Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Connie, and I am a certified instructor through the craft, Your own counsel to teach Cochet classes. Obviously, since this is a kirsch a class I have been teaching for a few years now since 2013. And it was actually my mother who taught me to Kirsch A originally I have here with me the very first thing that I ever kirsch eight. It is a very ugly and slightly faded doily, as you can see. And I thought it was the off list ugliest thing that I've ever seen, little of made. And I hated her saying I didn't I think I would ever pick it up again. But in 2006 after a deployment with army to Kuwait, I did. I decided that I missed my crafting. So I called my mother up and I said, Hey, I am teaching myself to crush a again, but I need some pointers. And she said, Wait, you want me to teach you how to crush a over the phone? Yeah, you can do it. So she did. And I haven't been down the hook since I have been crushing ever since then. So it's I love it. Kirsch A. Is something I'm very passionate about. I love getting to feel all the fibers, cottons and luxurious yarns like silks. It's It's just It's so much fun to go and touched all the squish Hubble's I I. I love the smell of yarn, like people who love the smell of books on one of those to, um, But it's just it's It's fabulous. I love how I can experience Kirsch. Hang with all of my senses. It's It's also about the color. As you can probably tell. I love all the colors, all the colors, and I am really excited to share my passion for Kirsch A with you today in this class, we're gonna talk a little bit more about the fibers and will also learn a couple stitches. These air. The two basic stitches of Kirsch A. We've got single car, she and double Cochet. That's what we're going to focus on today with a couple projects. We're gonna have a practice project at this fabulous little cloth here, as well as a fund scarf that we're going to put everything we've learned into practice with . Ah, this is a very beginner, friendly class But I'm hoping that the experience corps share will also find some fun tips . And resource is here as well. So I'm really excited about teaching you how to crush a or maybe just refreshing some some basics for you and I can't wait to get started.
2. Project Overview: All right, let's talk about our projects today. I have two projects for you. We're going to learn, um, are there are two stitches or single Christian or double Cochet in bite sized pieces? So we're going to do small squares and join them together, so you'll get to learn the techniques as you're practicing and you're making something that you can actually use. It actually makes a great gift. You can package it with some soap. Tie it up. It's a wonderful little gift. Um, our main project will be a practical application of everything that you've learned. We're going to learn how to make this scarf here with both of those stitches. This is also a different yarn with the same pattern, so you can customize it with the width and the length. And, of course, your yarn, your colors. There's so many options. I am looking forward to seeing what everybody comes up with. So let's get started
3. Selecting Yarn: selecting your yarns for projects you can. The world is your oyster. You have lots of options where this project, we're looking for cotton yarns, something that's gonna be durable, that can stand up to those washings being thrown in the washing machine and the dryer. So you really want something that's 100% cotton, or maybe a cotton linen blend that will stand up to that? The yarn that have chosen for this project is lily sugar and cream. It's 100% cotton, and it is. It's a kitchen cotton. It's very durable. It's a little bit difficult to work with. But trust me. If you concur, share with this. You can crush a with anything. If you want a softer cloth. Something more like this that was would be better for a spa cloth. Then you can just just go feel the yards. Feel all the squish. Hubble's The most important thing is looking for that content. You really want a cotton yorn so 100% cotton on both of these. They are both four wait yarns or medium or worsted weight yarns. We'll talk a little bit more about those labels in a minute. for our scarf, our main project. We're going to also use a four weight yarn. This is an acrylic yarn. It's also pretty durable. You can throw it in the washing machine, so that's great for a wearable. You can, however, explore different option is just gonna be what you are comfortable wearing around your neck . So I've chosen for this project. Red Heart Soft. It is obviously very soft, which is my preference for scarves, and this is just just a gray, just a plain gray. But you can choose any color you want. When you were picking your yarns as a beginner car share, it is important to choose simpler, smoother yarns. Ah, lighter colors are easier to see in darker colors when you're trying to identify your stitches, so I would also make that recommendation. Let's go back to those labels. So if you look at these yarns here, they all have the four wait description here, their own medium or worsted weight horns, and they also have knitting and crashing guidelines here, as well as machine and hand washing instructions. So, for we don't know where about the knitting for your core shade guide, this yarn calls for an I hook or 5.5 millimeters. This yarn calls for a five millimeter hook or an eight took. It's a little bit smaller. Even though they're both the same weight in your corn, they're still not exactly the same. This is a little bit loftier. It's a little fluffy er, so it calls for a slightly bigger hook. This is just a guideline. It's just a starting point, though, so don't feel it like the yarn label is the Indal be all of, um, your your your your choices. So the other thing that I want to talk about briefly is the machine washing and drying instructions. So all of these are machine washable, which is important for something that is going to be used a lot. So if it's a scarf for a baby blanket, nobody wants to hand wash a baby blanket. So look for those machine washable instructions machine. Dr. Bull is also a plus, of course, with handmade goods. If you want them to last longer, hand washing is going to be the better option. Just hand wash it, lay it flat to dry and the last forever. These other labels, without ironing. You don't want iron acrylic fibers because they'll melt. Ah, you don't want to bleach it, and then these is just dry cleaning instructions. So these take a little bit of practice toe learn, but you can look him up. And ah, lot of and a lot of labels now have written out the directions as well, so that you can see this is machine wash and dry vel. So that's always a good option. And that is probably about all we need to talk about yarn. Let's move on to the tools and notions that you're going to use.
4. Tools & Notions: one of the great things about Kirsch A is that you don't need a lot of tools to get started . Really? All you need is a hook in some yard. I'm gonna talk about a few other notions that you might find useful as well, though, for beginners, I generally recommend a variety pack. This, for example, includes an H I and J. Hook. So you have sizes from 5 to 5.75 millimeters. This gives you a few options when you're first Starting retention may change. Some people have a naturally tighter tension. Some people have a naturally looser tension. There's nothing wrong with either one of those. You just want to find what your attention is and then make your adjustments in your tools. You're not gonna change how you Curuchet. You're gonna change the tools that you use. We're also gonna be using stitch markers. These air little walking clover, stitch markers. They're very, very handy. Little tools. Toe Have I will show you more about thes when it's time to actually use them. Scissors, basic tool that you're going to need and darning needles are also gonna be used at the end of your project to so your project together in the case of the disc off, as well as selling in your ends at the very end, I recommend both a sharp and a blunt tip Neil, because the sharp tip needle is easier for weaving in your ends because you can actually cut through those fibers with it, whereas the blunt tip is usually easier for seeming so. If you have a couple of those scissors, your stitch markers and then your hooks in your yard, that's all you really need to get started. I want talk a little bit more about course she hooks, though they come in all sizes and shapes. You have ergonomic cooks, these air fun. You've got wooden hooks. You can find some really amazing handmade hooks that are really just heirloom quality pieces. So I love having a few of those in my collection. You've got padded handle hooks like these great big ones. These are probably some of my favorites, the padded handles, and you have really, really 20 hooks as well. This is a steel hook. Um, this one is so small you could barely see it. Yes, I have core shade with it. It's very hard. I need my classes for that. But we won't need that today. Today we're going to use on I hook, and I want to show you just a little bit of the difference between these two hooks styles. This is called an in line hook, and if you look at it from the side, it looks almost as if it's cut out of one tube, whereas this other hook has a slight forward. Lean to it and if you can see that there, But if you look at it up close, you can see that there is a slight lean to the neck of the hook. Now there's nothing wrong with either one of these options. Some people just have a preference, so experiment with the different hooks that you have available to you. You're gonna find some that have pointy or blunter ends that you're gonna have deeper Bernero where, uh, throats, you're going to have different size shafts and your thumb grips are going to be different, depending on whether you're using a aluminum hook or a padded handled hook. Or the wooden hooks have a different feel altogether as well. So just feel free to experiment. Find whatever works for you. Remember, there really aren't any rules. It's just whenever you like to use.
5. How to Hold Your Yarn: figuring out how to hold your yorn. Andrew Hook is often one of the most difficult parts about learning how to Cochet. But don't let that intimidate you because there's really not a right or wrong way to do it . We're gonna talk about how I hold my yarn and I will give you a couple pointers about things that you want to look for as you find your way toe Hold your yarn as well. But just remember, whatever works for you is gonna be your right way toe Hold your you on So this is your tail or your end And then the yarn coming out of your skein is your working arm. So I take the end for the tale of my arm and hold it in my right hand and I leave it through my fingers in an upward motion. So that's in front of the pinky, behind the ring, finger in front of the middle finger and then up and over my pointer finger, bringing it down so that I congrats the arm between my phone and middle finger here. This space right here should be 1 to 2 inches. And this is where you're going to work with your hook so you don't want to have in an 80 biddy space and you don't have a great big one because this finger right here is what controls your attention. Now your tail needs to be between probably 4 to 6 inches long because you want to allow enough yorn to thread onto a needle, and then so in your ends when you get to the end of your project. So one more time in front of the pinky behind the ring finger in front of the middle, finger up and over the pointer and then grasp your working yarn between your thumb and your middle finger because this is where we're going to work. Now, as you're figuring out your tension, remember that this finger is it's kind of like a pulley system. You can use that finger as you work with your yarn to pull up more from your skin. So if you have trouble like if this is too tight, you can't pull that finger up. Loosen up a little bit. Take off one of those if you find that it's too loose. If you don't have enough tension here, it's not taught enough. Then add an extra wrap around a finger so you can wrap around your pinky and then up and over you could wrap just through your top two fingers and hold your your. It honestly does not matter how you do it, so long as it works for you. This is your attention regulation, though, so you want to find something that's comfortable. That doesn't have your hand working too hard because the harder your hand works, the more tired you're going to get more quickly. So just keep in mind that there's no right or wrong way to do it, and and you should be just fine.
6. How to Hold Your Hook: Now that we have figured out more or less how to hold our yarn, let's talk about how to hold your hook again. There's no right or wrong way to do it, but I'm gonna show you two of the most common methods today. The method I use is called the overhand or knife hold. So to hold your hook with the overhand method, take your foam, place it on the thumb grip and then wrap your fingers around the backside of the hook. That's really all there is to it. Now keep in mind that that some grip is there for a reason. It's where your thumb should rest, because if you choke up on your hook like this, it really doesn't give you very much space toe work with for your urine to go. And it also doesn't give you as much control. So remember to back up. But put your thumb on that son grip and and try to relax. Don't don't have a death grip on your hook if you can help it. The other method is called the underhand or the pencil hold, which is pretty much how it sounds. You're going to hold your hook the same way, basically, that you would hold a pencil so you can imagine riding with your hook here wouldn't work very well. But again, you take your thumb and placed on the thumb grip and then your fingers going to simply rest under her hook there. So, to kirsch A we've got our yard hold. We have our took hold, and we're gonna work here. So whether you hold with the underhand were the overhand method. We're still gonna be working basically the same way. So just keep in mind no right or wrong way to do it. Find what's comfortable for you and give it a try. Are you ready to get started?
7. Slip Knot: All right, so let's start crashing. Almost all cash aid projects are going to begin with a slip knot. If you already know how to do a slip. Not great. You can skip this part if you don't stay with me for just a minute, and I'll show you how to do it. It's pretty easy now. I've been doing this for a while, so I like to make my slip knot after I've already grasped my Garnett hook. To do that, I take my hook. I put it on the inside of my working yarn here between my fingers, and then I twist it so that it's crossed here. Then I grabbed where the urine crosses there between my thumb and my forefinger, just to make sure that it doesn't come on twisted. And then I grabbed my yorn with my hook and pull it through that loop, and that makes a slip mint. Now that's a little complicated for you. Let's slow it down. Take your end or your tail looping around on top of your working yard. So it's a little blue fish here, so tail on top of working yard and then put your fingers underneath the loop here, hold on to your tail, Make sure doesn't run away. And then you're gonna reach over the top of where the crosses and pick up that working yarn and pull it through the loop. So you may need to grab the tail and the working arm to do that and pull that not tight. And how you know that it is a slip knot is if it's lights. Let's do that one more time. Tail looped over the working yard. So they had a little fish, but your fingers underneath your loop hold on to your tail so it doesn't run away. You may need to hold on to your Lupus. Well, reach over the top of the urine that crosses here and grab that working yarn, and you're gonna pull it up through that loop just like that and tighten it up and let its life, and then you can put it on your hook to tighten it the rest of the way up. And that is your some not
8. Chain Stitch: Now that we have our yarn attached to our hook with our slip not here, we're ready to start chaining the foundation chain is how most of your kirsch A projects we're going to start out. So this is a great base. Um, in fact, when I first learned to Kirsch A when I was younger, my mother had me crush a a Christmas tree, Garland. And it was just one great big long chain. So I got lots and lots of practice with the chain stitch. If you feel like you need more practice with it before you move onto the single core shape , keep chaining, make necklaces, bracelets, headbands, whatever you feel like you need to do. If you want to do a whole Christmas tree, Garland, go for it. Just so long as you're comfortable with it. Before you move onto the next step. So to change. What we're gonna do is we're gonna pull this working yarn through the loop that's on the hook. To do that, we're gonna your on over or you're going to wrap your yarn around your hook or your hook under your yard. It doesn't really matter which hand you move just so long as you find something that's comfortable for you. So yarn over so your urine is coming over your hook. You're going to grab that working yarn with the hook of your car. She hook and pull it through the loop that's on your hook. So let's do that again. You're in over so yarn over hook or hook under yarn, whichever works for you. Grasp the working yard with the hook itself and pull it through the loop That was on your hook, That is your chain stitch. So for the project, we're going to start with a chain of 15. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that now. Right now, I have three stitches. I'm going to do Taborn. That's one to three. Forward, Fine. And as you can see as I need more yarn, I'm going to simply pull it from this game, right, My turn back around my fingers, grab my chain and continue on. And I also like to move my fingers up each time I make a chain stitch and hold on to that chain because that gives me a greater amount of control as you chain also make sure that you allow this loop to come all the way up onto the shaft of your hook because that's going to help regulate the size of your groups. And I lost count. Let's ham and we've got 123456789 10 11 12 13 14 15 0 how good at my All right. So let's talk about the anatomy of a chain. I'm gonna pull this loop up a little bit bigger and take my hook out so we can see a little bit easier. So this is our chain of 15 here. As you can see, it kind of looks like a brain. Each stitch consists of three parts. First you have this V here on the front or heart, or you whatever makes sense to you I usually refer to it is a beat, and you can see those kind of stacked up running along your chain. If we turn this chain over and look at the back side of it, here is the third part of your chain and you've got these loops that run a lock along, kind of like a spine or a dotted line. This is called the back bumper. It's also called the not or any variety of of different names. But typically you'll see. See it referred to is the back bump so you can count your stitches by working either from the back or the front. So looking at thes thes bumps running along here, not that you started with doesn't count, and the loop that was on your hook also doesn't count. So we have 123456789 10 11 12 13 14 and hiding under this guy is number 15. So let's turned over and look at it from the front again. Remember, you've got these V's on this side. 123456789 10 11 12 13 14 15 stitches. The loop that goes on your hook and you're not does not count is a stitch, but everything else in between does. The next step is actually crashing into your chain, and there are two options for working into your chain, so you can either work into the front loop here, have your V and you're back loop, or you can turn it over and work into your back loops. Only here That's the method that I prefer because it gives you a nice clean edge on the bottom of your fabric. So that's what I'm gonna be demonstrating today. But let's look at those again. You can either work into the back bumps of your chain like this, where you can work into just this top loop here and you're back bump from this site. Whichever is easiest for you to see and do is is gonna be just fine for this project, though. And we'll talk about that a little bit more in the next section.
9. Single Crochet: now that we have are starting chain of 15 chains were ready to start single car Shea, this is your basic building block for car saying it is the smallest, densest stitch, and it is our first basic stitch of Cochet. So let's go to start out, we're going to actually skip our very first stitch here. The reason we skipped this first stitch is because it functions as the turning chain. What that turning chain does is it gives us the height of our next row. So the height of the single Christians that were going to make So we're going to skip this first chain, and we're gonna work into the back bump of the second chain right here. To do that, we're going to insert her hook from the front to the back, just right under that loop. And if you have a little bit of trouble getting under there, you can always use your thumb. Nail your fingernail. However you need to maneuver to help get it through there you aren't over. Pull up a loop yarn over. Pull through to That's our first single course shake. Let's do it again. So here is our next bump. We're gonna insert her hook from front to back under that little loop there, slide it at the shaft of the hook yarn over crab, the working yard. With that hook. Pull up a loop through that back bump so that we have two loops on her hook yarn over and pulled her to. That's our second stitch. Still, one more. Insert your hook from front to back to that bag bump you're in. Over. Pull up a loop. You're on over. Pull through to if you look at your single crush. A here looks kind of like a pie. Her pi symbol even. It is a V on the front here, going down into the loop that we just worked into. And then there's the V. That's off the top of the stitch that we will work into on the next row. So this V here, if you kind of pull it a little bit, you can see that it is pointing down into that back bump that we worked into right there. So if that's the stitch that we just worked into, we look along this chain. Here's our next Detroit. There there is our next back bump. So that's where we're gonna put our hook. We're going to work one single cachet into each chain all the way across our project. I'm gonna speed it up just a little bit, and I will meet you at the end of the chain also as you are crushing. If you find that you lose track of where your stitches are and you're having trouble seeing this, these chains don't be afraid to stretch on it a little bit. Pull it out flats so that you can really see those stitches moving along there. Sometimes sometimes we have to do that because it gets so little. It just curled up on itself sometimes. But it's not gonna hurt it to stretch it out a little bit and it flattens it out so you can see your stitches better. So we have just a few more switches here. Alright? And here is our very last stitch. There's a very less chain. We're not going to count the slip. Not that we started with insert or hook from front to back. You aren't over pull of Luke, you're in over. Pull through to and that is our very first row of Salek or shy? Yeah. If you want to count the stitches, which I highly recommend pausing the counter stitches every once in a while. What you're gonna look for is the V running across across the top of the stitches. So to count, thes, we're gonna start with the V. That's right. Underneath our hook. 123456789 10 11 12 13 14. Now, you might wonder what we started with a chain of 15 but now we only have 14 stitches. The reason for that is because we skipped that very first chain, the turning chain that gave us the height of this road. That was our 15th chain. So we started with 15. We skipped one. We worked into the second chain from the hook and each stitch across, leaving us with 14 single Porsches all the way across the road. Now, to start wrote to you have to create a turning chain. We do that by changing one. This is the same way we did the chains to start with. So wrap your urine around your hook or you aren't over. Grab that. Pull it through the loop. So we have our turning chain here and we're ready to turn our fabric over so we can work our next route to do that, grab the end of your rozenhal Krisha here and turn it like you would as if it were a page of a book. So you're moving it from right toe left your flipping it over so that we could work it the same way we did the first row from right toe left. Typically, that is how you're going to work in Cochet from right to left. So here is our turning chain right here. We're going to skip that the same way we skipped a chain and the beginning of the project, and we're gonna work into our very first single crochet here. Now, this looks a little bit different than working into your starting chain because we're working into actual stitches now, So if you look at this from the top, you've got these V's running along here. These were the tops of your single Chris Shays, and this is your turning chain, which also looks like a V. So this is what we're skipping. I'm not gonna work into that. We're gonna work into the top of our very first single core shape. Another way to identify that is by kind of stretching this out and looking for these little holes here, spaces there where we're going, put her hook. So here's our 1st 1 right there. It's nice and big for you to see. We're skipping are starting chain, and we're gonna insert her hook from front to back under the top two loops for that V of the single cliche we're heading on over and pull up a loop and treat that V as if it were one loop the way he did the backbone that two loops on your hook yarn over and pull through to. Now. Let's do it again. Here's the next stitch looking at it from both sides, there's the V. There's the little gap, so insert your hook from front to back. Under both of those loops. Yarn over. Pull up a loop. Remember to slide those loops up the that hooks that regulates your loop size yarn over and pull through. To now, one of the most common problems for beginners is losing or adding stitches. So if you start making try and goals or pyramids, your your building funnels you building little, little tornadoes. That means that you are either adding or dropping stitches. One way to help prevent that from happening is by using stitch markers. So I have made to single Chris Shays here. And if you look at it from the side again, look for that pie shape. So we've got this V pointing down into this space and this V This is the top of our second single car show that we made. And then this here, this is the V for our first single. Cochet in here is the top of that so we can use this stitch marker to mark the top of this first single Cochet. So we get when we get back to it at the end of the next row. We don't have to wonder which stitches our last one. What I like to do is I like to insert my stitch marker under those top two loops in exactly the same way that I would put my hookah. It just makes life easier. And then these air locking stitch markers so you can walk that puppy in place. And now you don't have to worry about it falling out. All right, so now we're going to single core Shea in each one of the remaining zinc Porsches across this road, front to back under two loops aren't over. Pull up a loop. You aren't over both. Her, too. All the way across will meet you at the end of the road. Okay, we're at the end of the row. We have one stitch left. You see this little nubbin here kind of sticking out? That is your very last stitch. Now, I want you to notice that the top of the stitch kind of pulls down on the side a little bit , and that's just the nature of this stitch here on the end, but it makes it easier to miss it. So you want to make sure that you don't skip this last ditch, which is one reason why we marked this side, but for this one, since we didn't mark that one. But we know that we only have 13 stitches here. If we count, we need to do this one last stitch, so make sure you grab both of those loops. Hook goes in front to back urine over, pull up a loop aren't over. Pull through to now. See how much straighter that edges? Much better. All right. If we were to count the stitches looking at the V's just to verify, start with the hook for the loop. That's under your hook. 123456789 10 11 12 13 14 14 stitches. That's what we want. All right, So row three is exactly the same is wrote to. So you start with a chain chain of one. Turn your fabric like the page of a book so you can work from right to left. Skip this first change and work into your very first single course. Check right there like that. Now, another way that you can drop stitches is a here on this very first stitch. So what you want to watch for is you want to make sure that you don't skip this stitch right here. If you don't stretch that out some kind of sometimes it can kind of bunch up on itself and you'll end up skipping this and going directly into your second stitch. But we don't want do that, cause then we view building a pyramid, so don't be afraid to stretch out your fabric a little bit, Identify either that that V for the whole or both. And that's where you gonna put your hook to make your first stitch. Now what we can do at this point, we've just made her first stitch of this road. We can use our other stitch marker and mark the top of it so that when we come back to it at the end of this row, we know that that's our last ditch or the end of the next room will know that it's our last stitch. Now we're going to do one single cliche in each single cliche all the way across to the end of the road for a total of 14 and Croce stitches. So now we're at the end of the road. And as you can see, our stitch marker is there in our very last stitch marking it for us so we don't have to worry about it. We don't have to wonder if we have one more stitch or not. We don't even have to count. But don't tell anybody I told you that. So what you're going to do is you're gonna insert your hook into that very same space as your stitch marker. You can either leave it in there like I'm doing or you can take it out. If you don't feel like, have enough room to get your hook in there with the stitch marker in there as well. Make sure you go under those two loops you're in. Over. Pull up a loop, you're on over. Pull through to to complete your single cliche, and you can see that this stitch marker is at the very bottom of the V of the single Cochet that we just completed. So now we can take this out and we should have 14 stitches going all the way across with our 14th stitch marked on this side. Now we'll start the next road. Same way Chain one turn like the page of the book. Skip the chain One work into the first single cliche. And now we're gonna pause and mark the top of it going under those two loops the same way we would insert her hook when we got to that point. And that has our first teach mark in a last ditch marked and we're ready to go Simple Kush all the way across. Now the rest of the square is worked exactly the same way. Each row should have 14 stitches in it. And you're going to start each row with a chain one to function as you're turning change. So all you're going to do is you're gonna keep repeating that second row until you're square is square. Now, if you're gauge matches mine, it should be about four inches. If it doesn't, that's OK. You just want to make sure that it measures approximately the same amounts. Going both directions. So for me, that was 15 Rose. If it's more or less for you, that's okay. Don't worry about it. Just make it squarish, and we will go on from there. So I will meet you at the end of our square. All right. We are almost at the end of our square. We have just a few more stitches to do here. So again, quick review. Insert hook from front to back. You're in over. Pull up a loop. Turnover pull through to we're going to do this the rest of the way across until we get to our last marked stitch right there. That is our last single core Shea, so we can take this stitch marker out. We've got 15 rows here if you want to count them. Single Krishna is pretty easy. It groups up in kind of stripes of two. So here's our first row, and then we've got 2468 10 12 14 rose. So you see those groupings of two there. They kind of make their own stripes, or you can start it out. You see all those holes, and there you can count each row individually. So that's 12 three, 456789 10 11 12 13 14 15 rows and then to check and see if it's square without measuring, simply take a corner and folded corner to corner, and it should make a triangle more less. So that's a good way to check and see if it's square if you don't happen to have a measuring tape handy. All right, so now we're ready to finish this off and we even in Lawrence
10. Finishing Off & Weaving in Ends: Once we have a completed square, we're ready to finish it off. And we've in our ends finishing off a kirsch. A project is really super simple. So if, for example, this is the very end of our rope, we've just finished it. All you're gonna do to finish this off is your in over one more time. Pull that yarn through your hook or the loop on your hook, and then pull it all the way out and tighten that up, and that is gonna finish it off. It makes a little not there. And that's it. It is secure. So let me show you that one more time. Back that up there. All right, so this is our last single cliche. You're on over, Pull up a loop just like a chain. But then pull that tail all the way through and tighten up That not just like that. And this is finished off and ready for the ends to be woven in. So let me show you that book with for that, we need a sharp needle. So this is actually a pretty big darning, Neil. I would normally use something a little bit smaller, but I want to maybe be able to see it. So I'm going to threaten my arm onto the needle here. The bigger eyes do make it easier to to threat on there and then to so in our ends, what I want to do is I want to insert the tip of my needle really close to where my urine comes out. So not right back through the Not that we just made but close to it, because that's going to leave a minimum amount of yarn hanging out that can get snagged on things. So I'm actually in turn this square over. And so I'm going to just feed this needle through the fibers of the yarn here, close to the not something like this. Do you see how close we are to that? Not there. Right there. Now, when you are pulling your needle through, if you get hung up there, please don't use your teeth. You'll end up stabbing yourself in the mouth. You some tools thes air, just itty bitty jewelry pliers that I use specifically for this. So you couldn't just grab your needle there and then use that to help you pull it through now as you're weaving in your ends, you want to pull it snugly but not super tight, because if you pull it too tight, it's going to make your fabric pucker up. But if you do it too loosely, then you're gonna have these ends bubbling out. And you don't want that either. Now as you So this in it does not matter which direction you go, but the more directions you go in, the more secure your ends will be. So I'm just going across here for about half an inch. I'm pulling that yard through until it's snug, but not too tight. And I'm gonna go in a different direction. I'm gonna go straight down this way, pull that through. And now I'm gonna go back Same direction that I went for that I came from. But in a different row said, The more times you turn your yarn, the more secure those ends are gonna be. Because it's gonna be harder for them to wiggle out. If you have more twists and turns because it gives it more friction. Oops, So I'm not too time. Just until that of Lupin and disappears there I lost my horn all right. And then the very last step. This is a neat little trick that I learned recently. Actually, if you go back in the same direction as your last pass, and you kind of grab a little bit of your in here so that you've got some space between where you came out where you're going back in, but then try to weave your needle back through the yarn that's coming through that you've just fed through there. And that's going to get just a little bit of added tension through there and this and will practically never, ever come undone. Oops. Okay. Okay. And then pull that through just until that pops behind those stitches, and then we can cut our end. And you just want to make sure that you don't cut the yard of your fabric. Uh, because then you have start all over, and that's not fun. All right, so that end is sewn in. You can't tell where it went, has disappeared. That's what we want. So I'm gonna show you real quick with this other end as well. Some thread your needle here, you tapestry needle. Choose a point. Doesn't really matter which side it's on. Go in near the Not that's on your hook there. Threat it back in. If you zigzag around just over an inch, maybe two. That's really all you need. You don't have to spend that much time sewing in your ends. The biggest key is to not pull it too tight. So it doesn't bunch your fabric up, but to make sure that you pull it snugly enough that that you're just disappears in there. And then the last up is going back the same way we came trying to snag a little bit of yarn as you move along to give it that extra at attention. But through looks good. Now we're ready to cut just right up close, but not cutting the fabric itself. Give it a low pool and that end just disappears. And now we have are finished square
11. Double Crochet: So you ready to learn a new stitch? You ready? Let's get started. So this is gonna be our double kirsch a square. It's gonna be about the same size as our single Cochet. But there are only seven rows in this one because the double Cochet is a taller stitch. We're gonna start out basically the same way with a chain. However, this one's gonna be a chain of 16. So let's do a quick review of the slipknot and overworking you are to create your loop or your fish. Put your fingers underneath that loop and then you're gonna pick up your working yard and pull it through that loop tightening up but that loop on your hook and then let it slide upon Europe and there is our slipknot. Now we're going to do our starting chain, which is 16 chain stitches. So one to three where five, six, seven hates nine, 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 excellence. All right, let's double check and make sure that we have 16. It's always better to take the time to double check It didn't have to pull it out and do it all over again to have that Not counting our slip knot or the loop. That's on her hook. 1234 Prive 6789 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. Perfect. All right, Now we're gonna work into the back bumps again. So I'm gonna go ahead, flip this change over so that those these are all mo running along the flat of my finger. And now we can see that spying or those back bumps running along there and for the double crush a square instead of just skipping one. Since this is a taller stitch, we're gonna skip three chains this time. So we're gonna skip 123 and we're gonna work our double crush A into the fourth chain from the hook. So again, we're skipping 123 And we're gonna work our double cliche into this back boat. This chain loop here. All right. Now for the single kirsch A. All you did was insert your hook into that bump right there for the double crush. A. We need more yarn to make taller, so we're actually gonna your in over first. So we've got her yarn wrapped around her hook here. If you need to hold onto it with your finger there so it doesn't run away from you. Sometimes it will got to keep it under control. Identify your stitch here. Same thing from front to back into that loop. He's my finger to pull that over just a little bit. They were in yarn over and pull up a loop through that back bump. And this time we have three loops on our hook. That's what we want with a single course. A. We had to for the double course A. We have three now we're gonna yarn over and pull through two loops, leaving two loops on her hook. They were gonna yarn over and pull through two loops again. And that completes our first double Cochet. Now, this is our chain three are turning Chain was a lot longer because her double kirsch a stitches taller. So in the double cliche, your chain three you're turning change actually counts as a stitch. In this instance, it does not always with the single Cochet. We did not count the turning chain as a stitch because it's just too small. It wouldn't make much sense to count as a stitch, however, with the double Cochet. Since it's so much taller, we're gonna go ahead and count that as a double course a stitch. So I have my 1st 2 stitches right here. Now I'm gonna go ahead and mark the top of that turning chain with a stitch markers so that it's easier to find it when I come back to it at the end of the next row. So here, right under my hook is the top of my first single cliche right there. See that V there? That's the top of my double cash. A Sorry. And then I'm gonna look for the next V here. That isn't our Chain Three, the three chains that we skipped over starting chain. And I'm gonna run this stitch marker under those two loops of the V of the chain so you can see that third loop is underneath here. Because this is where we're gonna insert hook when we come back to it. And we need to work into this this starting chain because it's counting as a double crush a there. So we mark that and we're ready to go on. All right, So here's our double Cochet. We're gonna identify our next stitch. There's that back bump right there. We're gonna yorn over first and we're gonna insert her hook into that loop. You're on over and pull up a loop so they have three loops on our hook. We're going on over. Pull through to you aren't over. Pull through to Also we are moving right along so you can see that the double Cochet is about twice as tall as the single kirsch. A stitches. So that's why we only have seven rows for this square, and it's gonna move a lot faster. All right, so let's do it the next stitch you're in over. Insert your hook from front to back. You are in over. Pull up a loop. Three loops on the hook. You aren't over. Pull through to you're in over. Pull through to We're going to do that all the way across in each chain Stitch to the end of the room. How will meet you there? Remember, as you're working this, that if you lose track of where your chain stitches are, stretch it out the same way we did with a single Cochet so that your starting chain is a little bit flatter. Look for that V at the bottom of the double course. A stitch where it's coming out. So this is where we worked that last one. So this is our next loop right here that we want. Oops. Don't be afraid to pull on your fabric. It's not going to break unless you pull really, really hard. And you shouldn't have to do that. All right. We were almost at the end of the road here. Here is our very last chain. So you are in over Insert hook from front to back. You're in over. Pull up a loop. Three loops on the hook. He ran over. Pulled through to You are in over. Pull through to And this is our very first row of double cachet. Look how much taller that IHS. So to counter stitches with double car Shea is actually a little bit easier because you can either count the V's like we did with the single Kershaw. Or you can count the body of the stitches themselves, show you both place. So here, we're not gonna use the We're not gonna count the loop that was on our hook, and we're gonna count thes fees running across 123456789 10 11 12 13 14. That's what we want. We want the same number of stitches across as we had with our single core shape. So this starting chain here countered, is a double cliche. And then we worked 13 more, all the way across for a total of 14. If you look at it from this side, you can actually kind of pull these stitches apart to see them. And so, counting the body of this stitch 123456789 10 11 12 13. And then our 14th is the turning chain right here, Right? So let's move on to row Two. To do that, we have to create another turning chain for the double Cochet. The turning chain is typically a chain three. So that's what we're gonna do here. It's the same thing that we skipped at the very beginning. We skipped three chains there. Now we need to create three chains one to three if you want to. At this point, you can go ahead and mark the top of that turning chain because the same way is with this one. We're gonna work into this at the end of our next row. So if it's easier for you to go ahead market now, think it is for me because I tend to forget if I don't pause and do it as soon as I make the stitch and go ahead and put it under the top two loops of that V there and lock it. And don't lose your hook. Okay, so now we're ready to turn it again. Turn like the page of a book. So from right toe left so that we can work across. Right? So we're gonna move this stitch markers out of the way. Now, this is gonna work a little bit differently than are single crush a did and that we're counting this turning chain as a stitch. So if you look at this flat, you see that this Turney chain stacks on top of this double Kershaw right here. So in this case, we are going to skip our first stitch because essentially, that turning chain is our first stitch. It's already there. So we're counting this turning chain as the first stitch. So we're going to skip this stitch and we're gonna work our first double crush A into the second stitch. So here we're skipping this one, and we're gonna work in the 2nd 1 you're in over. First, insert your hook from front to back under those top two loops you're in. Over. Pull up a loop, you aren't over. Pull through to you are in over pulled her to and that is our 1st 2 stitches. Turning chain counts is a double cliche and our first actual double cliche, and we already have the top of this starting chain returning team marked. So now we're ready to work one double Cochet into the top of each of these double Chris Shays all the way across. If your yarn splits, my mind just did. You can either try and fix it, but quickly if that doesn't work or if you tend to. If it feels like it's missing the yarn up even more, just pull it out real quick and redo your stitch. A lot of times it's faster. Did you just re do the stitch? Then it is to try and finagle it so that you get that you aren't back where it needs to go it happens to all of us. Don't worry about it. So we're continuing on across Just a few more stitches left here. Okay, We're down to our last two stitches here. And this is where, especially beginners tend to drop stitches. So looking at this, don't forget about your stitch marker here. This is your last double car, Shea. Right here. There's the V. That's on top of it. So we're gonna work one stitch here, and then we're also going to work a stitch into the top of our turning chain. So we want to make sure that we don't forget this guy. And that's one reason why we use the stitch markers to help make sure that we don't forget it. Because, as you'll see, that looks a lot flatter than the single crush a did along the edge. So it would be really easy to miss that stitch. But if we skipped it and we went on, we wouldn't have the right number of stitches. We would only have 13. 123456789 10 11 12 13. So this is a good reason to check your numbers. Counter stitches every once in a while to make sure that you're not dropping a stitch because even if it looks like you're not, when we used the's count or turning chains as stitches, it's really easy to to forget them. So I'm actually gonna take this ditch marker out this one, cause it's a little bit tighter, and then I'm gonna work under two loops of this starting chain. It doesn't really matter which two loops. You kind of just want to pick two and be consistent with it as best you can. But by working under two loops instead of just one, it gives you a much sturdier edge. Because if you'll see here, if you just work under one, see how much that stretches there. It's going to kind of pull your stitches out of shape, and we don't want to do that if we can avoid it. So the solution for that is to simply work under to oops, just like that. Right now, we're gonna complete our double cliche as usual. See, now that's a nice, nice straight edge there. It's got a little bit of around to the corner, but that's just the nature of the turning chains I don't worry about that. All right, So that's our 1st 2 rows. Now we're gonna do Row three. It's the same as road to. So start with starting chain of three to give you that turn, we're gonna go ahead and market marking under two loops market, turn your fabric like the page of the book. Skip your first stitch because that turning chain counts as your first double cliche. And then we're gonna double crashing into the top of our second double Christian right and into each stitch all the way across. And that is really all there is to the double crush a square you're gonna keep repeating Row two. So Chain three, skip your first ditch double cachet in each stitch all the way across for a total of 14 stitches. That's 13 double Chris Shays. Plus, you're turning teen of three that counts is a double cliche and repeat it until you have either seven rows or square the same way we did with a single crush. A square and I will meet you at the end. Okay, we are almost at the end of our square. This is our seventh row, so let's just finish that up real quick. And just as a review, we're going to insert a hook from front to back under those two loops after we yorn over. Sorry, I forgot that part. You aren't over. Political oop. Three loops on your hook. You're on over. Pull through to you aren't over. Pull through to you aren't over. Insert hook front to back. Urine over. Pull up a loop. Three loops on hook. You aren't over. Pull through to aren't over. Pull through to then we have our last stitch already marked. And again, that is the top of our turning chain. Take this out. We're gonna insert or hook under two loops here a little bit, smoke there and finish out our very last double Cochet. So if you wanted to count the rows here, it's even easier than the single kirsch. A. Because you can see the body of the stitches. You don't even have to stretch it out. So we have one, 23 4567 rows. And then you can also check to make sure that it's more or less square simply by folding it in half diagonally, so that should be approximately square to finish it off same ways before we're gonna your in over one more time. Pull that through all the way through and then snug up, that not right there just like that. Perfect. No, it's so in our Antrel quick, Same method above as before one threat or needle turn this fabric over actually. So I get in nice and close to that, not weaving into your double Cochet is a little bit different than sound year in your ends with a single course A because it's a looser fabric. But just look for the density of Yorn and go with that there. Um and it we will be good. So I'm moving over here and then I'm gonna bring this down through the body of that double crush A There just kind of splitting. The aren't as I go get said before, the more attention, the better, more friction. It helps keep it in and then just pull it until it kind of disappears in there. Not too tight. Then let's go across this way. A couple stitches just like that. And again, if it gets hung up on you, he's don't use your teeth. Use a little plier or just kind of twisted a little bit until it pulls through there until that you aren't pops through. And then let's take this. Let's take this down. We're gonna go backwards a little bit. We're gonna take this down through this stitch. Remember to just kind of find your own way with this. Wherever you see a good place for that, you aren't to go where it basically disappears on both sides, you see a little bit of the needle shining through, but once you pull this urine through, you're not going to be able to see it pull that straight through. And then our very last step is to go back on the yarn that we just sewed in skipping over a little bit of your in there so it doesn't come a plumbing done. And then working back same direction we came from, Just give it that little bit of extra friction there so it won't come undone. And that is all there is to sewing in your ends and double crush a smith that off nice and close and then also in your other tail. And then we will be ready to seem these guys together
12. Whipstitch Seaming: So now we have four squares. We have two single Christians squares and to double kirsch A squares. They should all be about the same size. If they're a little bit off, Don't worry about it too much. This is your first crush, A project. So we've got all our ends sewn in. We're going to arrange them however you want. It doesn't really matter. I've chose to do them done, chosen to do them diagonally from each other just as a matter of interest. And then you're going to need two lengths of yarn that are about 24 inches long. You want to give yourself plenty, so if you want to make it a little bit longer than that, that's fine. But what we're gonna do is we're gonna so thes together, we're gonna whip stitch them. So it's a very simple basic same. So these two together and we're gonna so these two together and then we'll use our second strand of yarn to so at this side, and that will join them all together into one piece. Now I'm using orange as a contrast in color and so you can see the stitches. However, you'll probably want to use the same yarn that you appreciate your squares in, because then it will basically disappear as you seen them. So I'm gonna go ahead and thread my needle. And for this, I'm actually gonna use the blunt tapestry needle if I can get it threaded. And the reason why I want to use a blunt tapestry needle for the seeming is because it's going to be easier to put my needle through the's loops without splitting the arm. So it's just gonna have Ah, nice, neat Look, it's gonna be a little bit cleaner doing it this way. Then if we go through the middle of that, your in there, which is much easier to do with the sharp tapestry needle. So we're using the blunt needle 24 inch of 24 inches of yarn for a little bit more. Better safe than sorry and what we're gonna do Once we've got our squares laid out here, all we're gonna do is we're gonna take the bottom square, folded up on top of the top square on both sides, so these are ready to be seen together. What we've just done is we've turned them so that the right sides are facing each other for this project. It doesn't really matter which side is your right side. Just choose whichever side looks better to you. So we're going to seem these together with the wrong side, out to take your yard, take your first set of squares here. What we're gonna do is we're gonna match up our corners. And if you have the same number of stitches in both your single Cochet and your double crucially square, all you have to do is my match up. These stitches don't forget about your turning chains, though, because that's gonna count as a stitch. So we're gonna match this corner with not this stitch but this turning chain right here. And you can start with a not in your yard if you want. If it makes you feel a little bit more secure, that's fine. Otherwise you can just start so it. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna whip stitch these together all the way across to this center and you can insert your hook from the front to the back or the back to the front, whichever is easier for you. You can work under two loops where you can work under just one loop from each fabric. The preference is yours. Doesn't matter. Um, I prefer the way it looks to go under two loops. But what I'll do is I will kind of show you the difference as we go. So I'm gonna go under both those loops, pull this through, leaving a tail that's long enough to so in. And now I'm going to work across whip stitching. So just whipping this yarn around and putting, I need all through each pair stitches across from each other. And when we pull this, we want to pull it snugly, but not too tight. If you pull it really tightly, it's in a bunch up your fabric. So you don't want to do that too much. Good. Then we're gonna go from front to back again under these two loops here, and just pull that through, keeping your tension about the same there. And we're gonna do this for a few stitches, and then I'll show you what it looks like if you go through the inside two loops as well. But you can see how nice and neat this is going across the stitches because they're already all spaced out for you. All right, so if you wanted to, instead of going under two loops like we've been doing, if you only wanted to go through one loop, just pick the two center most loops and go through those instead. So for some people, this is a little bit faster because you're only snagging two loops on each side of your factor one loop on each side of your fabric. It does not give you a week or joined, so you don't have to worry about that. It's still gonna be a nice, strong join. It just gives you a slightly different look. So if we fold this out, so here you can see we've worked through two loops on each side of the fabric, and here we worked through just one, so it leaves this line on each sign, but it makes your stitches smaller on this side on your front side. If you flip this over, they look almost exactly the same. So it's really your preference. Which one you like, the looks of better or which one is easier for you to do for a now, since this is just to show you the difference. I'm going to keep going with this, Alright, once we get to the corner. So these air last two stitches here. Now we're gonna set that down and we're gonna pick up our next pair of squares and we're simply going to insert our needle into the outside for most corner stitches here. Said again, Don't forget about your turning chain and you can go under two loops or one loop. I like to do two loops in the corners because it's a little bit sturdier because, as you see, when we pull these together, it's a little bit loose. But don't worry. That will firm up when we seem across the other side. So I'm gonna keep going across going through two loops now. And just keep that nice and consistent with your tension as best you can all the way across to this other side. All right, we've got two stitches left here. I'm going in this corner. Most stitch here got that wrapped around there. We can go back in this side one more time. If you want to kind of join that together there a little bit more seamlessly and now there seemed across the whole thing. Now this section right here looks a little bit different, Remember, because we work to just through those to one loop on each side, instead of through two loops like we did here. But again, it looks almost exactly the same on this side. So at this point, you could go ahead and we've in your ends and switch to your other young. So this is our second strand. We're gonna use it to sew up this vertical. Same. We're a threat, are needle. And then you can either turn it like this or you can turn it over so that you're right sides facing up. Now I like to do this for this Seem because it's a little bit harder to do than the first edge is if you have the tops and bottoms of stitches matched up with your squares, it makes it really easy to seem it together for this side. We're gonna be joining the side of a single course, a square with a side of a double crush a square. Now, you could if you wanted to match up your single Chris Shays on one side and your double Kirsch. It's on the other side, and that would make it a little bit easier, but just so that you can see how that you might do it. I'm mixed them up so you can kind of see how it would do it. Now they're already joined in the center here, so that's going to kind of help us stay on track. If you're worried about getting off on it, you can use your stitch markers to mark your edges and kind of hold them together. So, like on this side, and would mark the corner most corner of those two squares and locked them together. So that way, when we come across, it's already kind of held together and it's gonna come. It's gonna keep it aligned for us. For this side were starting out at thes corners, so it's not really necessary to have a stitch marker there, So same thing we're going to insert our needle into the corner. I just kind of choose which spot looks like the best corner to you, and I'm gonna so this one together flat. So you kind of see how my stitches come together. Um, you can if it's easier for you pulled them over like this. Nothing wrong with that. You can keep it with the wrong side facing and do it the exact same way that you did the other side. When you're using the same calorie arm, it is not nearly as visible as this is going to be. All right, so now we're attached. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna match these up across from each other, just the best that we can. So I'm gonna try to go under two loops each time. It's not gonna work every single time as repair these up, but it's gonna be close enough. Okay, so now that's nice and tight. You see these stitches air going to be angled opposite of these? So if you did when you use a contrast in yarn, then you could for visual appeal, if if you like that. All right, so now I'm just going to evenly spaced thes stitches. Working crossed the ends of thes rose as best I can, going under one or two loops from each hedge. Oops. Pulling the stitches firmly, but not too tightly. And we're gonna work our way across to the middle again. If you're using the same calorie arm, this doesn't need to be perfect because you're not really gonna be able to see your seem. I'm being a little bit more careful than I normally would, because it's bright orange and you can see my stitches. Really, Clearly, the key is to just evenly spaced them and kind of keep an eye on the remaining fabric that you have left here to make sure that it stays more or less lined up because you don't want Thies to get jogged off too much. A little bit you can make adjustments for. But if you're seeming along and all of a sudden you we've got half an inch of extra fabric down here, you really want to make make some adjustments before you get there? If you can began right along here. See, these aren't quite as neat as my other stitches or because I don't have those. Nice edge is already designated for me. That's okay. Still gonna be functional, which is what we really want out of a war. Scoff, very dish cloth. Okay, so now we're coming up on this center here, so I'm gonna do one more stitch here on the sign and then this one, the source Innermost stitch. I'm just can pull it across this one. So we're gonna make a tiny little X basically, So I'm gonna insert my needle into where this one comes out, and then I'm gonna pull it up here where that goes through or close to it. And then look how snug that center is now, okay? And so you're just gonna keep seeming all the way across to get to this end, and then you're gonna so in your ends. You see, this is a little bit more zigzag e than these are. These are nice and straight and even, Um but that's still that's still okay. I'm all right with that. And then if you turn it over and look on the back So here's our whip stitch going through two loops, two loops, one loop on each fabric. And then again, summing up this vertical seem is a little bit less even on the back side. I get a better job on the front there, which is why I like to do it in front side facing or bright side facing. But that is really all there is to seeming it. And again, if you use the same color yarn you're seeing, basically disappears. So that's nice and neat. Joined together. It's square. If you want to measure it, it should be about eight inches across. Look at that. We've measured this way to Oh, it's a little short that way. That's OK, and that is our wash cough. I'm really excited to see what you'll do with these projects. Feel free to keep practicing, make lots and lots of washcloths, or even take this this basic square and keep going turned into a scarf. There's there's no reason why you can't practice this until you're either bored with it, ready for something new or until you're ready for a new challenge. So be sure to post your pictures shared sure progress shots along the way. We call him W. I. P s or works in progress. So this would be a work in progress, for sure. And when next we meet, move will talk about doing a scarf
13. Pattern Reading: So who's ready to make a scarf? I know I am. So let's get started. Um, I won't talk a little bit about what we'll need for this project, because it's a little bit different. Um, we are going Teoh, start with a pattern. This time, the pattern for the dishcloth is actually in your course materials. If you want to look that over and if you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments. But we're gonna go over pattern reading on a little bit more detail with this pattern. So you have kind of an idea of how that works the materials that we're gonna need. We're gonna need our yarn, of course. And I've chosen Red Heart soft. It is a four weight yarn, or worsted weight, and the hook that we're using is actually one size larger than with the yarn recommends. We're gonna be using a J hook for this yarn. If you choose a different yard, generally follow that rule, check your package and see what you're and they recommend for or which hook they recommend for the yarn and then go up a hook size unless you have exceptionally loose tension and then maybe keep the same hook size or even go down one. Just experiment with it until you get a fabric that you like the feel of. We are also going to need scissors. Course. Ah, couple stitch markers would be great and a needle, but we won't me that until the very end. So Uncle Hidden set that aside. Okay, so let's talk about the pattern. So this is the pattern that you'll find in your course materials, and I've written it out, and ah, lot more detail than I normally would, so that you have a maximum of information. I've written it out in words I have charted it on. I have written it out in standard kirsch, a pattern terminology which can be really confusing when you're first starting, because it's almost like learning a new language. However, we're going to start out really simple. And we will we will go from there. Okay, so on your first page of your pattern, typically, what you'll see is, of course, the name and information about the project. But you want to look for the materials that you're gonna use, which we've already talked about. Uh, I also added information about how much your and I used for this scarf. I used the whole Skane, but if you want to change the arm that you're using, then you want to pay a little bit closer attention to your yardage of the grams, the weight of the skein of yarn. We will also talk about gauge a little bit more later on for scarves. It's not super important unless you're trying to make it a specific size. But again, we'll get into that more later. I've also included a table here that explains the abbreviations that I'll be using throughout the pattern as well as the chart symbols, which will look at more and a couple of pages here once we get started with the scarf itself. And I will demo this for you here here in a moment. So don't worry too much about these pictures, but I'm gonna go through each step just like we did before. And then I've written out your instructions. Here's Row one and Row two as clearly as I can in sort of ah, paragraph format, just so that you can kind of get the feel for how this goes in the same way that I've been talking about it in the past. For the third and fourth rose, I've written it out more in standard cruciate terminology What you'll see in a pattern. So Chain one CH stands for chain turn Your project. That's the same thing we did with the Dishcloth S C stands for single Cochet. So we're going to single cachet in the first stitch and double Cochet in the next single Cochet, etcetera, etcetera. And don't worry, I'm gonna go over all this in more detail when we actually start working on the scarf. This is the chart, and it's a fabulous tool for all of your visual learners like me because we can look and see exactly which stitch we're going to put where? So these are our chain stitches here, what we start out with and then we have single core Shays and double Chris Shays. So you can see here in this chart how these stitches stack up so that you have a visual representation that is probably a little bit easier for you to see than the pictures are, or even as I'm demonstrating it. So this is a great tool for any visual learners out there. But again, I have it written out as well. If you learn mawr through written directions. So that's really all we need to talk about with the pattern. Don't let it overwhelm. You know, there's a lot of information here we're gonna We're gonna start slow and easy with pattern rating, and, uh, we can always we can always learn more later.
14. Starting Your Scarf: okay, all it's time to put everything that we've learned in the action we are going. Teoh, start with our skein of yarn with our cash, a hook and our tools and we're going to start to finish, make a scarf, and then you're gonna get toe where it's gonna be fabulous and you're gonna love it. So let's start with our yard. One thing I want to show you This is a trick that my mother taught me. Uh, when you find a new skein of yarn, look first, before you start pulling on on your own threads, look and see if you see a piece of yawn that's going into the end of this game like this guy is right here. So we're gonna pull that out. This is the outside end of the yarn, and I'm just gonna tuck that in so that it's out of the way. Now you can absolutely work from the outside strand of yarn, but I don't like doing that because I have pets and if you have kids, it's probably the same thing. It's gonna flop and roll and be all over the place, and I really don't want my animals playing with my arm, so I want to keep it out of the floor, and I want to keep it next to me. And the best way to do that is to use the center pole method now to find the center of this yarn. What you can do is you can feel inside each end of the skein of yarn and see if you can tell a difference. If one side feels looser, that's the side that you want to pull from. So on this game, that's this left side here. Also, some pattern labels or yarn labels will have a arrow on the label itself. Here, like this one does and see that little arrow is pointing to the left. That's the same side that felt a little bit looser. Not all your labels have this, but some of them do. So if you see a stray arrow on your urine label, that's probably what it means. It means pull from that end of the arm. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna just kind of reach inside the skein of yarn and feel for like, a little ball of yarn or loose strands that you can grab a hold up and pull out. Now, don't. Don't be scared. Don't reach in there. Just pull on one strand or two because what you're gonna end up doing is you're gonna tie it in worse knots. So be brave. Reaching their grab hold of it and pull it out. Oh. Oh, no. I've got it right here. I thought we were gonna have some your involvement there, but it worked out. Okay, So here is our center pull Strand. Yep. We're gonna have to pull some of this out. Okay. See, there's that your involvement I was talking about, but that's okay. We're gonna use this eventually. So we're just gonna set it aside and we're gonna work with Are you are an end. Okay. So we know how to hold our your Now we want to leave a tale or an end of 4 to 6 inches here . So we've got lots of room to thread it onto a needle, and so it in at the end of our project, we also know how we're gonna hold her hook. Overhand underhand Doesn't matter. Make up your own way. That's great. And we're going to start with a slip knot on our hook. So make that in whatever way you feel comfortable doing. There's air slip knot on our hook, and now we're ready to crash. A. So, for this pattern for the scarf, you start with a chain of 14. Now, I like to make my chains a little bit loose so that it's easier toe work into them. If you have trouble working into your chain stitches or if they feel really tight along the bottom of your skirt, try going up a hook size just to make your team stitches. Because using a larger hook will force those loops to be just a little bit bigger. And that may be all the help you need. So let's go ahead and change 14. Here it's one to three, but where 56 78 Mine. 10 11 12 13 14. Awesome. Okay, so now I'm gonna count just to make sure. Better safe than sorry. Got 123456789 10 11 12 13 14. Remember that The loop on your hook and you're starting slip not do not count is a chain stitch. So we've got our 14th chains here I'm gonna work into the back bumps again, the same as we did on the Dishcloth. So I'm gonna turn this chain over so that these V's are running along the flat of my fingers and there are backbones, thistle, spine that's running through. All right, so we're going to skip our first stitch. Our first chains did here, and we're gonna single cliche in the second chain from the hook, So insert your hook from front to back. Use your fingernail from now. Whatever you need. If you need, you need to help. Pull that, that loop over your hook. You're in Over. Pull up a loop. You're in over. Pull through two. There's our first single, Gorsha. Let's go ahead and Mark. That just makes life a little bit easier later on. So I'm gonna put that stitch marker in under the top two loops of the single crush A there . I'm gonna go ahead and lock it in place so it doesn't fall off. All right. Very good. So remember that you're single, Chris. Joyce, ditch is kind of pie shaped. You've got this V here, going down into the loop. That back bump there. So you can see that stitch going in here. And then here is our next stitch. There's that back bump of the next chain stitch. Now I like to use my thumbnail as I am working these stitches to kind of help me keep track . So once I identify meant next stitch, I'll put my thumbnail at the very back of it so they don't lose it if I look up or look away or something for just a second. So our next stitch is actually a double crush I in this project, we're not going to work just row after row of single car share or row after row of double cliche because you've done that enough. You ready to try something new? Right you are. So we're going to add some texture into our car shit here. And we're going to do that by alternating single Cochet and double cursory stitches. So let's do our next double Christian, you're on over. First, insert your hook from front to back. You're in over. Pull up a loop. We have three loops on her hook. You aren't over. Pull through to you're in over pulled here too. So there are 1st 2 stitches. We have a single Kirsch A here, which we've already marked, and a double cliche in her second stitch. Now we're going to do another single cliche. Front back, you aren't over. Pull it pollute, you aren't over. Pull through to so you can see here. How doing these two single Chris Shays on either side of a double kirsch, a kind of squishes that double kirsch it down. It pulls it down just enough, and it's gonna make it kind of pop, and that's what's going to give you your texture. So let's continue on across our next stitches. A double Kershaw single double single. We don't need you on over for single Christians. And remember, as you're working this, if it curls up on you a little bit, stretch it out. That's not gonna hurt for you to pull on it. That will help you identify that next stitch. So this was a single kirsch? A. You can see that it's kind of short there and double Kershaw and the next see how much taller that double Cochet stretches up there. It'll help if you remember the height of your stitches that will help you identify them If you have to set it down for a minute, you can also, If you're not sure about it, undo it really slowly. So if you have to pull it twice to get down to your chain, that was a double core shake. Pulling out a single cliches real fast so you could do it, slope. So that was a single car share right there. And now we're back to another double. Cochet almost pulled it out. All right, so there's are taller stitched. That's our double. Now we're gonna single double, and just keep repeating this all the way across to the end of your road. Okay, so we have two stitches left here. We're gonna double and single, so we're ending with a single crush A, which is the same stitch that we started out with. So keep an eye out on that. As you're working through this pattern, what you want is you want to make sure that you end with the same stitch is you began with because that's going to make it even on each side. That's why we have an odd number of stitches. So we should have 13 stitches across. Let's count them just to make sure. 123456789 10 11 12 13 13. Stitch is marked. And notice if you will, that your double Cochet stitches. Those V's on top look a little bit bigger than your single Chris Shays. So that's going to help you pick them out. If you need to identify your stitches and the kind of double check yourself, make sure that you're doing the correct alternation between the stitches. Okay, so now we're ready for road to We're gonna chain one, turn it like the page of a book from right to left because we Cochet from right to left. And now we're ready to start Row two. And look, look at those double Christians just popping up there, isn't it? Texture fund. I love it. Okay. Oh, actually, we're gonna do a chain to at the start of row two. Sorry about that, Jane, too, because we're about to break some rules. So our chain to is are turning chain for the second row because it starts out as a double crochet. However, in this pattern, we do not count the the chain too. As a stitch like we did in the Dishcloth with her Chain three. So we're only gonna chain to because we need to give a little bit of height for this road. But I don't want to count it as a stitch. And that will help close up that gap that you may have noticed in your double Cochet squares on the dishcloth. So we've got her turning chain of two, and now we're going to double cruciate in the first stitch. This is the other rule were breaking. We're not going to skip the first stitch on this because are turning chain does not count assistance. So double course I in your first stitch, which should be a single course, I And let's go ahead and mark that there is the top of our double cliche. And if you look here, you can see there's your double Cochet and here is your turning chain of two and see how much closer this is. Then the space was on your double Kirsch a square. This looks a lot neater in the finished scarf. It gives you a cleaner edge. It's got a little bit of extra puff on each side, but this is a textured scarf. So we love all the puffiness. All right, so we're starting with a double Cochet, which means we should end with a double. Crucially, at the end of this road, we're still alternating stitches. So what we're gonna do next is we're gonna double cliche in the top. We're gonna single Chris right in the top of this double Kershaw here. And that's that slightly puffy or looking stitch that comes next or looking at the top. The top V of your stitch looks just a little bit bigger, so that will help you identify them to so under the top two loops, you aren't over. Pull up a loop, you aren't over. Pull through to theirs are single cliche and see how it pulled that double kirsch a down. So we're going to squash those double car shades down again on this road to give us that texture. So now all the way across, we're going to double Cochet on top of our single cliches from the previous row. And then we're gonna single core Shea on top of the double Kershaw from the previous row. So let's go. Okay, we are down to our last two stitches here. So we're gonna single, and then we're ending with a double cliche. And this marks stitch. That's exactly what we want. So, Reid and they're the same spot. We're gonna work our double crush a and then we can take this out. Heinz, let's take a look here. There are 1st 2 rows, so let's count again just to make sure we're still on track. 123456789 10 11 12 13. Perfect. And again, you can see your double Chris Shays or just a little bit puffy er and your singles are. So now we're ready for row three, which is going to be pretty much the same as Row One was, except we're gonna be working into the tops of these stitches instead of their starting chain. So we're going to start with a Chain one. Turn it like the page of a book. A single cliche in this first stitch, which is a double Cochet. We're going to mark the top of it here and now we're going to double cross a in the next stitch and in each stitch across just exactly the same way as we did on Row one. Now, as you're going along, if you lose track of where you are, they have set it down and you come back to it later and you can't remember where you stopped, and you're not really sure about identifying this. Such is just yet. You can look at the height of your stitches, so this is a double crush. A. Because it's really tall and our single Chris Shays are much shorter, like this one is how much shorter that is. But you can also just unravel this slowly until you see something that looks familiar. But it might be quicker to do that than for you to look and try and identify, but it's good practice to see if you recognize it as your stitching. So if, however, I didn't recognize my stitches, I could just pull them out slowly. So that was a single cliche, and this is a double cliche. It's gonna take two pools to get down to where we started. Three, I guess if you include that first loop and then this single Cochet is only two, so double cliche you have to pull out more loops because you make more loops as you're doing it. So that's a great way to kind of help you determine what your stitches are to help you recognize them. Especially if you get get lost along the way a little bit. Let's redo those stitches that we just took out loops. And we just want to make sure that we're stacking a double on a single single on a double double in a single, and we're ending with a single and a double, which is the same way we started. So that's perfect. Now we're ready for row for which is going to be exactly the same as road to. So we're going to start with our turning chain of to turn it over. We're not gonna skip this first stitch because we're rule breakers, right? We're gonna double cliche mark the top of it. Good and single car shay. And this next stitch double single, double single all the way across. You're just gonna keep repeating this pattern? Repeating those two rows, rows three and four for the entire length of your scarf. So I know you have to pay a little bit more attention to this pattern than you did the others with the dish cough. But once you get into the groove of it, you're not even gonna need your pattern anymore. You're just gonna be able to sit and crush a maybe watch TV, do little Netflix binging. It's gonna be great. All right, we're on it. Last two stitches. We're ending with a double Cochet in our last march stitch, which is what we started with. So that's just what we want. Let's take a look. At what with guns. Outstanding. All right, these are our 1st 4 rows, and this is how our scarf is going to stack up going from and end. So if you look at this, you can kind of see that there are two rows here in addition to I mean, if you stretch it out, you can see the separation between the stitches, but it's actually easier to just sort of lay it flat and look for those groupings of Rose so we can count Rose by payers on this. So we've got four rows here, so to four, and you could carry on if you wanted to count your stitches that way because those double Chris Shays on this side kind of puff up there along this row and that. What? That's what gives you this separation. So if we look at the back side, you see that puffy row is kind of in the middle because you've got your starting role here . So that's one row and then you've got to together here and then this is our fourth row, and we're ready to make 1/5 row. So that would add that extra separation, I guess, between those 22 sets of rose right there. And that's all there is to it. You're going to continue in this manner until your scarf is as long as you want it to be, uh, or until you run out of your like I did. So if you're your gauge is similar to mine, then it's going to be about four inches wide and 60 ish inches long. And so that's a great scarf to just throw around your neck once or twice and and go. It's a It's a nice short scarf links, So good luck. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of your scarves and thank you so much for car sharing with me today.
15. Gauge & Customizing Your Scarf: Okay, let's talk a little bit more about gauge it too big. Scary word for a lot of co shares, especially when you start talking about doing swatches. But don't let's watches scare you because it's a great way to test your fabric and yarn. Maybe you start pushing with your yarn and you decide that it doesn't work for the project that you want to do, and that's fine. It's much better to figure that out on a small piece than it is a big one. Because this scarf ist of small to start with, as most scarfs are for our gauge, we're just gonna measure what we've got here. So I'm gonna take a measuring tape, and this should be about four inches across. Look at that right on. So this meets the gauge that in the written pattern that you'll see now, depending on your attention, this may be either more or less than four inches across. If it's pretty close and you're good with that with just go with it. Don't worry about it too much. Now, if you want to make a wider scarf, then you don't really need to worry about the gauge unless you specifically wanted to turn out the right way the first time. And that's where you're gonna use your gauge swatch to determine how how many more stitches that you need or how many fewer if you want to do a skinny your scarf. So this is four inches across, and we've got 13 stitches. So if you're using a four inch gauge, which is pretty typical, then you can estimate that you're gonna have 13 stitches in every four inches. So if you wanted a six inch scarf, you would probably want to start with a chain instead of 14 with 20 or 22. Because if we divide that out So we've got 13 across. My cat is tickling my feet. Sorry. Um, so we've got 13 across, so that's about three stitches per inch. So we've got 369 12 plus a little. Um, so if we round that up, then probably 20 to 22 stitches for your chain your starting chain would give you a six inch wide scarf. Now, if you do want to do a wider scarf and you're using the yarn that we started with, you're gonna need to skeins so I'll show you here in a minute. How to join a new skein of yarn on if you want to do that, Um, but for practical purposes, if you want a wide scarf or a really long one, you should probably plan on getting two skeins of yarn unless it's really small. Now you can use theme measurements on your corn label toe estimate that in comparison to the measurements on your pattern, but I find that most scarves take one skein for a smaller scarf or two skeins for a wider one or a longer one. Now, as far as choosing how Why'd you want your scarf to be and how long it's really up to you. It's wearing a scarf is very personal, and for me, I like a slightly narrower scarf, some of the 4 to 5 inch range, whereas the average scarf with is actually more like 6 to 8 inches. But something like this. So this scarf is about five inches across, and I made this with a slightly smaller yarn and a smaller hook because the arm was smaller . But I made a chain of starting tuning of 20 so that combined with the smaller yarn still gave me a wider scarf, and this is good for me. A five inch with is really good for me. As faras length goes, a good rule of From is simply to have your scarf at least as long as the where is tall. For me, I'm short. So a 60 inch scarf is is good for a wraparound scarf like like this one is or project, so I can wrap this. I can loop it and put it through, and it hangs down nicely. This scarf is about 64 inches long, I think, and I can barely do this. Not that I love so much, so I would actually prefer a slightly longer scarf. Then I am tall, but that's because of the way I wear my scarf. If you are, just throw it around your neck kind of person or drip it over your shoulders. Then you want a shorter one. If you like time, fancy knots, then you want a longer one. But as a starting point, you want your scarf to be about as long as the where is tall, and that's also if you stretch your arms out. That's called your wingspan. It's about the same as you are tall, so that's a great estimates if you're in a store looking for a scarf as well. So that is, I think, that just about covers everything we need to know about customizing your scarf. Feel free to play around with different yorn types, so this is an acrylic. It's a medium weight yarn. This is also acrylic, but it's a smaller wait. It's a three. Wait, it's a baby weight. You're actually, and it's got really small variations in it. So if you looked really closely at this, you could see that it's got gray and white in it, and you can also use a fun, variegated yarn with longer variations. So you've got all this great texture, and then you throw in this this color change as well, and suddenly you've got tons and tons of options. So play with your yarns, experiment with different sizes, change your hooks up, break all the rules
16. Joining a New Yarn: pretend with May for a moment that this is a wider scarf and a little bit longer. We've probably got about 40 inches of scarf here if we have run out of yarn as we're pretending that we have. So if you want to do a six inch scarf, you would have, Yeah, probably about 40 inches of scarf in length. And most of us want something that's a little bit longer than that. So we're going to join a new yarn here. So if this is the end of our Skane, we're gonna finish it off the same way we did the dish cough squares. So you're just gonna yarn over and pull that last loop through, pull it all the way out? You can also, if you prefer simply use your fingers well, that loop up a little bit bigger and then take your end and pull it through that loop just like that and tighten it up. So that's finishing your project. Um, you could also use this. Say you're going through your skein of yarn and you come to a factory, not in there or a strand. That's kind of messy, and you don't want that in your project. Do you want to cut it out? In that case, you would do this basically the same way. So just go to the end of the row, Finish it off If you run out of yarn before you get to the end of the road, just back up and ended on the other side. So we've ended this row and we want to join a new yarn. So we're gonna go ahead and turn this over. Same way we would is if we were crashing. And we're gonna start with a slip knot on our hook and we're going to insert our hook into the first stitch. So this was a double Cochet. So we're gonna insert her hook, and we're going to do what's called a slip stitch join. So we're gonna yarn over and we're gonna pull up a loop and then we're gonna take that loop and we're gonna pull it through the loop. That was on our hook. So all that's doing is that's attaching that new yorn to where we want to crush a from. So at this point, we're ready to do our turning chain, which in this case is a Chain one and then single cachet in our first stitch, and we can mark that and go on crushing same way we normally would, because that's attached there on the edge. So this is just one of many ways that you can join a new born either a new skein or if you have to break your urine in the middle of the skin, you do end up with too little knots here on the side. But when you leave these ends and you can make those practically disappear, of course, you do have to weave in two more ends if you join a new yarn. But in the grand scheme of the scarf, that's only two extra ends, so a total of four not a big deal. Now, if you don't like these knots, there are ways to avoid it. But beginners typically feel most comfortable with this type of join method because it's secure. If you join in the middle of your your project, then you can do it without using. Not you can do it without using knots on the ends as well. However, if you do it in the middle and the stitches aren't nodded off, then they can kind of unravel a little bit, and that's that's a little bit more than you want to deal with as a beginner car share. So we're just going to do it this way this time and then in another project, weaken, visit other ways of joining a New York or even one of these days changing colors, so that would be exciting to. But really, that's all there is to it.
17. Final Thoughts: Wow, We have learned so much today. I am just super excited about all the things we've learned. We've talked about yarns and all the tools and notions that you might need from your hooks to the stitch markers. Great little tools toe. Have we learned how to start in the finish of projects? We we talked about how to join a new Yorn if you want to change your skirt your project up and customize your scarf. So that was a great thing. Toe learn. We we did 24 basic stitches both the single Cochet and the double Cochet, and we learned how to not only do them individually, but work them together to get some great texture, which is one of the most exciting part about crushing. I think, Um, yeah, just so much stuff that we learned. It's it's fabulous. So be sure to share pictures in the Project gallery of your Dishcloth squares, especially if you have any questions about them as you're making them. And, of course, share your finished projects your your dish cloths or washcloths and your scarves. Thanks so much for car sharing with me today.
Connie Lee Lynch, Crochet Designer & Certified Instructor
