Mindful Crafting for Beginners

The Pocket Book of Crochet by Claire Gelder is a compact beginner’s guide to crochet, covering the foundational knowledge needed to get started and work through a first set of projects. Gelder is the founder of Wool Couture and brings over twenty years of crafting experience to a format designed to be approachable and low-pressure.

The book is structured as a three-step progression:

• Bronze — basic stitches and simple joining
• Silver — building a broader stitch repertoire
• Gold — simple shaping, pompoms, and putting skills together in three finished projects

Along the way it covers how to read a ball band, get tension right, choose hooks and yarns, and read abbreviations and crochet patterns. Compact enough to keep in a project bag.