Last week I taught my niece and her 6 year old daughter to crochet, and it appears that they are going to enjoy it! My niece had been told by a Colorado yarn shop that they had to sign up for classes and purchase tools and yarn there, which was going to be about $200 for them, not including lots of driving to and from Denver from their ranch for classes every Saturday, so I told them to forget it and wait until spring break when I could teach them at home. I made tote bags for each and then rummaged through my embarassingly large collection of tools and yarns, so each one got her own tote bag, little plastic container for tools, 3 mid-size crochet hooks, scissors, and pair of yarn needles, plus a couple of how-to books with good pictures and a large sack of miscellaneous balls of worsted weight acrylic yarn in various colors that I had tucked away from years of making afghans. They caught on quickly, and made sample swatches for practice, and then branched out into a double-sided potholder and hair scrunchies. My niece wants to make an afghan, and her daughter wants to make one for her doll's bed, so I think they are on their way!
I get really irritated when yarn shops, et al., tell people they can't possibly learn something new without classes and spending lots of money up front on equipment and materials! I have taught too many people to knit, crochet, and quilt with little if any expense to believe otherwise. I figure that if people enjoy doing it, they can buy equipment and materials later on as they need it, and if they don't enjoy it, they have saved a fair amount of money and can go find something else that pleases them. Like many others, I have large stashes of spare equipment and materials, and am pleased to sit down with beginners. (The only thing a person HAS to own is a thimble to learn quilting, since I never share thimbles or have spares to give away.) The yarn shops and fabric shops probably hate people like me, but that's OK.