Knitting is my first fiber love, however, I've been known to pick up a crochet hook now and then. Rarely do I make something exclusively crocheted, though. For one, though I know the basic stitches, I can't read a crochet chart to save my life. Secondly, I much prefer the look of knit stitches to crocheted ones.
My favorite thing to do with crochet is actually to combine it with knitting techniques to accomplish things that are just a little easier to do with a crochet hook. How can you put the two together? Here are a couple of ways I like to combine crochet and knitting techniques in one project.
Edging (adding crochet to knitting)
See that nice continuous border and how it rounds the corner of this coaster? I knitted the main part of the coaster in 2-color linen stitch, but wanted the whole thing to have a finished edge in a solid color. So, I picked up the knitted stitches on each edge with my crochet hook and did a single crochet stitch around the whole piece. The bound-off and cast-on stitches pick up pretty easily (one single crochet for each knitted stitches), and then for side stitches, you just have to wiggle you hook in between rows. Here's a few other photos where I did something similar.
I went through a pretty solid linen stitch phase.
Circles (adding knitting to crochet)
I'm not a fan of knitting circles. I think they're fiddly, a little over-complicated, and never actually look like a true circle. So, if I need a circle, crocheting in the round is my go-to technique. The mug cozy below, for instance. I wanted a nice circular bottom for my cozy, so I crocheted a circle and then picked up the crochet stitches on the outer edge with double-pointed knitting needles and then began knitting like I normally would. The edge of the handle opening is also crocheted, as is the button loop.
A Tip
When combining crochet and knitting, you want to make sure that your hook and your needles are of comparable size so that the size of your stitches matches. On the mug cozy, for instance, I used a size J crochet hook and US size 10 needles, both of which are 6mm. Don't use a tiny hook and big needles (or vice versa) or you'll wind up with some wacky results!