What would you have liked as a beginner?

Dear users, dear authors,
as beginners, would you have liked better materials, better yarn, better patterns, or better explanations, or did you have everything you needed?

I would have liked better explanations. I painstakingly taught myself (all over again) everything I’d forgotten since my school days. As for the materials, it was my own fault—since I didn’t know if I’d “stick with it,” I’d only bought cheap materials. In the meantime, needlework has become a long-standing hobby I’ve grown to love, and now I only shop at the local store, which carries only high-quality goods.

I would have liked better patterns. Some just aren’t suitable for beginners, but then they should say so.
And more pictures in a pattern. When you can see it visually, it’s easier to understand some things.

I also started out as a beginner without much of a plan. I had no idea about needle sizes or materials. After a budget-friendly start with poorly made plastic needles and acrylic yarn, I painstakingly worked my way through YouTube videos. Back then, I didn’t know about CP yet, and crochet magazines were like a foreign language to me—completely incomprehensible.
I wish I’d ended up right here from the start; then a lot of things would have been easier.

It probably depends on how you define a beginner. In any case, I’ve noticed here in the promotional threads for beginners that people often advertise patterns where I think to myself, “Whoa, that would’ve been too hard for me as a beginner!” (cable patterns, for example). I think that as designers, we tend to lose sight over time of what’s easy and what isn’t.

I think that as a beginner, you really should start by practicing a lot with very simple and short projects. You’re still working very slowly, after all, and you quickly lose interest if something takes forever to finish. Over time, you’ll start to feel more confident.

Of course, the patterns should be written so that even beginners can follow them. But sometimes they just end up being too lengthy. Too many photos can also be annoying. And for more complicated patterns, a crochet or knitting chart is simply much more informative. But then you just have to figure out the abbreviations and symbols first. In my opinion, that’s definitely not for beginners.

The quality of the materials is definitely very important, too. As I mentioned above, at first you’re watching your budget and working with cheap materials. But when the result is disappointing, you lose the motivation to keep going.

I wish the internet had been around when I first started crafting. There are so many great videos online that explain the basic techniques, and forums (like this one) where you can ask questions.
Sourcing materials has also become easier thanks to the internet. Sure, it’s still best to get advice from a local yarn shop, but unfortunately, not everyone has one right around the corner.

My grandmother taught me to crochet, and my mother taught me to knit—and that was long before the Internet age. Overall, I was completely satisfied with what was available back then. Does anyone else remember the 3 Pagen catalogs? Or was that a purely Austrian thing? These were catalogs with patterns, and what made them special was that you could then order the corresponding yarn from 3 Pagen. Short strands of yarn in every color were stapled into the catalog, so you could feel them and see the exact colors. My mom would send in an order every now and then (basically the offline version of online shopping), and then I was allowed to pick out a design—along with the yarn—that I wanted to knit. The only condition was that I had to finish knitting my project before I could get new yarn.
To answer the question now: back then, I would have liked to have had more yarn, just to experiment with, the way I like to do today. On the other hand, this approach was also very efficient. Thanks to it, I never developed a fear of more complicated patterns. If it was difficult, you just had to push through it—otherwise, there would be no new yarn.

Oh yes, Die 3 Pagen. My mom had them too, and I loved the scrap-yarn booklets because they had lovely little projects in them, mostly suitable for beginners. I still have three of those booklets and treasure them like precious keepsakes. They must be almost 50 years old, because I remember wanting to crochet the doll dresses and Mom still having to help me a lot... *reminisces...
but I’m getting off topic.
I learned to crochet, knit, embroider, and sew from my mom. And in needlework class. With my mom, I always had someone to turn to for help, and we’ve kept exchanging ideas all these years. So I had a relaxed start as a beginner and also borrowed lots of books and magazines from the city library. But only for inspiration—the patterns in them were too tedious for me and rather off-putting with all the abbreviations. I only ever followed individual patterns, never whole projects. For me, it was always a matter of trial and error.
Best regards
Caro