Hello, my loves. Toni here from TL Yarn Crafts. And welcome back to my channel. And no, I did not knit my sweater. I got it from Old Navy. Yeah, they’ve been doing it for the fall season. So we all know crochet as this super relaxing hobby, right? We can relieve a lot of stress and anxiety by just relaxing into the stitches and enjoying the process. But every now and then, we’ve got a baby shower coming up in 24 hours, and these blankets aren’t going to stitch themselves. So whether you’re trying to beat up your crochet for a current whip or you want to improve your efficiency overall, you’ve come to the right place to get. Today, I’m sharing nine tips to make you a faster crocheter.

Now, before we dive into any of the tips, we have to give some love to our cup of caffeine sponsor. I’ve got my buello latte here in my you are my sunshine mug that my mom gave me when I moved here. And I just love this mug. It’s huge. Like, can you see it? It’s about as big as my head and it’s full of coffee. And this is how we’re going to make sure we have a good day. So today’s cup of caffeine sponsor is Nikki. And when donating Nikki said, I just found out coffee offers a monthly support option. I love your videos and get inspired by you. Bring to us your Rhinebeck video. Now I’m looking at wool festivals. You’re making clothing. I feel better about my journey. Thank you for all you do, and thank you so much, Nikki.

I don’t think you guys know how much you influence me as well. I wouldn’t be going to these fiber festivals or making my own clothing or trying out different yarns without encouragement from all of you. So I really appreciate it. So this cup of coffee is for you, Nikki. And if you like my videos and want to support my channel, buy me a coffee. Who knows? I might shout you out in the next one. Now let’s talk crochet speed tips. My first tip to crochet faster is to pull from the center of the skein. So when you get a skein of yarn, you’ve got a center pull and you’ve got an outside pull. If you work from that outside pull, it’s going to cause the yarn ball to kind of flop around and make some unnecessary movements slowing you down in your stitching.

So instead, take that outside pull and just wrap it around the skein. We’re not going to use it, we need to find the center pull. And sometimes that’s easier said than done. There are some yarns out there that have, like, a quick start center pull. They put a little sticker on center pull to make it really easy to start it. But most skeins just aren’t like that. So to find the center pull, I like to take my two fingers, insert them into the middle of the yarn, and I’ll go in from the other side as well. And where my fingers meet is about the center. I’ll then grab a chunk of that yarn and start pulling it out. And usually the center pull is in there somewhere. Now, don’t fear the yarn barf. It happens. It’s no big deal.

Just take a couple moments to untangle it all, and you’ll be right as rain. Now, if you want to skip this step all together, you can go straight to just winding your yarn before you start using the skein. If you get twisted hanks from, like, your local yarn store or something, you’ll have to wind those regardless. But you can also wind sk that you get from the craft store. I like to again find that center pull, and then I’ll use my yarn ball winder to make a cute little cake. Then I know exactly where the center pull is, and I’m less likely to get some of the knots that you would find in those commercially made skes. Tip number two is to keep your yarn under control. Now, there are many different ways to corral your yarn while you’re stitching with it.

I’ve seen these before, which I really like. You put your yarn on top of here, and then as you’re stitching it, slowly unspools it for you. But these don’t end up working for me because I tend to yank my yarn when I’m trying to feed it. So I like the look of these, but they’re not super practical for me. And if you’re working from the center pool of a ske, something like a yarn bowl or just a project bag is going to hold your yarn just fine. Something like this is going to make sure your yarn feeds to your project without any unnecessary movements, helping you stay in that speedy flow. So tip number three has to do with your hook, specifically the material of your hook. To achieve those speedy stitches, you need a hook that gives you as little drag as possible.

So if we look at conventional hooks, we’re going to get to choose from wood, metal, or plastic. On the whole, plastic hooks are going to be faster than wood, but metal is the fastest overall. Brushed aluminum hooks are going to be your best bet for that smooth glide that you need for your speedy stitches. I’m personally a huge fan of the clover amours for a lot of reasons. I love the colors of them, I love the length of them, and I love that the ergonomic handle gives the yarn somewhere to stop as it’s traveling down the hook. All of these things combined help me crochet super fast with those Clover Amores. I’ve got those linked down in the description if you want to try them out. Tip number four has us focusing on how we hold our hook.

There are two main ways to hold your hook. There’s the knife hold, where the hook is resting in the palm of your hand, and then there’s the pencil hold. The hook rests on top of your hand. Neither of these styles is inherently faster than the other. It’s all about finding what you’re most comfortable with. Now, I personally am a knife holder when I crochet, and I find that I crochet a little bit faster if I shift my hand down the hook a little further away from the thumb rest. This gives me a wider range of motion and helps me be a little bit more accurate when I’m grabbing the yarn for my yarn overs. Now, this does impact my gauge, and it makes my gauge a little bit loose. If you’ve ever done a teal yarn crafts pattern, you probably know that already.

But I do find that it allows me to crochet a little bit faster and it keeps the comfort in my hands and wrists that I need. Whether you’re a knife holder or a pencil holder, experiment with the way that you hold your hook. Shift your hands up and down the hook, hold it with different fingers, try different combinations to see what works best for you and what gets you those faster stitches. Now that we have the hook in the right place, let’s talk a little bit about yarn tension for tip number five. So we’re going to be able to stitch faster when the yarn can get from the skein to our project with as little obstruction as possible. The way that we tension the yarn in our hands is going to make a huge difference.

Tighten or loosen the tension on your yarn based on the yarn weight and the yarn fiber. Now, you might find that you need to tension a little bit more for thinner yarns, and then you can soften your tension for chunkier yarns. The entire goal here is to find a combination where you have control over the yarn, but it’s still able to move freely. So experiment with different tension holes. There are lots of different videos on YouTube that talk about how to hold the yarn, so check out some of those and see which way is most efficient for you. So here in tip number six, let’s talk about our posture. Now, as new crocheters, it is very common for us to scrunch up right? We bring our shoulders up to our ears.

We bring our project super close to our face, and unfortunately, that puts a lot of tension on our hands, our wrists, our shoulders, and our neck. And seasoned crocheters are not much better. We’ve got pretty terrible posture, too. We found a way to sit that makes us more efficient, but a lot of the times is at the detriment of our spine, our hips, our wrists, and our necks. Now, you might not want to hear this, but the healthiest way to sit while we’re crocheting is straight up in a chair, our feet about hip width apart and flat on the floor, and our spines nice and elongated. We should also make sure that our elbows are relaxed down at our sides, and that’s going to alleviate a lot of stress on your back and your hips.

And it’s also going to make it more comfortable to crochet for long periods of time. Even though we’re focusing on speed in this video, we do need to balance that with our overall health. No matter how many of these tips that you memorize and implement, you’re not going to get too far on your whips. If you develop tendinitis or some kind of repetitive stress injury, if you notice any kind of tingling in your fingertips or some kind of twinge in your hands, those are early warning signs, and you need to take a break. If you experience these kind of symptoms a lot, I definitely recommend seeing a medical professional about them. Or you could look at some of the stress aids that are available, like tension gloves or ergonomic hooks.

Tip number seven is all about keeping your hands as close to your lap while you’re stitching as possible. Now, you’ll be surprised how much of a difference that this makes. When we lift our hands far above our tummy, a little bit closer to our face, it puts a lot more of the stress in our shoulders, our elbows, our wrists, and our hands. By dropping our hands a little bit closer to our laps, it alleviates all of the stress from our waist up to our necks. This puts a lot more of the focus into your hands for doing the stitching, and it makes your body feel a little bit better. So there’s a trend going around of using what’s called a crochet pillow while stitching.

It basically looks like a boppy, like one of those nursing pillows that’s a little wider in the middle so it fits comfortably around your midsection. What this effectively does is gives you a gentle place to rest your elbows as well as your project to alleviate some of the stress on your shoulders and neck. Now, I’ve never tried one before, but I can see how they could be really good at alleviating stress in your body and also assisting you in stitching faster. You can find these online in a few different places. I saw one on Hobie’s website that is currently for sale. Or you can make one heart Hook Home has a pattern for them and the way that she stuffs it using pantyhose is mind blowing.

These last few tips all have to do with picking a project that will aid in those speedy stitches. And tip number eight is about picking a project with a repeating stitch pattern. Repeating stitch patterns are easy to memorize, making sure that you can fall into the groove of stitching without having to overthink it. Patterns like the granny stripe, the linen stitch, chevron stitch, those are super easy to memorize. You can fall into a nice groove and you can create this simple pattern that still has this eye catching fabric. Tip number nine is to choose projects with simple stitches. Basic stitches like single and double crochet are going to work up infinitely faster than more complicated stitch patterns like bobbles and cables. These basic stitches just take less movements to create, allowing you to build your fabric much faster than those more ornate stitches.

If speed is the main goal, keep it breezy with those simple stitches. So it’s the holidays around these parts and I know a lot of crocheters are stitching for craft shows or for gifts this time of year. So if you’re looking for some projects that will be speedy but also look amazing, I’ve got a few recommendations. First is the Queen cowl. This is a piece that knocked them dead at the craft shows back when I used to do them and I’m sure they’d still be a hit today. It’s a timeless piece, it’s super flattering on everyone and it’s got this secret little pocket for your snacks, phone, keys, whatever you need to cart around. It’s made with super bulky weight yarn and simply uses double crochet and I bet you could finish one in about an hour.

Next is the Kima Cardi because chunky cardigans are the forever mood. I absolutely love this piece because it’s made with bulky weight yarn and a combination of very simple stitches. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s perfect for beginners, and it’s a layer that you won’t want to take off. And then there’s the Daphne Afghan. So you remember when I talked about those last minute baby blankets? Believe me, I’ve been in that position more than once. And if you find yourself there as well, try to make the Daphne Afghan. It’s made from four triangles of granny stripe and it gets all of its charm from this color changing cake yarn. That way you can let the yarn do all the work and just relax and stitch away.

So I’ve offered lots of tips and tricks to crochet faster in this video, but it’s all going to depend on your crochet style and your crochet experience to find a combination that works well for you. So crochet often, use many different types of hooks, practice with different stitches, tension your yarn differently, and as you make these adjustments, observe how it impacts your crochet speed and then also how it makes your hands and wrists feel. That perfect combination that allows you to stitch like the wind is going to take some trial and error to find, but once you get it, you’ll never lose it. I hope this video gave you some inspiration to improve your crafty speed and I would love to know are you doing any of these things already? And are there any tips that I’ve missed?

Drop down in the comments and let me know your secret for crocheting faster. Thanks so much for watching and I’ll see y’ all next time. Bye.