How to Start Crocheting: A Beginner’s Guide Inspired by Daisy Farm Crafts
If you’ve ever watched a Daisy Farm Crafts video and thought, “I wish I could make that,” you’re not alone. Tiffany and Hannah Richardson have built one of the most beloved crochet communities on the internet by making the craft feel warm, approachable, and genuinely joyful. Their patterns — from chunky baby blankets to delicate granny square throws — have introduced millions of people to the world of crochet. Whether you’re picking up a hook for the very first time or returning to the craft after a long break, this guide will walk you through everything you need to get started, stay motivated, and eventually make the kinds of cozy, beautiful projects that Daisy Farm Crafts is known for.
Why Daisy Farm Crafts Has Captured So Many Hearts
Before we dive into the how-to, it’s worth understanding why Daisy Farm Crafts resonates so deeply with its audience. The channel isn’t just about patterns — it’s about the experience of making something by hand. Tiffany and Hannah film in beautiful natural light, often surrounded by soft textures and farmhouse-style décor. Their tutorials are slow, clear, and patient, which is exactly what a beginner needs.
Their philosophy is simple: crochet should be for everyone. You don’t need to be crafty by nature. You don’t need to have learned from your grandmother. You just need a hook, some yarn, and the willingness to try. That message has resonated with millions of subscribers, and it’s the same message that will carry you through your own crochet journey.
Gathering Your Supplies: What You Actually Need
One of the most common mistakes beginners make is over-complicating their supply list. The truth is, you don’t need much to get started. Daisy Farm Crafts patterns typically call for accessible, affordable materials, and that’s a great model to follow.
Yarn
Start with a medium-weight yarn, also called worsted weight or size 4 yarn. This is the most common weight and the most forgiving for beginners. Look for yarn that’s smooth and light-colored — not because light colors are more fashionable, but because they make it much easier to see your stitches when you’re learning. Dark yarn, especially black or navy, can hide the loops and make it hard to count.
Daisy Farm Crafts frequently uses brands like Lion Brand Pound of Love, Caron Simply Soft, and Bernat Blanket yarn. All three are widely available at craft stores and online, and none of them will break the bank. If you’re making a baby blanket (one of the most popular project types on the channel), Lion Brand Pound of Love is a wonderful choice because it’s soft, machine washable, and comes in a beautiful range of colors.
Crochet Hooks
For worsted weight yarn, a 5.0mm or 5.5mm hook is a great starting point. Many Daisy Farm Crafts blanket patterns call for a larger hook — sometimes a 6.0mm or even a 9.0mm — because chunky, looser stitches give blankets that cozy, draped feel. Start with whatever hook your yarn label recommends, which is usually printed right on the band.
Ergonomic hooks with soft rubber grips are worth the small extra investment. Crocheting for long periods can strain your hands, especially when you’re first developing your technique and your grip is tighter than it needs to be.
Scissors and a Yarn Needle
You’ll need a pair of sharp scissors to cut yarn and a blunt-tipped yarn needle (also called a tapestry needle) to weave in your ends when a project is finished. These are inexpensive and essential. Don’t skip the yarn needle — loose ends that aren’t woven in will unravel over time, and there’s nothing sadder than a beautiful finished blanket coming apart at the corners.
Stitch Markers
These little clips or rings mark a specific stitch so you don’t lose your place. They’re especially useful in patterns that require you to increase or decrease at specific points. You can buy a small pack for a few dollars, or use a scrap of contrasting yarn tied in a loop — it works just as well.
Learning the Basic Stitches
Daisy Farm Crafts patterns are wonderful for beginners because they rely on a small set of stitches repeated in satisfying, rhythmic ways. Once you learn the core stitches, you’ll be able to tackle the majority of patterns on the channel.
The Slip Knot and Chain
Every crochet project begins with a slip knot and a foundation chain. The slip knot anchors your yarn to the hook, and the chain creates the base from which you’ll work your first row. This is the very first thing you should learn, and it takes most people only a few minutes to get the hang of it. Watch it at least twice before trying it yourself, and don’t worry if your chain looks uneven at first — it almost always does.
Single Crochet (sc)
The single crochet is the most fundamental stitch in the craft. It’s short, tight, and creates a dense, sturdy fabric. Many beginner dishcloth and washcloth patterns are made entirely of single crochet, which makes them perfect for practice. Insert your hook into a stitch, pull up a loop, then pull through both loops on the hook. That’s it. Do that a few hundred times and you’ve got a swatch.
Half Double Crochet (hdc)
The half double crochet is taller than a single crochet and has a slightly softer, more flexible drape. It creates a lovely fabric for hats, baby items, and blankets. Daisy Farm Crafts uses this stitch frequently, often in the “waistcoat stitch” or “center single crochet” variations that give a project a knit-like appearance.
Double Crochet (dc)
The double crochet is the workhorse of crochet. It’s taller than the half double and works up quickly, which makes it ideal for large projects like blankets and afghans. Most of Daisy Farm Crafts’ most popular blanket patterns are built on the double crochet stitch. Once you can do this stitch confidently, a huge world of patterns opens up to you.
The Granny Square
No discussion of Daisy Farm Crafts would be complete without mentioning the granny square. It’s one of the most iconic motifs in all of crochet — a small, square medallion worked in the round, traditionally made with clusters of double crochets separated by chain spaces. Daisy Farm Crafts has published dozens of granny square variations, from the classic three-color version to elegant solid squares in a single neutral tone. Learning the granny square feels like a rite of passage, and once you’ve made one, you’ll want to make a hundred.
Your First Project: A Simple Baby Blanket
If you’re looking for a first real project that mimics the Daisy Farm Crafts aesthetic, a simple baby blanket is the perfect choice. Here’s a general approach that reflects the style of patterns you’ll find on the channel.
Start by chaining a foundation row of around 100 to 120 chains, depending on how wide you’d like the blanket to be. Work in half double crochet across the row, then chain one and turn. Continue working in half double crochet, row by row, until your blanket is roughly square or as long as you’d like. When you’ve reached your desired length, fasten off and weave in your ends with a yarn needle.
That’s a complete beginner blanket. It’s humble, but it’s real. It’s something you made with your hands, and if you make it in a soft, washable yarn, someone can use it and love it for years.
As you get more comfortable, you can add a simple border — usually just a round of single crochet all the way around the edge — which gives the blanket a finished, polished look. Many Daisy Farm Crafts blankets feature a sc border as the final step, and it makes an enormous difference in the overall appearance.
Tips for Staying Consistent and Building Skill
Progress in crochet is almost entirely a matter of repetition. There’s no trick to developing a consistent tension (how tightly or loosely you hold the yarn) other than making a lot of stitches. Here are some things that genuinely help beginners build skill faster.
Crochet a little every day. Even fifteen minutes of practice is valuable. Your hands develop muscle memory, and the more stitches you make, the more natural the movements become. Many crafters find a daily crochet habit deeply calming — it’s meditative in a similar way to knitting or cross-stitch.
Watch your favorite tutorials more than once. Daisy Farm Crafts videos are designed to be watched, paused, rewound, and watched again. Don’t feel like you need to keep up with the video in real time. Pause whenever you need to, and don’t move on until a step feels clear.
Don’t rip out your work too aggressively. Beginners often make the mistake of tearing apart a project the moment something goes slightly wrong. In crochet, small imperfections in tension or stitch count are usually invisible once a project is finished and blocked. Learn to let small mistakes go. Save ripping out (called “frogging” in the crochet community) for actual structural errors.
Count your stitches regularly. Getting into the habit of counting your stitches at the end of every row will save you enormous frustration. If a row is supposed to have 100 stitches and you count 98, it’s much easier to fix two missing stitches now than to realize forty rows later that your blanket has a strange diagonal slant.
Join the community. The Daisy Farm Crafts Facebook group and comment sections are full of encouraging, experienced crocheters who genuinely love helping beginners. Posting a photo of your work-in-progress and asking for feedback is a perfectly normal and welcomed thing to do. The crochet community is one of the most supportive crafting communities on the internet, and tapping into it will keep you motivated.
Exploring the Daisy Farm Crafts Pattern Library
Once you’ve got the basics down, you’ll want to explore more patterns, and the Daisy Farm Crafts website and YouTube channel are treasure troves. Here are some of the categories of patterns you’ll find and what to expect from each.
Baby blankets are probably the most searched category on the channel, and for good reason — they’re the perfect size for a beginner, they make meaningful gifts, and they work up relatively quickly compared to a full-size throw. Start here if you’re a new crocheter who wants a finished object fast.
Granny square patterns range from beginner to intermediate and can be combined in endless ways to create large afghans, bags, and even clothing. The granny square along (CAL) projects that Daisy Farm Crafts occasionally hosts are a great way to build a large project piece by piece while staying connected to other makers.
Throw blankets and afghans are the crown jewels of the pattern library. These larger projects take time — sometimes weeks or months of dedicated crafting — but the results are stunning. A beautifully finished throw blanket in a carefully chosen color palette is the kind of handmade object that becomes an heirloom.
Hats, scarves, and seasonal items round out the library and are perfect for quick, satisfying projects between larger undertakings.
Choosing Colors Like Daisy Farm Crafts
One of the things that sets Daisy Farm Crafts apart visually is the color sense. Tiffany and Hannah have a gift for combining colors in ways that feel soft, cohesive, and timeless. Their palettes tend toward earthy neutrals, dusty pastels, and gentle botanical tones — the kinds of colors you’d find in a Scandinavian farmhouse or a well-curated Instagram feed.
If you want to replicate that aesthetic in your own projects, start by anchoring your palette in a neutral. A warm white, an oat-colored cream, or a soft gray can serve as the backbone of almost any color combination. Then add one or two accent colors in muted, dusty tones rather than bright, saturated ones. Think sage green rather than kelly green, dusty rose rather than hot pink, slate blue rather than royal blue.
Hold your yarn skeins together in natural light before you commit to buying them. Colors that look beautiful on a screen can clash in person, and the reverse is also true — sometimes combinations that seem dull in a photo come alive when you see the actual yarn.
Blocking and Finishing Your Projects
Blocking is the process of wetting or steaming a finished crochet piece and then shaping it while it dries. Many beginners skip this step because it seems complicated, but it makes a significant difference in the final appearance of a project. Blocking evens out your tension, opens up lacework and granny squares so their shapes become crisp and defined, and gives a project that polished, professional look.
For most acrylic yarns (which are common in Daisy Farm Crafts patterns), steam blocking is the most effective method. Hold a steam iron a few inches above the finished piece and let the steam penetrate the fibers without pressing down. Then gently smooth the fabric with your hands and let it cool completely before moving it. The difference before and after is often remarkable.
Natural fibers like cotton and wool can be wet blocked by soaking the piece in cool water, gently squeezing out the excess (never wringing), laying it flat on a blocking mat or towel, and pinning it to the desired shape while it dries.
The Bigger Picture: Why Making Something by Hand Matters
There’s something worth saying about why crafts like crochet feel so meaningful to so many people, especially now. We live in an age of instant gratification, digital consumption, and mass-produced objects. Making something by hand — something that takes hours and attention and care — is a quiet act of resistance against all of that.
When you crochet a baby blanket, you’re not just making a blanket. You’re making something that carries the hours you spent on it, the love behind the gift, the decision to slow down and create rather than simply consume. That’s why a handmade blanket from a grandmother or a friend feels different from a store-bought one. It’s not just the object — it’s the time inside it.
Daisy Farm Crafts understands this instinctively. The warmth of their videos, the care in their tutorials, the community they’ve built — all of it reflects the belief that making things matters. That creativity is good for the soul. That sitting down with some yarn and a hook, especially in a difficult moment, can be genuinely healing.
So pick up your hook. Chain a foundation row. Make your first wobbly single crochet. Don’t worry about how it looks right now — worry about how it will look in a hundred rows, a thousand rows, a dozen finished projects from now. Every expert crocheter you’ve ever admired started exactly where you are, and every beautiful Daisy Farm Crafts blanket you’ve ever seen began with the same humble slip knot.
Start today. Your first project is waiting.
