How to Write a Simple Crochet Pattern

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to my class. My name is Abby, and I'll be your teacher today. Let me just first explain. I like to edit myself a lot because any pauses in between what I'm talking about. I like to edit out, so there will probably be some jump cuts. That's just how I do stuff. Just a little bit of background on me. I love to crow Shea. That should be pretty obvious with what I have surrounding me. Most of what I crow Shea is on the nerdy side. You will see a lot of Pokemon on this table. That's just because it's something that I absolutely love to crow Shea. I have over 10 years of Croce experience. I started when I was in high school, and it's been ah, hobby of mine ever since. Very early on in Micro Shane career, I decided that I wanted to write my own patterns so I could make whatever I want. And I absolutely love that kind of freedom when it comes to crushing, and I would like to share that with you. So today, the lesson that I have for you is how to write your own Croce patterns, so you can make whatever it is that inspires you. For the purposes of this class, I won't be going over the absolute basics of crushing. I'm going to assume you know what single Cochet is and what increasing and decreasing means . I will go over a little bit how to make basic shapes. But the main focus of this class is how to conceptualize and design your own pattern in about four easy steps so welcome, and I hope you'll join me for the rest of this class. 2. Step 1: step Number one is a very easy step. You're going to pick what it is you want to crow. Shea. Sometimes I can be easy, and sometimes that can be hard. I call it an easy step because there's like a 1,000,000 things that I can always think of that I want to kirsch. A. I pick from a lot of different ideas and fandoms, and sometimes I pick from the animal kingdom. Here is a penguin, a little red penguin, so it's a Z easier, as difficult as you make it. You can take inspiration from literally anywhere but just starting out. I want you to pick something that's kind of simple so that you don't end up overwhelming yourself in this process the very first time around. You may in the very beginning be more comfortable making animals. That's totally fine. I love animals that I love Animal Cochet, and as part of this course, my example is actually going to be a whale. So we are starting with an animal here for you to see kind of the process that I undertake When I crow Shea. I picked the whale because it's kind of a simple shape for me the way that I draw it in the way that I want to make it. It's going to be very simple, kind of like a teardrop kind of shape. Cats are talking. So like I said, Do you want to start out with something kind of simple the first time that you're going to be making your own pattern so that you can really work on perfecting that? Because pattern writing is its own art, and it might be difficult the first time around that you do it. So the more you write patterns, the easier is gonna be. So you want to start with something simple, like the whale that I'm picking to kind of get your feet wet. 3. Step 2: step Number two is design, and for this step, I suggest that you get out some paper and a pen. Designing means a lot of different things for a lot of different people. For me, it means drawing out kind of the overall shape of what it is that I want to crush A so I can better conceptualize how to get there. So because it's conceptual, don't worry about your drawing skills were not looking for perfect art. We're looking for something quick and easy to look at and to eventually break it down into its fundamental shapes. So I'm going to draw my well in the way that I want it to end up looking in the style that I've chosen for this specific project, which is a very simplified version of a whale. And from the picture, I'm going to break down the whale into shapes that I know I can make. These shapes are very often simple as well, so that my patterns never actually get to complicated the whale that I druken break down into five pieces that I know I can crow Shea and those pieces will eventually be sewn together to finish out that project 4. Step 3: step three actually, kind of has two parts to it. The first part is just start crushing. But we're gonna follow that part closely with the second part. And that's right. While you go for me, a lot of my patterns end up having repeat pieces. For example, on this little guy, he has two arms and two legs. So I want to write as I go in order to keep track of how I made each arm so they'll look exactly the same. It's also gonna help you if you walk away partly through a project to know exactly where you finished it. And when you eventually want to remake the project, if you ever want to remake the project, you will have something to go off of all of these things I could if I really had Teoh redo the pattern for just by looking at them. But I prefer to have a written pattern and to not have to think about it again because of the right As you go part of this step, I find it helpful to keep a note pad by you while you are crushing. You can use that, or you can use your phone. I have a couple of patterns on my phone. Whatever works for you, whatever's easiest for you. Go with that. I personally start with the biggest piece on any of these projects, and that is typically the body or the head. And the reason that I do that is so that everything can be in the same scale. And it is in the scale that I eventually want the finished project to be at. So as an example for this frog character, I started out with the head and I went on to the body so that it would end up being the right kind of smallish scale. If you start with something smaller, like in arm or an accessory to the peace, you have to build the rest of the character in that scale. And it is a lot more difficult to make the bigger pieces in the same kind of scale that a smaller piece has now made it than it is to start with the biggest pieces and work smaller . I also like to do it because that means the biggest part of the project is done with, so all you have to do is smaller and smaller pieces, and it just kind of feels better for me with the amount of steam that I have with projects that tends to go down. So it's helpful for that to go down at the same time that the size is going down. So everything kind of finishes out nicely by the time I'm done with the project done physically and done emotionally, by the way. 5. Basic Shapes Design: to help you out with Step three, I am going to talk about basic shape. Design shape is actually mostly about your increases and decreases. For example, when you're making a ball, you're going to start by increasing in every stitch and slowly decrease the amount of increases. I know that's a little bit confusing so that you'll end up with a round shape. And when you get to the sides here, you're going to need tohave. Cem Normal crushes all the way around to give it space until you do the decreases and slowly increase the decreases until you've reached a circle shape. Changing how you increase and decrease will definitely change the way that your shape ends up. Very slow increases will end up making a cone, and if you don't increase or decrease at all, you'll end up with a cylinder. So as an example for the whale that I made, I did the normal amount of increasing up until you get towards that circular top. And then I very slowly decreased every round, just a little to end up with that sort of cone shaped backing. I encourage you to look at patterns and to see the pattern in all of them when making shapes. Believe me, it gets a whole lot easier to understand the basic shapes that you can make, the more you actually make them. So hopefully that makes sense. As I said, I was going to be very basic about my explanation for this. If you need me to be more in depth, please let me know, and I will build another course based on just the basic shape making in Crow Shea. 6. Step 4: step. Number four is our final step in this process, and it is construction. What I mean by that is sewing together all of the pieces that you've made. You may not think of this as a step, but it's where things can make or break your project. Maybe a piece doesn't look the way you thought it would when it's finally sewed onto the project, and that's okay. Just because we're in the final step doesn't mean you can't go back. Sorry about this. There have been plenty of times where I thought I was done with the project and ended up having to go back and re create something in order to finish it. Or I had forgotten about a piece and realized it in this fourth part that I needed to get it done. This is my favorite step because it's where everything finally comes together. So you'll notice while I'm sewing this together, that I leave long tales of yarn at the end of my projects, and that's so I can sell them together using their own yarn. I've done it before where I've used two different thread to sew stuff together, but it never ends up looking a seamless as using the yarn that you were using to crow shada thing together. So in order to do that, you're going to need a tapestry needle because it's one of the biggest ones you can get. And I like them because you can poke yourself with them and it's not gonna hurt you because they're so big. Don't be afraid if you have to take things apart and we worked. Um, this is all troubleshooting when you're writing your own patterns. 7. Finishing Up & Assignment: Now that you've seen how I write my own patterns, I'd like you to write one. I'm gonna help you out a little bit with Step one and ask that you create a sea creature like my little whale here. There's really a lot of fish and stuff in the sea, so I feel like it's pretty broad topic, but it will still keep you within an area. Remember, make it simple. This is your first time around making your pattern so you don't want to get too overwhelmed with it. This is about a simple as most of my patterns get, and it still took me a couple of hours to complete. So I want you to not be too stressed out by this process. And I would also like you to share your finished project because I want to see it. And don't be too discouraged. If it doesn't look like the kind of quality that you were hoping for. You're not gonna be able to make something super polished, especially the first time around. Like I said, I have been doing this for about 10 years, and some of the stuff I still I don't think is completely polished. Even though I love most of my stuff, it's not always to the standard that I wanted to be. I have a little surprise for you. This is one of the very first things I ever designed to pattern for. Yes, this is a Yoda. So as you can see, the quality isn't very good. And he's kind of miss shape in his jacket, a little wonky. You can actually see a lot of the threads that I used to sew it together because this was one of the ones that I used threat on originally. And I even decided for some reason to not even pick a color that was close. So this is probably what you're going to get with your first pattern Now that being said here is very similar in pattern Ah, project that I just completed about a month ago. Can you see the difference? And I just wanted to show you that even now, as a somewhat professional at crushing, I wasn't always like this. So don't be too discouraged. I'm sure you'll do something great and I can't wait to see it. But thank you so much for taking this course and listening to me. I hope to see your creativity soon by