The beginnings of crochet

D is very interested in monkeys at the moment, and I am very interested in getting her annual birthday gift of a hat out of the way. Last year it was a knitted pink and taupe chicken hat with white buttons for eyes. This year, it will be a crocheted sock monkey hat which we picked out "together" (she looked at the pictures and I chose the cutest pattern that was free). I much prefer the look of crocheted monkeys to knitted monkeys, as I'm sure anyone with sense would (just kidding). This, of course, means I need to learn how to crochet. Here's what has resulted from about an hour's worth of checking out how-to photo galleries and video tutorials:


I'm so glad I stumbled onto a Youtube series on how to crochet a hat; there are little things you can't find out about a craft simply from a photo or an isolated video on technique. It's starting to make sense. I do find some of the various stitch names irritating: half double crochet? Triple treble crochet? Really? However, I don't gather that's something I can change.