Transcripts
1. Introduction: I love that mandalas
are so versatile, you can keep adding row
after row of texture and color and the only limit is your imagination and
your yard supply. My name is Lee Sartore
from Coco Crochet. Lee, I'm a crochet designer. You may have seen my work in four published
crochet pattern books. There is a Modern Guide
to Texture Crochet, Harry Potter, Crochet
Wizardry Friends, The One with a Crochet. And Pokemon Crochet to a Crochet bag is a
statement piece. It's something that
you can bring about and show people and have
people ask questions. And it's just something
that is really usable and functional
and also fun. Today we're making a
really gorgeous boho mandala bag that is based
off of a daisy flower. It's such a great piece
and not only will you have something that you'll
be able to use in your every day wardrobe, you'll also take away all of the skills that are
involved in the Mandella. Learning new textures, learning
how to do color changes, and just all of the
basic building blocks of this particular Mandell bag to use in your future projects. This class is for
crocheers who are ready to up their skills from
their beginner lessons. We'll take you through
each and every step of the way in order to create
that beautiful texture. I'm so excited to begin this class with you.
Let's get started.
2. Start Your Mandala: I'm so excited to begin
this bag with you, but before we start crocheting, let's take a look at
all the components of the bag as it's finished, the bag starts from the center out with
some double crochets, and you can see that mine
is done in a black color. The great thing about
this Mandala bag is you can change colors as
many times as you want. You can change colors
every single row. And I'll even show you how
to change colors mid row. So while mine is a black
center with a yellow flower, you can change your colors up
as many times as you want. So the bed continues with post stitches that will
grow the flower out. And you'll notice that
midway through the flower, the background begins to appear. That is a color
change mid row and a great technique to learn
for any kind of Mandela. After the flower is complete, we're going to have a special
row about bumping that flower edge out towards you so it kind of has
a three D effect. You can see here that
the stitches are all loose on the front and
anchored in the back. It's a really,
really fun technique to make that flower
really pop out. The bag continues with a really neat stitch
called the cluster, and it gives you a lot of texture around this
edge of the bag. You'll notice that the
color changes again with some postages to create this
really beautiful knit edge. Then the bag is finally seamed
with a contrasting color. Again, I went back to the flower center and
brought it to the edge of the bag where both panels are mirrored and
seamed together. Finally, we'll add
a purse strap, which is extremely easy,
super customizable. And you can bring all
of those colors back in and make it as colorful or
as monotone as you like. Let's start crocheting.
To start our Mandela bag, I'm going to be
using a different color than what you saw on my finished piece just
for ease of visibility. When we begin, we're going to start with a
regular slip knot. And just ensure that
you leave yourself a few inches of tail so that you can weave
in those ends later. Our bag starts with a chain, 4,123.4 we're going to do nine double crochets
into the fourth chain, from the hook into this last chain space that's
closest to your slip knot. That's the first double crochet. This yarn is super chunky, so this builds really
quickly. That's 234. There's 5,678.9 Now we're going to be
working in joined rounds, and that's for a crisper
color change for the bag. And we're also going
to be slip stitching to join the top of the chain. Three that was unused
from our initial chain. Four, The three chains
that were left over that we're slipped
stitching into the top of also act as our
first double crochet. When you're counting your
stitches for this round, you're going to count those three chains as a first stitch. And your total for this
round will be ten, even though we only
did nine stitches, because we're not going to
be using this color again. We're going to fasten off on it. You can see my tail
is already cut. But to fasten off, you're
going to draw up a loop. And fasten off. We're going to start the next round with a
brand new color.
3. Switch Colors: With this mandala bag, you can change colors every
single row if you want to. Your flower can be multicolored. If you wanted to do it all
in one continuous color, then you would
just continue with the first color and
not fasten off at all. You would continue to
the next round using that exact same color and you can have a monotone mandala. Instead. There are
two different ways that you can join
for this round. You can join just a
regular slip stitch with a slip knot on your hook. You would join into any of the tops of the
stitches anywhere around with a slip stitch and chain two to
begin the round, there is an alternate way of joining and it's called a
standing double crochet. And I'll show you that too. It works the same way as a slip knot at the
beginning of your hook, but rather than slip
stitching onto the round, you're going to act as if you're already in the process of making your first double crochet. You're going to yarn over before inserting your hook
into the first stitch. I like to pin it
with my index finger on the top of the hook
so it doesn't run away. Then you're going to put
your needle through, draw up your loop
as if you're making a double crochet yarn over
and draw through two. Again, this is where holding
onto that loop really helps the yarn over
and draw through two. Again, the difference here
is you'll see that that crisp double crochet exists in place of the chain
at the beginning, your slip knot is actually at the top of the
double crochet, and it creates less of a
jog in the color change. You can see that the
round is going to start with a double crochet
rather than that chain. For this pattern, we're going
to actually do that again, but it is a front post
standing double crochet. Now that you get the concept, we're going to just change the placement of that
join a little tiny bit. That standing double
crochet is a great one to use in further
crochet patterns. Here's where the placement of
it just changes a tiny bit. We're still going to yarn
over for a double crochet, secure those wraps with
your index finger, Because we're doing front
post double crochets, instead of going into
the top of the stitch, we're actually going to bump out that post by inserting your hook from the
front to the back. And bumping that post forward. And complete the same idea of
the standing double crochet just around the post instead
under two, under two. Again, it's the standing double crochet
technique that we learned, but in a front post, which is what is required
for this pattern. Now for the rest of this round, we're going to do front post double crochets
around each of them. In the previous round,
we had ten stitches, We're going to end up with 20. This time we've done
our first front post, double crochet on
this exact same post. We're going to do our second
front post, double crochet. Working underneath
the front post, double crochet
that you just did. You're working a second
front post double crochet. This is where the
flower begins to build around the next post. From the beginning, two
front post double crochets. It's easy to figure
out where to put the first one if you're wondering where the
second one goes. It's right underneath the
first one that you made. You can really see what
this color contrast, the placement directly under. Just lower down on the post. There's the second,
we'll do a few more. The first front post,
double crochet on this next stitch and the second, now that you know
how to fasten off an unworked color and
join a new color, I'm also going to
show you how to change color in the
middle of a row.
4. Stitch Your Flower: For round three of
our Mandela bag, we're going to introduce adding a new color in the
middle of a row. That is to create
a contrast between the flower coming forward and
the background of the bag. Whatever color you're
going to be introducing, that's going to be
the background color behind your flower.
So keep that in mind. When choosing this row
begins with a chain to this doesn't
count as a stitch, we're going to do an increase two front post double
crochets on the first stitch. We learned this in
the previous rows. Next we're going to front
post double crochet. Just one stitch on the
next three stitches, so that's one 2.3 this is basically the
petal of your flower. We're creating a contrast between the flower
and the background. Instead of making that last stitch that we
just did complete, I'm actually going
to pull that last stitch out because this is where we're going to create the
join for our new color. When you're about to
do your last stitch, before the pattern indicates
to do a next color, you're not going to complete
the stitch in its entirety. Yarn over and insert your
hook as if to front post, double crochet yarn
over and draw through just two and before
completing the stitch. You're just going to pause here. We haven't done our
last yarn over and draw through to close the top of this front post double crochet. Instead, you're going to take your next color without
a slip knot on it. You're going to hold it
as if ready to crochet. Hold it behind your
work and complete your last stitch with this new color yarn over and draw through
those remaining two loops. Your new color is attached, it's a little bit loose, and you can see that the stitch is a little bit loose as well. What I like to do
at this point is I like to hold both of
the colors together. That's the cut end of our
new introduced color. And the working color, hold them behind your work together so that
they stay together. We're now going to
do a double crochet between the posts
of these stitches. I'll show you where
that placement goes. You're going to yarn
over to double crochet between the post of the previous stitch and the
post of the next stitch. We're going to create a new
space and double crochet. Here you can see that we're working between this
post and the next post. We're going to be
changing colors again for our next stitch. That means that
you're going to have to just complete
half of this stitch, not the full thing, we've yarned over and drawn
through just two. You're going to drop your
contrasting color and pick up your regular color for the flower yarn over and
draw through with that. You can see that when you
situate everything again, there's barely a noticeable jog in color from changing from
the yellow to the beige. And then you can
continue stitching, it's two front post double
crochets for the increase. You would continue that
repeat all the way around. But now that the
yellow is back on, you can really see
the difference in these front post double
crochets that pop out that background color that is set back because
it's not a post stitch, it's worked in the
background and in between the post stitches and
in a different color. And then we're continuing
with our flower petal again. Now that you know how to create that background and
start building it, you can have a lot of fun with these colors and you
can start building your flower out more and doing that
background color again.
5. Add Dimension: Next, I'm going to
show you how to pop those flower petals
out at the end of the flower section
to really make them stand out for the next round. We're only working in
the background color. I've already started this
round and I just want to show you that we've fastened off our flower color
and we're just going to continue with the
background color by picking it up and
continuing along. You'll notice as well
that we are popping out these flower petals by working behind them in the row below. And I'm going to show
you how that works. You can see here the pattern
continues for this row, popping out those petals, building the background with some easy stitches and continuing to pop out those
petals all the way around. I've gotten to another point where it's time to
pop out those petals. And this is all about placement. We are not working in the
stitches of the previous row, we're actually working
in the stitches of the row before that. You're going to tilt your crochet forward a little
bit towards your face. You'll notice that behind four really visible
yellow double crochets from the post stitches
of two rows back. You'll also notice that the
yarn that we dropped for the background is carrying across the tops of
those stitches. You can see here there are
123.4 double crochets, a line of the background
color that is carried along. We're actually going to
crochet in each one of these over top and incorporating that line of color just to secure it
a little bit better. You can tip the flower petal of our previous
round forward and just hold it there if that's comfortable for you
or you can let it go. I'm going to hold it forward so that I can see those four
double crochets pretty clearly. Now, you may be
wondering why we're only doing four double
crochets instead of five, because the previous round does have five stitches
in the flower. But you can also see that the first double
crochet is really, really tiny and singed due
to the stitches behind it. So we're just going to ignore that first double
crochet of that flower petal and work in the last four. The pattern progresses in
that manner with that math. Accordingly, knowing that that first stitch
is really tiny, just to avoid going
into it at all, we're just going to do
four that looks like this. You're going to yarn over,
insert your hook into the first really
visible double crochet underneath the stitch, as well as the carried yarn from the
background yarn over. And draw up your loop and complete your double
crochet like normal. You can see that the
top of the stitch is completed and that carried yarn is now secure
under the stitch. You're going to do
that again three more times. There's 12.3 Now you can orientate
your flower petal there. You can see that those stitches, because we didn't work in the previous round of
flower petal stitches. Now they're nice and free, they're nice and crisp
and they really pop. You're going to continue
working the pattern in the background stitches of the working row,
just like normal. Now that we've finished popping out the flour
for these stitches, I'm very excited to show you
the next bit of texture, which is the cluster stitch.
6. Add Texture: This next round on
our mendella bag has a little bit of
play with texture. You can achieve texture in crochet in a few different ways. One of the ones that I really
enjoy is a cluster stitch. There's lots of different
kinds depending on the size of crochet
stitch you use. These ones happen to be
double crochet clusters. You can see that I've
already completed some cluster stitches
around this round, and I just really wanted to show you what the
texture looks like. They're in groups of three, and they rest between the petals of your flow from the
beginning of our Mandala bag. Let's take a look at how those
clusters are made working. In the next stitch we're going to do our three
crochet cluster. It starts with a yarn over. Insert your hook
into the stitch, yarn over, and draw
up a loop yarn over. And draw through just two. We're going to do
that two more times. Y. Insert your hook into
that same stitch yarn over, and draw up a loop over and draw through just 21 more
time yarn over. Insert your hook into that
same stitch, yarn over, and draw up a loop and yarn over and draw
through just two. What we did here is create the bottom half of three different double
crochet stitches. All of the tops
of those stitches are resting on
your crochet hook. Now we're going to
close all of them. You do that by yarning
over and drawing through all of the loops on your hook to close
the tops all at once. Basically, that turns all of those double crochet
stitches into one stitch. You can use the back
of the stitch to pop it forward and
pull it tight. There's two single
crochets between the next. And we're going to do that cluster again,
two single crochet. Let's take a look at that
cluster one more time. It starts with a yarn over. Insert your hook into the
next stitch, yarn over. And draw up your loop yarn over and draw through just two. We're going to do
that two more times. Insert your hook yarn over
and draw up your loop yarn over and draw through
21 more time over, insert your hook yarn
over and draw up your loop over and
draw through just two. We have all those double
crochets ready to be knocked down over and close them up, and then you're going
to pop that stitch forward before doing your
next two single crochets. When you do your first single
crochet after the cluster, you can pull it tighter and
pop that cluster out even more before drawing
through the last yo, then your second single crochet and you're ready to keep going. Now you know all of the tricky
components of this bag. They're not tricky at all,
they're actually really fun. We're going to look at
seaming your two panels together and adding
the really fun strap.
7. Create the Purse Strap: You can see here
we have a ton of texture going on on
our Mandell bike. So far, the center, the flower petals that pop
out with these post stitches, we have our cluster stitch. And you can see here that
I changed color to do a little bit of a background
again on our panel, and both sides are the same. The final part is just doing
a single crochet stitch to join both panels together through both thicknesses
all the way around. There will be some instructions
for going around with just a regular single crochet at the top of the bag to
create the opening as well. You'll notice also that we've added this really
fun braided strap. It's very easy, and it's actually not crocheting,
it's just a braid. You're going to take three of the colors that you've
enjoyed from your bag. Start with a really
long length of yarn and make your not. You're just going to take
those three strands and do a simple braid to create
the strap of your bag. You can make the
drop as long as you like and really customize it. You can add a knot at
the top of the bag if you think that you want to increase and
decrease the length. The braid is just secured
to the sides of your bag, on the inside edge. Once you've secured it,
you can trim the ends. Super easy and super fun. Now that we've finished all
of the parts of our bag, I'm going to give you a
few tips on how to create a really polished
finished mandala bag.
8. Finish Your Bag: There are a few really
cool finishing touches that you can add to
your crochet bag, including adding a machine
made leather handle that would secure to either
side of the bag itself. The other really great
thing that you can do with crocheted bags is there's a
common factor when you're making a crochet bag in so
far as things tend to fall out through the fabric
of any kind of crochet, unless it's extremely
tightly crocheted, there are going to be ****** and gaps where things
can come through. If you're okay with that,
you can use an insert like a pouch or any kind of
purse or wallet situation. The other thing you can
do though is you can turn your Mendell bag
inside out and hand, so on the inside
edge to the join. And you can see mine is
actually really contrasted, which is really nice
for a visual anchor. You can hand a piece of fabric to the inside of your bag
just with a whip stitch and a needle some
sewing thread to both sides of the inside
of your bag all along. And that will
secure your bag and create a barrier for
things falling through.
9. Final Thoughts: Congratulations. You made
a Mandela flower bag. It's so cute and it's so small, but so mighty in the amount of things
that you've learned. So, you've done postages, you've learned how to
fasten on a new color. You've learned how to change color mid row in order to
make that background pop. You've also learned how to work behind your
post stitches in a new technique and make the flower really,
really stand out. You've also learned how to do a three double crochet
cluster stitch. How to do these post
stitches around the edge, how to join, and even how
to make your own strap. So many things in this
and I can't wait to see the colors that you choose
for your own mendell bag. Please be sure to
share with us in the project gallery
attached to this class. Thank you so much
for joining me for the crochet mendella
bag. Happy crocheting.