I bought this for myself in order to see if I could teach myself to crochet. I am 42-years old and have a 68-year old Mom and 94-year old Grandma (my beautiful Polish "Babcia") that have both been hounding me to learn to crochet. My mom is like a Master Crocheter. She can whip up an afghan with the most amazing and elaborate patterns, I think we would drive each other insane if I took a lesson from her. It would be like asking Wolfgang Puck to teach me how to fry a perfect egg. I would mess it up 23 times before I came even close to getting it right, and we both would probably walk away from each other with tears of frustration. Haha. And my Babcia, well she and I would just end up talking and talking, give up on crocheting, and drive to the casino to gamble away the night (yes, she's 94 and still goes to Atlantic City 3 times a week). Anyhooo, back to me and this kit. So I figure this kit looks simple enough, let me just teach myself. I opened the kit, and it had 2 crochet hooks, a plastic needle, and 7 spools of yarn. I looked at the instruction manual and almost fainted. It looked DIFFICULT. But I didn't let this discourage me. Ok, so after a few days of trial and error, here are my PROS and CONS: CONS: Instruction manual is intimidating at first. It took me awhile to even get started, because the beginning "knot" they tell you to make just made no sense to me. So I simply made a hoop and a knot at the end of my yarn, and started with that. I haven't gotten far enough to finish a piece to know if this "knot" will affect the end product, but I just wanted to get started, and this worked for me. The yarn is more like string, (it's basically the same size & texture of basic string). I was a little bummed at first, but as I started getting the hang of it, i realized this "thinner" yarn was easier for a beginner like me rather than a thicker, plusher yarn. The crochet hook stinks. Plain and simple. It is big, plastic, and the hook part just does not grab the string right. After two days of unsuccessful crocheting, I went to the craft store and bought 3 metal hooks. Yes! That did the trick and I was making the basic "chain stitch" that day!! But now thinking of it, the larger plastic hook might work for smaller hands, BUT the hook part just wasn't grabbing right. Maybe if an adult made a little notch with a sharp knife it would help make the hook grab better (please nobody cut yourself if you try this, I'm just thinking out loud). I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to "turn", or get to the 2nd row of stitching. The picture was kinda confusing to me. However, when I watched an online lesson on how to do this step, then the picture made sense to me. (THIS would be a good time to get help from someone else if you are a beginner, because to me, the instructions were confusing). PROS: I know I will eventually use all the yarn to get the hang of this. I have no desire to make the belt, or coaster, or anything, I am just using the various yarn to learn the basic chain stitch. So having all this practice yarn "string" certainly helps. It's getting to be fun now that I am getting the hang of it. To be honest, I also bought this because I am a very high-strung person, and find it hard to "quiet my mind." This relaxes me so much no that i am getting better at it!!! My husband can't believe how "quiet" I am when I am practicing my technique. Hahaha!! :) I've had this for a little over a week, and I've made several rows of a basic chain stitch. Yeah, I know it's not much, but I was ready to give up on day one. Glad I stuck with it!! I've always wanted to learn to crochet, and now I'm on my way. I gave this product 3 stars because of the difficulty I had with the large plastic hook (but maybe a child would find the bigger hook easier) and because SOME (not all) of the instructions were confusing. It's the end of March, and I'm hoping by Mother's Day I am good enough with this kit to make my Mom and Babcia a coaster or something simple, just because I think it will be cute to give those two master crocheters something that I made with love!!! **** UPDATE **** It's been almost 3 weeks and I am DOING IT!!!! I've made several squares about the size of large coasters. I am getting the hang of crocheting more and more each day. I am still using the thinner yarn included with the kit. I tried to be bold and went out and bought some of that fuzzy, plush yarn, and I can't work with that yet. I get "lost" too easily. In addition, now that I am doing so much better with everything (the chain stitch, the single crochet, the turning chain, etc) NOW the instructions and pictures look soooo easy. So, just remember....to a beginner the instructions and pictures will be overwhelming at first, but once the basic steps are understood, everything falls into place.
