your feet on the floor or on a small foot. Rest shoulders, relax and elbows at your side. Extending the arms outward from the side of the body while working can place strain on your elbows and wrists as well as shorten the muscles of your shoulders. If you regularly feel like your shoulders and arms are tight after crocheting, try dropping your elbows. The most important part that I want to highlight from the author of this article, Andy Graves, is that pain is not the enemy. It is simply a message that our body is sending to us that something isn’t right. Making big or small adjustments can mean the difference in crocheting without pain and avoiding lasting injuries. Find what works best for you, but never ever ignore pain.

Let’s take a moment to talk about today’s sponsor, skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform for creative minded people. They have thousands of amazing classes in areas like drawing, painting, crocheting, knitting and photography. Just to name a few. And what’s great is that skillshare classes are all online. You can learn from the comforts of your own home and all classes are ad free. One of my favorite skillshare classes is Modern Crochet Essentials for Getting Started by Toni Lipsey from TL Yarn Crafts. Toni is one of my favorite crochet teachers and this class is perfect for the crochet beginner, but it is also great for those of us who want to polish up our existing crochet skills. This class contains 14 different lessons and it will take you from a complete novice all the way to making your very own first crochet project.

And one of my favorite lessons is all about blocking basics and aftercare. I get so many questions about blocking and this explains not only how to do it, but why it’s important. And what’s even better is that the first 1,000 people to click the link in the description box below will get a one month free trial to skillshare. Make sure to check out all of their other crocheting classes. There is something for everyone. Thank you so much to skillshare for sponsoring today’s video. I know, I know nobody wants to talk about making a gauge swatch, but it can mean the difference between making a garment that actually fits your body or having one that is too loose or too tight.

You don’t need to make a gauge swatch for most items where fit isn’t important, but if you need an item to be a certain size, a gauge swatch is the only way to go. This will ensure that your finished item turns out the way you intended it to. And just in case you didn’t know a gauge swatch is a small sample of crocheting worked in the same stitch pattern and yarn as the intended item. These are the three benefits of doing a gauge swatch. Number one, the crochet hook size can greatly affect the finished size of your project. A crocheter can test different hook sizes until they find the one that produces the correct gauge. Number two. Different stitch patterns can produce different gauges.

By making a gauge swatch, a crocheter can ensure that the stitch pattern that they have chosen will result in the fit and the size that they want. And number three, every crocheter has their own tension, so by making a gauge swatch you can determine if your tension is close to the pattern designer’s tension or if you need to change your hook size or your yarn to be able to make gauge. It really is a small investment of time that can pay off in a big way. The next bad habit is ignoring your tension. Tension is an important factor in crochet, and it can affect the appearance and quality of your finished item. Practice maintaining a consistent tension throughout your work and pay attention to any of those areas where you tend to get too tight or too loose.

Most beginners struggle with tension, so if this is something that you’re really battling right now, don’t give up. And I want to direct you to this video by Sigoni Macaroni. She is a fantastic crochet teacher and her tips in this video are pure gold. I will leave a link to her video 7 tips to improve Yarn Tension in Crochet in the Description box below. The next super bad habit that every crocheter should break right now is one that I do all the time and that is scrunching up my shoulders while I’m crocheting. Every single time I crochet, I have to repeatedly tell myself, put down your shoulders. This can cause obvious tension in your shoulders, but also in your neck and in your back.

And when you relax that tension in your shoulders, it’s a lot easier to maintain a relaxed tension in your hands as well. This next bad habit is one that I have done so many times, and it is one of the most frustrating bad habits that I have. And that is not taking notes on my pattern. Not writing down notes, whether actually on the physical pattern or in a little notebook, has created so much frustration for me over the years. I try to convince myself in that moment that I’ll remember. I’ll remember that little detail. I’ll remember how I changed the pattern. I’ll remember that I used a different size crochet hook. I’ll remember that I changed the yarn. I’ll remember. And guess what? Guess what? I never do. You’re right. I never remember. This is a bad habit that I am trying to break.

I actually have myself a cute little notebook that I am writing down notes in and I am not afraid to write on the physical pattern. Almost all of my patterns have little notes and check marks and things all over them, but I’m trying to get more deliberate about writing those notes and making them clear for my future self. This next bad habit that every crocheter should break right now is one that anyone who has crocheted for longer than five minutes has done this one. And that is not counting your stitches. How many times have you been crocheting a project and you’re just convinced that you have the correct stitch count? You’re like, I don’t even need to count it. I know I’ve got this. And then you go to do your increases or decreases, and you realize, I don’t have the right stitch count.

It can be super tempting not to count your stitches, but it always turns around and bites me in the rear when I don’t. Obviously, we don’t need to count every single round or row in a project, but it really does help to check in every once in a while and make sure you have the correct amount of stitches. The next bad habit is something that I actually don’t really do. I probably have the opposite problem, but that is cutting your ends too short. Cutting the yarn too short can result in a project that falls apart over time or is difficult to work with. And that way, you have a long enough end that you can securely weave in. And this leads me to the next bad habit, which I bet you can guess what it is.

The next bad habit is to wait to weave in your ends till the end of the project. This isn’t really one of those habits that I actually do because I enjoy weaving in my ends. I’m one of those weird people that I don’t mind it at all. So I typically just do it as I’m going along. But. But I know that it’s something that a lot of people struggle with, and I would encourage you that if this is a habit that you particularly struggle with, to start trying to weave your ends in right away. Or maybe you do a group of them at a time just so that you don’t get to the end of your project and have so many ends that you need to weave in, because that can feel really discouraging.

And it can even cause people sometimes not to even finish the project because they’re overwhelmed with all of those ends that need to be woven. Woven in. The next bad habit is one that I do from time to time as well, and that is not blocking my finished objects. Now, not every single crochet project needs to be blocked, but many of them do. Blocking helps to even out any irregularities, and it also gives the finished product a polished look. Blocking can especially help with the drape of a garment, the shape, or even the appearance of some finished objects. You don’t really need to block most amigurumi toys, but if the toy is wearing little clothes and it’s got a little sweater or a little pair of pants, blocking can help, especially those edges that tend to curl up.

It can actually help to make it nice and smooth and look so Professional. And there are several different ways that you can block your projects. First is wet blocking, and that’s when you actually get the item and you soak it in some water and maybe a little wool wash, and then laying it out flat to dry. The next is steam blocking, and you can put your project on a blocking mat and then use a little handheld steamer to get all of those imperfections and irregularities out of your project. And you can steam block on acrylic as well, because a lot of people think that you can’t block acrylic, but you actually can. Spray blocking is the next way. And this is the way that I typically block my projects.

And I just use a little spray bottle and my blocking board and my pens, and I just wet the little project, not soak it, but get it a little bit damp. And then I’m able to press it and make it into the shape that I want it to. And this works really well for natural fibers like cotton or wool or even wool blends. And the final way is just pin blocking, where you can actually put, say, a granny square on a granny square blocker. I have one of those. Or you can just use a foam blocker as well, where you just pin it in place, where you don’t even need to wet the granny square, but it will give it a very nice shape and definition.

The next bad habit is one that I did for way too long, and I’m here as your friend to tell you need to stop doing this. Crocheting through pain is one of the worst habits that you need to break right now. Crocheting for extended periods of time without taking a break can lead to eye strain, back problems, neck problems, tendinitis, joint pain, shoulder pain, elbow pain, wrist pain. I crocheted through so much pain, and I have ended up with severe tendinitis in my elbow. I ended up with a cyst in my wrist, and I am currently dealing with some shoulder pain that has not gone away in about two years. So don’t do what I’ve done. When you feel that pain, stop.

And I really like that quote that we read earlier in the video from Interweave.com where it talked about, pain isn’t the enemy, but it’s a message from your body saying, hey, something’s not right. This needs to stop. Please don’t do this anymore. It doesn’t mean that we have to stop permanently, but it does mean that we need to take a break. The next bad habit is one that I have a feeling that most of us have participated in at some point or another, and that is not reading through the pattern first. Quickly reading through a pattern before we start can save us so much time and frustration. There is nothing worse than getting halfway through a pattern only to realize that you needed a special notion or you needed additional yarn that you had no idea about.

And now you have to stop and you have to go order this thing online. And now you have to wait. I don’t enjoy doing that. So now I try to read through the pattern first if I can remember to do it, because it really does save us time and a lot of frustration. Next bad habit is one that thankfully I broke a couple of years ago, and that is crocheting in bad lighting. Not only does it cause eye strain, but it can also cause neck and back issues because you may have to turn your head or your work in a weird way so that you get better lighting.

And it can lead to headaches, which I didn’t make that connection until not very long ago when I realized straining my eyes like that was probably the reason why in the evenings after crocheting for a while and in a darkened room, why I was getting headaches. So now I wear a neck light almost every single time that I crochet. Even though I crochet in the evenings with lamp light all around, it just isn’t adequate for my aging eyes. This has made a huge difference for me and I’m able to crochet and I can see my stitches so well. And the neck light that I have is under $20. I love it. It’s rechargeable and. And it has different settings. So you can have cool light or warm light, you can have a low light or you can have really bright light.

And I will leave a link to it in the description box below. The next bad habit is one that I feel like a lot of us can identify with. Has this ever happened to you? You decided to play yarn chicken with a smallish skein of yarn. You were pretty sure you would have enough to finish your project, but all of a sudden you realize that you are going to lose this game and the yarn was going to run out. Next thing you know, you’ve ordered the yarn online, you got it in the mail. Into your horror, you got the right color, but it’s a different dye lot. You hope that you wouldn’t notice the difference, but of course you do.

I had that happen to me once, and now I try to always have enough yarn in the same dye lot to finish a project. The next bad habit is using the wrong type of yarn and hoping that it’s going to be okay. It can be tempting and even confusing trying to substitute yarn. Maybe the crochet pattern calls for a DK wool and you have a lot of DK cotton in your and you think I’ll substitute and just use that and you may be able to get gauge with that cotton. But about halfway through the project you start to realize that this little garment that you’re making is not fitting the way you thought it would. It doesn’t have enough stretch and it’s beginning to hang down because of the weight of the cotton. You end up having to frog the entire thing.

Then you do a little research and figure out that cotton has different properties than wool and that’s the reason why your project isn’t turning out the way that you want it to. It can be really confusing, but it’s worth taking the time to do your homework to make sure that you are doing the correct substitutions for yarns when you are making garments especially Most of us struggle with at least one or more of these bad habits and I am here to say I am with you. We can do this together. And don’t forget to click the link in the description box below to get your one month free trial to Skillshare. But I would love to know which habit is the one that you struggle with the most and I hope you all stay safe out there and happy stitching.