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50 free Crochet trivia questions with answers. Crochet is older, stranger and more mathematical than its doily reputation suggests, and this quiz digs into all of it. Fifty questions cover where the word comes from, the 1823 Dutch magazine that first printed patterns, Irish crochet lace and the Famine, hook sizes and materials, yarn weights and dye lots, and the eternal UK-versus-US stitch-name confusion. From there it wanders through granny squares and the 1970s, amigurumi, Tunisian and filet and tapestry crochet, broomstick and hairpin lace, yarn bombing, the Crochet Coral Reef, Daina Taimina's hyperbolic planes, Guinness records for the fastest crocheter and the longest chain, and Tom Daley knitting in the Olympic stands. Easy questions suit anyone who has picked up a hook; the hard ones are for people who know their treble from their double. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia, the Craft Yarn Council's standards pages and Guinness World Records, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01The word 'crochet' comes from a French word meaning what?
Hook
The French term is a diminutive of croche, itself from the Germanic croc, so the craft is literally 'little hook'.
Q 02The first published 'crochet' instructions (1823) appeared in a magazine from which country?
Netherlands
The magazine was Penélopé, and its colour plate showed five purses, three of them meant to be crocheted in silk thread.
Q 03In 19th-century Ireland, crochet lace-making was taught in convents as relief during which crisis?
The Great Famine
Teachers were trained and sent across the country, and emigrants later carried the skill to the Americas.
Q 04By 1851, roughly how many women in Ireland were working in crochet?
16,000
Charity groups taught the technique free to anyone willing to learn, and by then it was taught in almost every convent in the country.
Q 05Who is generally credited with inventing Irish crochet, publishing the first book of patterns in 1846?
Riego de la Branchardière
Irish lace became popular across Europe and America and was made in quantity until the First World War.
Q 06Traditional Irish crochet lace was worked with a very fine steel hook and fine thread of what fibre?
Linen
Modern Irish crochet lace is usually worked in mercerised cotton thread instead.
Q 07Clones, home to a famous Irish crochet lace and a lace summer school, is in which county?
Monaghan
Máire Treanor and a voluntary committee have run the Clones Lace Summer School since 1990.
Q 08An 1846 instruction book claimed crochet was originally practised by the peasants of which country?
Scotland
The same author insisted the craft reached perfection in England before being 'transplanted' to France and Germany.
Q 09Which French king issued the 1653 passementiers' patent listing embroidery done 'on a crochet'?
Louis XIV
The hook used in crochet most likely descends from the tools of the French passementerie trade.
Q 10In 1567 a tailor supplied silk thread 'for sewing and crochet' to which royal?
Mary, Queen of Scots
The tailor was Jehan de Compiegne, and the record reads 'soye à coudre et crochetz'.
Q 11Many textiles once identified as early crochet were actually made by which older looped-yarn technique?
Nålebinding
The technique passes the full length of the working thread through each loop, and was used by Vikings and by Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Q 12How does the sizing of steel crochet hooks differ from that of regular hooks?
The higher the number, the smaller the hook
The smallest steel hook is a #14 at 0.9 mm and the largest a 00 at 2.7 mm; they are used for lace and thread work.
Q 13In US hook sizing, which letter-and-number label corresponds to a 6 mm hook?
J-10
Q 21Knitwear can be produced by machine, but most crochet stitches can only be made how?
By hand
This is why granny squares are still handmade and why 'crochet-look' fast-fashion pieces are really machine-knitted.
Q 22The two basic ways of holding a crochet hook are named after a pencil and what other everyday object?
A knife
The two are functionally equivalent and many crocheters use a hybrid of both.
Q 23The elongated tool with a stopper on the handle end used in Tunisian crochet is also known by what name?
Afghan hook
It is shaped without a fat thumb grip so that many loops can sit on it at the same height.
The letters and numbers were collated by the US yarn industry's trade council from de facto standards and are always paired with metric sizes on packaging.
Q 14In the standard yarn-weight system printed on US ball bands, category 4 'Medium' is commonly called what?
Worsted
The system runs from 0 (Lace) to 7 (Jumbo), plus a hand symbol for yarns worked with no hook or needle at all.
Q 15Which fibre is generally favoured for crochet, chiefly for its elasticity and warmth?
Wool
The trade-off is that it is less convenient to clean and some people are allergic to it.
Q 16Given the counter-clockwise crochet stitch, which type of yarn is described as most desirable?
Z-plied
Plying almost always twists singles in the opposite direction from which they were spun, which balances the yarn.
Q 17Skeins that were dyed together, and so match precisely in colour, share the same what?
Dye lot
Mixing lots, even of a very similar shade, can leave a visible stripe in the finished work.
Q 18The stitch abbreviated 'dc' in UK and international patterns goes by what name in US patterns?
Single crochet
In America the international system is often mislabelled 'British' or 'UK' terminology.
Q 19A US 'double crochet' is known by what name in UK and international terminology?
Treble
The name counts loops: yarn round and a drawn-up loop makes three.
Q 20Which of these, described as the most basic of all, is used to begin most crochet projects?
Chain stitch
It is made simply by looping the yarn over the hook and drawing it through the loop already there.
Q 24Tunisian crochet has gone by many names, including 'idiot's crochet' and which royal-sounding one?
Princess Frederick William stitch
Other aliases include tricot stitch, Victorian crochet and fool's crochet.
Q 25Filet crochet imitates filet lace using only two stitches. Which pair (in US terms)?
Chain and double
Solid and open meshes on a grid form the picture, which is why patterns are usually worked from a two-colour chart.
Q 26Tapestry crochet fabric is said to look more like it was made how?
Woven on a loom
The effect comes from carrying two or more strands at once and switching colours mid-row.
Q 27Maya men in which country tapestry-crochet shoulder bags with recognisable regional patterns?
Guatemala
Both women and men there also make tapestry-crocheted hats and hacky sacks for tourists.
Q 28Unlike tapestry crochet, mosaic crochet typically uses how many colours per row?
One
The pattern appears by dropping tall stitches down into earlier rows over the other colour.
Q 29Amigurumi is the Japanese art of making what?
Small stuffed yarn creatures
The craft became popular in the West around 2003 and was soon among the best-selling items on Etsy.
Q 30In the word amigurumi, 'ami' means crocheted or knitted; 'kurumi' literally means what?
Wrapping
The same element appears in nuigurumi, a sewn stuffed doll.