Q. Thank you so much for teaching me how to crochet Aunt Esther! I've wanted to learn for a long time, and your videos taught me much much better than the books and websites I had already tried. The reason I am trying to learn to crochet is so that I can make scarves as gifts for my family and friends this Christmas. Do you have any helpful tips for a beginner for the best method to make a scarf? What pattern or type of yarn is easy to work with? What should I look out for or pay attention to as I try to make a scarf?

A. Hi Hannelore! Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. I think if I were making scarves that I would choose to make them double crocheted. (First row - chain stitches as wide as you want your scarves to be, second row - single crochets, third (and every other row as long as you want your scarf to be) - double crochets.

I would avoid cotton and baby yarns and I would also avoid loosely twisted yarns. The cotton yarn wouldn't be warm, and the baby yarn small to work with and would take forever to complete each scarf. The loosely-twisted yarn catches in your hook and takes time to untangle it. Each untangle wouldn't take that long, but if it happens every few stitches, it gets frustrating quickly.

Oh yes, and also count your stitches at the end of each row for the first few rows, just to make sure you aren't adding or subtracting stitches on each row.

Hope this helps! Esther