King - Crochet Techniques For Intermediates

Crochet, sounds a little fancy, but what does it mean? Itcomes from the middle French word croche , which is theword for hook. Named for the hook located on the end of the device. Wood andbone were most commonly used to create crochet hooks, however now aluminummakes for a very popular crochet hook.

Crochet is theorized to have come from the Middle East,South America, or Asia. Though it s birthplaceremains a mystery, its a fact that crochet grew inpopularity in the 19th century across most of Europe. Crochet was firstreferenced in the late 1890s in, The Memoirs of a Highland Lady writtenby Elizabeth Grant.

It was thought that the first publicly printed crochetpatterns appeared in 1824 in the Dutch magazine, Penelope. However an1819 publication of the Swedish magazine, Konstoch nyhetsmagasin fr medborgare av alla klasser, contained a crochet pattern making it the first publishedcrochet pattern. Throughout the years the longest crochet pattern inprint has been the granny square, which was first published in 1897 by theWeldon Company of London.

In the 19th century Ireland was in the Great Irish Famine(The Irish Potato Famine), which took place from 1842 - 1847. During this time,the Irish starved and suffered from countless diseases; nearly 1 million diedand over 1 million others fled their homeland. The Irish crocheted lace tosupplement their incomes during this poverty stricken time. Mademoiselle Riegode la Blanchardiere is thought to have created the Irish Lace patterns. She publisheda book containing many Irish Lace patterns in early 1846.