Beginner's Guide to Crocheting Cup Cozies

1. Welcome!: Hey there, I'm care a pledge in it. And in this course I'm going to show you how to make one of the quickest, easiest and best handmade gift ideas around cup cozy. They work up super fast, and they make a great first project for even the most novice beginner. I always like to remind people that Porsches just the art of making loops with a hook and if you could make a loop using crow shape in this course all show you everything you need to know. To make cup booties for yourself and everyone on your holiday list, you'll learn how to make a slipknot starting chain, how to single Cochet and how toe work in spiral rounds. And if you want to play with color and try color blocking or working with stripes, I'll show you how to change colors to in the course files. You'll find a pattern along with a supply list that has links to everything you need. And as a bonus, I'm also including a printable packaging template so you can really show off your cup cozies and gift them in style. Crash A is a great, inexpensive hobby. You can take it with you anywhere. It doesn't require batteries or power, and it's a great stress reliever to So settle in, grab your favorite drink and let's get coast. 2. Supplies: for this class, you will need a crush, a hook, and the size that you're gonna need is a four millimeter or G hook so you can pick these up pretty inexpensively at any craft shop. If you want to order online, I have a link to a new expensive one in the supply list for this course. Next, you're going to need some yarn for this project. I'm recommending cotton yarn, but you could get away with acrylic if you want to, but I think it might make your project a little too stretchy. So I'm using cotton yarn and this is just worsted weight cotton yarn. So how do you know what you are looking at At the yarn store, I am using lily sugar and cream. These are like a dollar 99 or something like that. They're pretty inexpensive. And what you want to look for is right here. So a worsted weight yarn is gonna have a four right here. So you want to check that you have a four, and then you wanna read to see what the yarn is made out of? So here it says that this is 100% cotton So that's how I know I'm using cotton worsted weight yarn and one of the evolve cost, like two bucks and you can make a bunch of coffee cozies from one bomb. Some other things that you are going to need are a couple of stitch markers, thes air used for a couple of things. One will mark the end of each round and the other you'll use if you need to put your work down for a little bit. If you don't have these, you can also use a bobby pin and or a safety pain. So whatever you whatever combination you're gonna use, you want to make sure you have two of them. Some other things that are nice to have but not required is a yarn needle. This is just a pretty dull needle with a large. I said that you can thread yarn through it. If you don't have this, I'll show you how to do the same thing with your hook and not really necessary for this project. But I just wanted to show you in case you get into this later, a row counter helps you keep track of your rose or your rounds and I have mine tied on some yarn here so I can wear it around my neck and not lose it in the sofa, but totally not required for this project. But if you do get into Kirsch A. It's nice to have for more bigger and more complicated projects. And, of course, you want to download the supply list and the pattern and the printable labels for this course. So below this video, there is a link that says your project. And if you click on that, then over to the right hand side you should see the course files. It'll be a PdF file, and you can just download that and that will have everything you need. In the next video, I'm going to talk you through how we build the project. 3. Construction Preview: So here is our finished project and I happened to make this sample with two colors, so I'll show you how toe do color changes later. But the way that this project is worked is in the round, so obviously it's gonna go around a cup. So we are gonna work this one in the round. We're gonna start with what's called a starting chain, so I'll show you how to do the chain stitch and will make a number of chains. And then we'll join the the end with the beginning to make a full circle here on. Then we'll just work around and around and around, putting stitches in and climbing up till we have a finished piece. Every few rounds we will add what's called an increase, which means we add in an extra stitch so that slowly, very, very slowly our project will have this nice slant to it. So there are several more stitches across the top of the project than there are at the bottom. And that's what gives it that nice cup taper, because we are going to be working in spiral rounds. There's not gonna be any seem up the back or anywhere on our piece. When we reach the end of the project, I will show you how to finish off. And we've in your ends for a nice finished product. Join me in the next video. Where for those of you who've never crossed state in your life, I'm gonna show you how to hold your yarn. 4. How to Hold Your Yarn: Okay, so how to hold your yarn? First of all, if you're right handed than your hook goes in your right hand and the yarn will be managed by your left if you're left handed, you're going to reverse that. And you're going to just reverse everything you see me doing. You'll be smearing at home. Okay, so I'm right handed, so my hook is gonna be in my right hand Now my yarn will then go in my left and got to find the, uh, tail here. So I'm gonna unravel the ball a little bit and put it somewhere next to me on the floor, on the sofa are just in the corner of your workspace. It's important to know that there's not really a right or wrong way to hold your yard. There's just whatever works for you. So I'm gonna show you what I dio and then a variation of that, and it will just take some practice to figure out how you like to do it. So, for me, I like to take my index finger in my middle finger and swoop them under the yarns. I'm holding the tail in my right hand at the moment in a swoop, my index finger in my middle finger under that yarn on. Then I'm gonna lift my index finger while I rotate my hand like this. So let's do that one more time taking my index finger middle finger. I'm gonna go under the yarn and then swoop and rotate my hand like this. So this does a couple of things. This allows me to control the tension of my arm by holding it right here between my fingers . I'm also controlling the tension with the loop and where it's looped over my finger here so I can loosen the tension by moving my finger down. Or I can tighten it by pulling it up this way. And thirdly, I've also got the yarn pinched between my fingers back here, so I'm manipulating it in three places. If you want to add 1/4 contact point, some people like to take the working end over here, and they like to pull it up. And over there Pinky, too. So that just adds 1/4 point that you can manage your yarn with. But I could never get mine to stay there, so I just don't do that sometimes if my hands are really slippery or my yarn is slippery, I try it that way. But it never lasts for very long. Just know that if you're totally new to this, it takes a little bit of practice to get the tension right. But don't give up. You will get there sooner than you think. Join me in the next video and I'll show you how to make the beginning, Slipknot. 5. Make a Slipknot: Okay, So to tie a slip knot, you're just gonna grab the yarn like this and extend your index finger. Then you're going to take the arm with your other hand, wrap it around your finger twice. So it's coming from the front side here, going over around twice and then grab it again with your fingers down here. So we've got two loops on our finger, one is inside, closer to our knuckles, and the other is towards the tip of our fingers. So we're going to grab the inner loop, the one that's towards our knuckle. We're gonna lift it up, pull it across the other loop and set it down. They were going to grab what's now the inner loop. This one lifted up, pull it over and all the way off your finger, and then you just tugged down here in the bottom and you've made a slip knot. Now we just insert our hook into this loop, grab the the tale of our yarn here and pull to snuggle That not right up next to the hook. And now we're ready to start our starting chain 6. Create a Starting Chain: So to get ready to make our starting chain, we just want to hold our yarn in whatever way works for us. And then I'm gonna hold the little not right here in my fingers. So I'm pinching the not and then I'm I've got my yarn held the way that I like to hold it, But he showed you in the other video. Okay, so now we're ready to make a chain stitch. And if you look at the pattern, it says begin by chaining 32. So a chain stage to do a chain stitch, we just take our hook and we swing it under the yarn. So the yarn is going over the hook. Okay, So putting the yarn over the hook like this, that's called a yarn over. So you're gonna yarn over, grab it and pull it through the loop. That was on our hook. And that makes one chain so you can see down here we have a little pair of loops. So one loop, I guess it has. I call them lips. It has a top lip and a bottom lip here. So we've made one chain. So now we're going to repeat that 31 more time, so we yarn over. Pull through. That's two yarn over pulled through three yarn over. Pull through. That's four yarn over. Pull through five yarn over. Pull through six. You're in Over. Pull through seven. And when you're making these, they don't have to be, like, crazy tight, OK? And they also you don't want them to be, like, super sloppy and loose. So part of learning to Cochet is to get a nice, even tension, and that comes with practice. So this is your first rodeo here. Don't sweat it. If your chain is really tired or really loose, just make note of it and then try to balance that out. All right, so we've done seven. We're gonna yarn over eight, 9 10 So just keep going until you made 32 chains on on me to at the end. So when you're done, you're gonna have a long chain like this. Now, if you lose count, here's how you figure out how many you've done. If you're like Oh, no, I got to 12 and then I don't know what happened. I forgot where I was. That's okay so you can count by counting these little pairs of loops or little lips. Remember that each time you make a change, it makes this little mouth I like to call it so each one is a stitch, so you don't count the one that's on your hook. So that loop we just ignore. So if you need to count your chains, you'll start with the first pair of lips that you find at the base of the loop. Those on your hook. So that would just be 123 456 and so on. So you just count each pair of lips and that will help. You know how many you've done if you lost count. So now I'm gonna put my hook back in here and tighten that loop back down. And now the pattern says slip stitch to first change. So we're gonna turn this from a street flat piece like this. We're gonna turn it into a round piece by taking the chain like this, and you want to make sure it's not twisted. So all those little lips should be facing you, and then we're gonna roll the ends around so they're still facing you, and you're gonna find that first chain that you made so that first pair of lips So you've got the slip not right here. And then there is a pair of lips, so you're going to go under that top lip with your hook, So insert your hook into that top lip and then grab your your yarn, do a yarn over, and then you're just gonna pull that through both loops on on that are on your hook and that is called a slip stitch. And now you see, we've got a circle happening. So now we're ready to just start crashing all around. So before we move on before I show you how to do round one, let's take our skitch marker for your bobby pain or your safety pin and you want to catch it under these lips right here. Okay, so this will help us know where the round will end, because otherwise we don't mark a stitch. We'll just be going around and will have no idea where we are. So we have our loop that are hook goes in, and at the base of that, there's a pair of lips, and that's what you want to stick your stitch marker through there and just Mark Mark that spot and I'll show you what to do with it later. If you don't have the stitch markers like this, you can just use a safety pin or just a Bobby pin and you just catch those loops like kind of like your fishing hook, that little para lips and just pull your Bobby pin like that. So that's gonna mark that stitch. So join me in the next video and I will show you how to work through rounds one through three. 7. Rounds 1-3: So if you look at your pattern, it says that in rounds one through three, we just single Croce around and there is a total of 32 stitches in each of these rounds. So this is the bottom of our cup cozy. So this is the narrowest part. So we're gonna keep just working with 32 stitches. So we're going to be doing single Crush A is for this pattern. So Round one is worked into this starting chain. So for the starting chain for around one, we're gonna take our hook and we're gonna insert it under that top lip of the next stitch. So remember that a stitch is comprised of these lips a top lip in a bottom lip. When we work into the starting chain, we're just gonna work under that top lip. You're going to slip your hook under that top lip you're gonna you learn over, pull through just that one loop. So now we've got two loops on our hook, then you yarn over and pull through to that's called a single crushing. So let's do it again into the next upper lip. You're going to stick your hook, stick it in there. Yarn over. Pull it through two loops on your hook. Yarn over. Pull through to can insert your hook. You're in over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through two loops so each one of these is called Single Croce, and you can see that behind us. Here it's making more pairs of lips. So if we count if we lose track, well, we don't really need to count cause we're just going in a circle. But if you want to count for some reason or you just want to like, look at what you're making, each one of these pairs of lips is a stitch. So this is the marked stitch here. This will be the last stitch of this round. It'll go right here. So, looking to the left of our march stitch, we've made 123 single crushing. So let's keep going. We'll insert our hook under that top lip yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to this is single Cochet. Insert your hook yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to insert your hook yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through two loops. Insert your hook. It can be a little squirrely this first round because working into a starting chain is kind of awkward. So don't be discouraged If you're like, Oh, I can't get it in here that the rest of the rounds will be easier. This is definitely the hardest. So you wanna put your hook under that upper lip yarn over, Pull up a loop, you're in over, pull through two loops. You're just going to keep doing that in each one of these lips, working your way around this circle. Like I said, the other rounds will be so much faster because working into the starting chain is a little finicky. So keep going. And I will meet you at the end before we work into that marked stitch. Okay, so we've come to the end of round one, and we're almost done. We haven't worked yet into this marked stitch, so we'll do that now. I'm just gonna basically ignore the stitch marker and force my hook in there. Yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to Perfect. So now we just take that stitch marker out and we just move it up one row. So as we go around, we're gonna be spiraling and we won't know where the end of our round is if we don't keep the stitch marked. So now that we've worked into that marked stitch, we're gonna take the stick, the stitch marker out, and then again at the base of our loop. So we have our our loop that goes on our hook, and at the bottom of it, there's a little para lips and will just slide are stitch marker in there. And now we're ready to start on round two, and round two is going to be an roam free. They're going to be just like round one. Except the only difference is this time, instead of working into just that top lip fourth, sometimes called the back loop, the one that if you hold it like this, it's facing away from you that's called your back loop, or I call it your top lip. Ah, so instead of just working into that top lip from now on because we're not working the starting chain anymore Now we're putting our stitches into the stitches from the previous row. So now we're gonna put our stitches under both loops, so you slide your hook under both of those loops, then yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to so keep going, just like you did before. But put your your hook under both lips and continue around, and I will see you at the end of round two. All right, so here I am, about to finish round two. So here's my marked stitch. I'll just put my hook into it just as usual. Yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to that. I'm going to take that stitch marker out and move it again to this first pair of lips that's at the base of the loop that's on my hook, so sometimes it helps. Maybe take your hook out, and then you have the loop that your hook was in, and then you have a peril lips at the bottom of it. So I'm going to snag that and just keep going like that. So that was around, too. So we'll repeat exactly the same for Round three, and I'll meet you at the end, all right, and again, this is the end of Round three. Here's my marked stitch, so I'll work into it. Urine over. Pull up that loop yarn over. Pull through two and move my stitch marker up. All right, so we've done three rounds. And if it helps, if you lose track of where you are, you can just count your your rose, so to speak. So if we scoot over here and take a look at what we've got we've got these little bundles with, um, what you could see when you look down on it. Here is that kind of has, like a little bird legs. It's so hard to hold my hand this way, but little bird legs that are like sitting on a branch or something. So each one of those little bird legs is a stitch so we can see that we've got 123 stitches stacked on top of each other. And it's easiest to count them in a diagonal because you can see there they don't set directly on top of each other like tile. Would they run at a diagonal? Because we are working in spiral rounds, so you just can count those little bird legs. 12 and three Ah, or three little bundles. So you know, you've done three rounds. So in the next video, before we move on to round for in the next video, I'm gonna show you how you mark your place. If you need Teoh, put your project down and come back to it later. 8. Need a Break? How to Put Your Work Down: It's always good to know how to mark your place so you can put your work down and come back to it later if you need to. If you are finished like you just finished a round and now you're just gonna be done for the night. It's really easy. You can just make your loop that your hook is on. Make it pull it out, and then just take your stitch marker and then just stick it through the hook loop and pull it down. So then you just know that when you come back to your work here at the end of your rounds, you're ready to start a new round, and you would just pull up that loop, take the stitch marker out, put this ditch marker back at the base where it waas, and then put your hook back in and you're ready to go Now. If you had worked a few, let me just do a few stitches to just kind of show you if you were like in the middle of the round and something came up and you had to put it down for a little bit. So let's say I've worked a little ways here. Then I just use another stitch marker and mark that stitch, and I just I am putting the stitch marker in the loop that was on my hook. So I'm just sort of hooking or snagging that hook loop with my stitch marker. You can pull it down like that, and that just keeps it from pulling out. So I've got that marked on then. So I got to hear, and it might be easy. You might think, Well, how you might get confused. Well, not really, because the one that's got the yarn coming out of it, that's where I'm working at. And I just know that the other one that's just all alone over here, that marks the end of the round. So this is the one I'm working on and this is the end of the round. So then when I come back and I'm ready to pick it up, I just take my stitch marker out of that loop, stick my hook back in, and I'm ready to keep going 9. Round 4: Increase: All right, so at this point, you have completed three rounds of your coffee cup cozy. So congratulations, you are 1/4 of the way done already. So around four is kind of a special round because it's an increase round. So right now we have 32 stitches around. But remember that are finished. Cozy is going to be slightly wider at the top than it is at the bottom. And the way we accomplish that is by adding additional stitches. So we've got 32 stitches around right now. In this next round, in this fourth round, we are going to increase from 32 stitches up to 33. So just one stitch increase on the way that we're going to do that is we're gonna put that increase in our very first stitch of the round. So a single cruciate increase just means that we put two single Cochet in one stitch. That's it. And we only do it once, just the very beginning. And that's how we get that extra stitch. So what does that look like? It looks like regular just putting two in one place, so I'm gonna put my hook into that first stitch so we can see that our our existing stitch is in this pair of loops. So we've hooked that already. So this open pair of lips that's just waiting for us. That's where we're going to stick our hook yarn over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to So now we've got one stitch in there, so an increase means we put two in there. So as your pattern says, it says single crush a to in the first stitch and then single crush a around. So we gotta put one more single Cochet in that same stitch. So now if we look, we've got to single Cochet in one stitch and that's it as a pattern says now we just single Kershaw around. So now we just keep putting just one single cachet in each stitch all the way around, just like you've done before. And I will see you at the end of around four. All right, so here I am, ready to do my last ditch of round four, just work into my marked stitch and per usual move my stitch marker up, and that's it for around four. So we've gone from 32 stitches to now we have 33 stitches all the way around because we put two stitches into this 1st 1 in the next video. Also, you have to work through the rest of the pattern. 10. Keep Going!: So we've completed Round four was, which was our increased round, And I have actually gone ahead and done round five here. And if we take a look at our pattern, we see that Rounds five and six will just have us crashing around again, just like we did for rounds 12 and three. Then around seven, we're going to repeat round four again, which just means we're going to do another increase. So for around seven, just like in round four, you're gonna put two single Cochet into that first stitch of the round. And then for around 89 you're just gonna single Cochet around again. Now, after doing an increase again around seven, you'll have 34 stitches in rounds 89 and then in round 10 again, you do another increase round, just like in Round four. Now that will bring you up to 35 stitches around. And then for around 11 12 you just single Cochet around again. So just continue following the pattern as it's written, and you can make your coffee cozy in just one color. I think that's great, but if you want to add some variation to it in the next video, I'm gonna show you how to change colors and also how to join a new ball of yarn. In case maybe you've made so many of these, you actually are approaching the end of a ball of yarn and you need to join a new one so you can keep going. The process is the same. So join me in the next video and I will show you how to do that. 11. Color Changes & New Yarn: All right. So let's learn how to change colors and how to add or join a new ball of yarn if you are running out. So in this example, I have just I'm about to, I should say about to complete round six. So this pattern is 12 rounds tall, so I would like to make the 1st 6 round in this gold color, and then the next six rounds, I'm going to change to a different color. So I haven't yet done the last stitch of round six. But we'll do that together, and this is where I'm gonna start the color change. So you actually, wherever it is that you want the new color to take effect, you actually join the new color in the stitch before. So if I want the new color to begin round seven, I'm actually going to join the new color during the last stitch of round six. So to do that, I'm gonna insert my hook just like normal yarn over pull up a loop and then I will either cut my yarn if I want to change colors or if I'm at the end of my yarn ball, then I already have a tail here. So whichever situation you're in, you want to make sure you have a tail otherwise, like, don't work your yarn to the very tip or your work could unravel. So now I've got my tail here. I'm gonna grab my new color for my new ball of yarn and also maintain a tale. And I'm gonna finish the single car. Shea. So we've started a single car. Shea, we worked it. Tell those two loops are on our hook, were ready to yarn over and pull through. And we're going to do that yarn over and pull through with the new color. So I'm yearning over and pulling through with the new color or the new ball of yarn. And this happened to be my last stitch of round six. So we'll move up. My stitch marker here and toda are last ditch was completed in the old color and now the loop on our hook is the new color, and that will make the next stitch. In this case, the first stitch of around seven will be the new color. Here are two tricks for making this color change even smoother and for saving yourself a little time. My new color is going to be at the beginning of round seven. So to keep the change in color as minimally noticeable is possible. I'm going to do the first stitch of this next round as a slip stitch instead of a single crushing. And to save myself from having to weave in these new tales that we have here, I'm gonna croce right over the top of them. So to do that all insert my hook into the next stitch and pull pull my tails tight because our stitch tends to get kind of loose as we join a new ball of yarn. So pulled us tales too snug everything back down and then I'm going to take those tales and just lay them on top of the work, and I'm gonna crush a right over them. So I've inserted my hook and now for a slip stitch instead of a single crush, a all yarn over, pull up a loop and then I'll just keep on Poland. That same loop goes right through the loop on my hook, and that is a slip stitch. So now I'm ready to continue the pattern as written so around seven is an increase round, so that calls for two stitches in the first stitch. So I've already done one have done a slip stitch. So for the second stitch, I can just go back to regular single cursing, so I'll just insert my hook urine over, pull up a loop yarn over poll through to So this stitch has two stitches in it. So it's an increase. The first stitch we just made as a slip stitch because it evens out this little color jog you'll see later, but it makes it less noticeable. So that's a neat little trick. And then I'll just keep working my way around now, and I'm crushing over these yarn tales as I go, and that prevents me from having to weave them in later. So they're they're getting locked down here as I work, so I'm just going to keep going as far as I can go weaving those in and eventually they'll disappear. If you happen to have them poking back out on the back side of your work, see if I can get one out here. If the tail pops out on the back, you can just pull on it. Snip it off on. Then when you pull your work back, it'll just tuck back up and disappear into your work, and that's it. Then you just keep going per usual, And that's how you do a color change or how you add a new yarn bowl. The only real difference is the color change you generally make when you're completing one round and starting the new round. If you are keeping the same color and you're just running out of yarn, then you just do that wherever you are in your pattern. Wherever you come to only having a tail length left, that's when you would switch to your new yarn ball. Either way, you work that that last stitch until you've got two loops on your hook, and that's when you switch to the new yarn to do the yarn over and the pull through 12. Finish Off: Okay, so here we are at the end of round 12. So I'm gonna finish my last stitch right in my marked stitch right here. And I could take this out because now we're done with it. And one little thing I like to dio before we finish this off is do one extra stitch, and that is a slip stitch. Because if we look here, we have some height difference between where this stitches and where the next stitches. A single Cochet is tall kind of compared to down here, so I just kind of want to smooth that out, just like we did with our color change. I want to smooth that out with a slip stitch in the next stitch. So when I insert my hook yarn over, pull up a loop and then keep on Poland, and that just kind of helps bridge that gap. So now I'm gonna pull this tail, pull this loop about yea big, and then I'll snip it off. I can pull the yarn out. And now we have this tail here, and I'm gonna be using my your needle. But if you don't have a your needle than you would just use your hook and I'm going to thread my yard needle. So sometimes that's easiest. Most easiest done by folding your yarn over and then sticking that and through the needle. And now I'm gonna look at my work here, and I have the slip stitch right here. This is the stitch that has my slip stitch. I'm going to skip the next ditch and go into this one here, and I'm gonna go from front to back under both loops, just like that. And if I don't have a yard needle, I would just insert my hook from the back, grab the yarn and pull through this way. Then I'm going to take this and come around here. And here is my slip stitch. So I'm pulling. I can see that this is it's pulling on this stitch right here. So then, from here, I'm going to come from the front again. But I'm only going to go under this top loop, and basically, what that does is creates a little sort of a fake stitch right here, and you really can't see. It's kind of amazing. Then we're just gonna we've in this tale, so I'm just going to go in back and forth under those loops under both pair of lips, weaving just back and forth. And then eventually, after 45 stitches, all changed direction and go back the other way just to really lock this down. And then I might even snake it down through here just to really hide that. And then anything that's left over, I will pull snug and snip off. And when you look up here from the top, you really can't even see where that ends. It's all just lips. Then we go down here to our tail and again thread your needle or use your hook, and we don't have to worry. There's no slip stitch here to try and mimic. But I'm just gonna go in here and just we've so back and forth, just like we did. The main idea is really just to disguise this tale and then lock it down so it doesn't unravel. So some people like to do this all kinds of different ways. But again, the main idea is just to hide it and lock it down. So again I'll pull it tight, snip it off, and then when I pull it again, it disappears, and now we have a finished cup cozy good job 13. Thank You! What's Next?: he Congrats on learning a new skill to keep the fund rolling. I just want to let you know that this course is part of a three course, Siri's, where you learn the basics of Cochet while making some really cool projects like dishcloth hats and cup Kofi. So if you're ready for your next project, check out my skill share channel for more great ways to hook it up. Thanks again for watching, and I hope to see you back here again soon.