Learn to Crochet: Beginner Infinity Scarf

1. Intro - Welcome!: Thanks for joining me today. My name is Liz. In this class I will be teaching you how to crochet your own adorable scarf, the beginner crochet infinity scarf. This class is perfect for beginners, is I will be taking you through everything you need to know to get started as a crochet or the scarf is cute, comfy, and quick to make once you get the hang of the single crochet stitch, this pattern will be a breeze, will be a great cold weather accessory or GIF, or loved one. This simple repeat pattern is perfect for practicing your stitches tension, or overall evenness on the project. If you are familiar with crochet and already know the basics and want to follow along with this scarf pattern. You can skip to lesson four or read the description for the written pattern. I'm a self-taught crochet here since 2016 and is one of my absolute favorite hobbies. But there are so many things I wish I knew when I first started crocheting. It is my goal to share helpful information with you, to hopefully encourage you to stick with this amazing hobby and learn to love it as much as I do. Thanks again for watching. Now let's get started. 2. Lesson 1: Materials: Let's gather the materials needed for this project. We'll need a nine millimeter crochet hook. Two scans of hue and me yarn. Large I tapestry needle, scissors. These are optional, but I recommend using locking stitch markers to track your progress on the scarf. These are the kind that I like that there are many different styles. Just be sure you get ones that you can place in remove like thes. My absolute favorite crochet hooks or the clover and more series. They are smooth and extremely comfortable to hold. However, I also enjoy the clover soft touch series. There are also the basic aluminum hooks. Ones with comfort handles. Just choose whichever one feels best to you. Most of these can be purchased online from Amazon or from your local craft stores such as Michaels or Joanne's. Tapestry needles can be found in the yarn aisles at any craft store. Just be sure to get the size, the large ie, your bulky yarn will fit through. The yarn used in this class is the two of ones hue in me. It's a number five bulky yarn in the colorway desert. I purchased this from Julian's, but you can get yarn from basically any craft store, including Walmart. The next lesson we'll explain how you can use a different yarn than the one listed in a pattern. 3. Lesson 2: Choosing & Substituting Yarn: When you are following the pattern, it's important to ensure that your hook and the yarn or the same size and weight as the pattern states. If you are unsure, keep with the exact yarn recommended in the pattern, such as the human me used in this video and the nine millimeter hook. You can however, deviate from the exact type of yarn as long as you get the same weight and a mountain used in the pattern. The label will disclose the amount of yarn and a ball or a Skane, the material or a fiber that it's made from. The weight or the yarn size, crochet hook and legal size recommendations, and washing information. There will also be a number inside a little skin of yarn. This number ranges from one through six. These numbers are the variations in weight of yarn or thickness in the yarn. One is called fingering, two is called Sport. Three is decay, which stands for a double knit for is worst it five is bulky or chunky. Six is super bulky. Pattern will determine which type of yarn to use. Most of the time they will say specifically which brand of urine, such as I did in the first lesson. If you don't want to use that same exact yarn, you can look up the one from the pattern online to see what weight it is and how much yardage you need. For example, this pattern, I stated that we'll be using two scans of the hue and me yarn. If we look at the label, will see that it's a number five bulky weight that each Skane has 13070 yards. The pattern uses two scans, so that will equal 274 yards. If you are perusing the yarn Island and craft store, you can find a different number five weight yarn and determine how many scans you need to buy for this pattern if you ensure the yardage is equal to or greater than 274. Here's another number five bulky yarn. It has 127 yards in each scheme. If we divide the original amount, 274 by 127, this comes out to about 2.15. We see that we'll need about 2.5 scans of this yarn to complete this project. Now this formula opens up your options for all types of urine to use for whatever project you're working on, have fun exploring different types of fiber texture and colors. 4. Lesson 3: Learn to Make a Slipknot and Chain Stitch: Now that we have the basic knowledge of the tools that we're using, Let's start crocheting. Grab your scan of yarn and find the end. You can insert your thumb and pointer finger into this gain to try and locate the end in the very center. This would be called the center pole. But most times you will end up with an untidy pile of yarn perf. It's best to start out with the yarn end from the outside of this game. Now at project will almost always begin with the slipknot. This attaches the yarn to your hook. Now, leaving at least six inches for the tail. Pinch the yarn between your left thumb, middle, and ring finger. Loop the working yarn or the yarn connected to your ball. Loop the working yarn over your pointer finger and capture with your pinky. Pinched tightly with your thumb. The hold loosely with your pinky so the yarn will flow through. Now with your right pointer and middle finger, slightly pull the working yarn away. Twist your fingers towards you and up to make a loop. Slip your right thumb through this loop. In pinch the working yarn at the top. Pull this through. We'll still pinch in your left thumb tightly. Now you have a slipknot. Take your crochet hook and insert into the slipknot. While holding the hook in your right hand, pull the working yarn to close the slipknot snug like to the hook, but not too tight. If it's too tight, just pull your hook upwards a little to listen it up. Now there are two popular ways to hold your hook. I like to hold it with the knife grip, similar to how one would hold a knife to cut food. Others like to hold it with the pencil grip. Similar to how one would hold a pencil to write. Try both to see which is more comfortable for you. Now let's make our starting chain. The starting chain provides us with a base to place our crochet stitches into, will hold the yarn like we did while making the slipknot. Pinch the tail closely to the hook between your left thumb, middle and ring finger. Loop the working yarn over your left pointer finger and trapped loosely with your pinky against your ring finger. The yarn is going to flow between your pinky and ring finger and over your pointer finger into your work. Now we'll use your pointer finger to keep tension between the hook and the working yarn. You don't want the yarn to be all loosey-goosey, otherwise your stitches will not come out the same size. Keep even tension between the hook and the working yarn. Not too tight, not too loose. Now we're going to yarn over, pull through the loop on our hook. This is a chain stitch. This scarf pattern calls for 16 chains. So we're going to yarn over, pull through the loop 16 times. This is going to be the width of your project. Now, each chain makes a little V when you look at it straight on and a little bump in the back. The v's will be the front of your work and you will place a stitch into the top of each Vi. Double-check your amount of chains by counting how many V's you've created. 12345678910111213141516. Now go on to the next lesson to learn how to make the single crochet stitch and begin working your scarf. 5. Lesson 4: Learn to Single Crochet & Add a New Ball of Yarn: In this lesson, you will learn how to make the single crochet. How to add rows to your work. How to join another ball or a scan of yarn. And we'll go over the rest of the pattern for this scarf. This pattern has a starting chain of 16 and each row will consist of 15 single crochets. And there will be a total of 175 rows. Now in order to start crocheting or row, we need a certain number of chains that match the height of the stitch will be crocheting. The single crochet is the height of one chain. If you crochet each row without a starting chain, you will have funky and uneven sides. So to begin, we'll insert your hook into this second chain. From the hook. The loop on your hook does not count as a chain. The first chain, and the second chain. You'll only go under the top V of the chain stitch. Insert your hook yarn over and pull through the chain. You will now have two loops on your hook. Yarn over and pull through both loops on your hook. You have made your very first single crochet stitch. We're going to repeat that step in every chain to the very end. Locate the next chain. Insert your hook. Yarn over, pull through. Yarn over, pull through both loops on the hook. Insert your hook. Yarn over. Pull through, yarn over, pull through both loops. Now remember you don't want to hold too tightly to your yarn with your left hand just enough to hold it in place and to let the yarn flow smoothly through your fingers. Try to keep even tension. Now let's keep doing a single crochet in each chain until we reach the end. Insert your hook, yarn over, pull through, yarn over, pull through both loops. We've arrived at the last chain. Insert your hook, yarn over, pull through here and over, pull through two. There. We've finished the first row of the scarf. This scarf will consist of 175 rows. Now, don't be intimidated by the amount of rows. Once you get a few rows done, you will get the hang of the single crochet stitch and the project will zip along. Now onto row two. At the end of a true, you will chain one yarn over and pull through the loop, has mentioned before, this will give us the height we need to begin the next row of stitches. After chaining one, turn your work. Every row you will be working from the right side to the left. And you'll be making your single crochet stitches into the top of the stitch that you made in the row before. You'll see that each stitch creates a V on the top. Your next crochet stitches will go underneath the V of each stitch from the row before. Okay, We've changed one. We've turned our work and now we're going to single crochet in this first stitch. Insert your hook under both strands of the yarn, making up the V yarn over and pull through two loops on your hook. Yarn over and pull through both loops. Stitch one in row two. Now let's keep going. Find the next stitch. Insert your hook under both strands of that V. Yarn over, pull through. Yarn over, pull through to insert your hook. Yarn over, pull through, yarn over, pull through two. Now we're going to single crochet into each stitch until the very end. Now it's a good idea that whenever you reach the end of a row, that you go back through and count your stitches to make sure that you end up with the same amount every row. Now we do want 15 stitches nitro. You can locate each stitch by looking at the bees, similar to how we did with the starting chain. 123456789101112131415. Now, I recommend counting your stitches as you go and as you make each single crochet stitch. Now since we've reached the end of row two, we're going to repeat the exact same instructions. You will chain one. Turn your fork, and begin row three by single crocheting into each stitch across until the very end. Now you will follow this pattern for the entirety of the scarf. At the end you will have a total of 175 rows. Each row consists of 15 single crochet stitches. Since there are so many rows in this project, it may be helpful to use stitch markers to mark your progress. I suggest placing a stitch marker about every ten or every 20 rows. This way, if you put your project down for a break and pick it up later, you don't need to count each row one-by-one to find out how close you are to the end. Instead, you can count your stitch markers. If you look over your work, you can count the number of stitches from the bottom up. And this will tell you how many rows you've created so far. You can stretch out your work a little bit to help differentiate this stitches in each row. In this section I have there's 123456789101112131415161718192021. So I have 21 rose on this project and I'm going to place a stitch marker on row 20. You can place this anywhere just as long as it's on this row. You can just go straight through a stitch and lock it in place. That way if you put down your project and come back to it, all you need to do is just count your stitch markers. And I know that this is row 20. Then the next time I place it, it will be a row 40. There will come a time that you will run out of yarn from your first Skane. Now we'll need to connect the second scan of yarn to finish our scarf. Now, I recommend finishing the first ball at the end of a row instead of in the middle. Now you can just pull out a few stitches to get back to the last stitch of in your previous row. Pull out that last stitch so you have one more stitch before you complete that Rome. Joining a new ball is simple. We're going to insert our hook into the last stitch. Yarn over and pull through. We have two loops on our hook. Now we're going to just drop the current working yarn. And we're going to finish this stitch with the new ball of yarn, leaving at least a six inch tail. All we need to do is just yarn over with the new working yarn and pull through. Now you want to pull the yarn from the previous game just to secure it up a little bit. Tighten that loop to your hook. Easy peasy. And we just continue on with that new scan of yarn. Now, don't worry if this stitch comes loose. The very end. Once we have finished with the entire scarf, we're going to come through and we're gonna weave in both of these ends and that's going to secure it. So that way the stitch doesn't get unraveled. Now in the next lesson, I will go over two common mistakes in crochet. You can view lesson six after you have completed 175 rows to see how to connect your infinity scarf and finish up. 6. Lesson 5: Common Mistakes & How to Avoid Them: Now here we'll be going over two common mistakes when you're new to crochet. If you notice that your sites are starting to slant inward or if your sides don't look very straight, that means you are probably missing some stitches. If I count this row, will discover that I have fewer than 15 stitches, which is how many I'm supposed to have in each row for this pattern. So in this last row and just crocheting, we're going to count each stitch, 1234567891011. Now, I'm supposed to have 15, So I'm cutting it a little short here with stitches. This commonly happens when you skip a stitch at the beginning in vitro, you can skip stitch at the very end, but it happens more often at the beginning. Sometimes it can be easy to miss that very first stitch. Now to correct this, I'm going to rip out my work back to the place where this slanting started, which looks like it started about here. Now this process of ripping out our work is called a frogging because we're going to rip it, rip it, rebut tennis, sounds like a hawk. Now once we get back to the part where the slanting began, there we go. That looks right. We're going to count our stitches just to make sure we aren't there. 234567891011121314. Okay. I just need that last stitch. 15. Now, be sure to chain one at the end of each row. And once you turn your work, you want to be sure that you are placing your first single crochet in the very first stitch. Now what I did when it was slanting inwards like that, I was skipping that first stitch and going into the next one which is going to make our sides lean in. And that means we're going to be missing stitches in each row. Once we continue on with our scarf, it's going to shrink in size, which we don't want, we want our sides to be straight. I'll just make sure that you've single crochet into that very first stitch. It is right below your starting chain. As mentioned before in the previous lesson, it is recommended to count your stitches as you crochet until you get into the hang of things. Now another common mistake when you're new to crochet is if your sides are starting to slant outwards. If you notice that your work is starting to lean a certain direction or if it seems to be going out. And if V like that, that means that you have too many stitches in each row. You may have accidentally made to single crochet stitches in one stitch, which can happen periodically. Even if you make two in the center of your row, it's still going to make your work progressively grow outwards, which we do not want. We want the project to only grow upwards and we want our sides to remain straight. So just be sure. As mentioned before, that you're counting your stitches as you go and that you're not placing 21. Now if you are unsure, you can count the v's that create a single stitch. When you look at the very top of each row, right here, you'll see that I have 1234. And I had actually placed two single crochets in a single stitch. Now, it can be really easy to miss, which is why it's important to count your stitches as you go along. Now if I were to keep it like this, you can already see that that second stitch is already starting to push my side outwards a little bit. And as your piece grows, if you may have missed it, It's gonna go wider and wider and wider just because of that extra stitch that you got off. Now, don't be afraid to frog a row or two in order to correct a mistake. This will ensure that your sides are straight and that you'll be happy with your finished project. 7. Lesson 6: Finishing Up: In this lesson, we'll be connecting each end of our scarf together to create a large loop and then leaving the ends. Now you've completed 175 rows of single crochet stitches. You made it nice job. Now, do not chain one at the end of row 175. Instead, you will measure out about 12 inches of working yarn and cut the yarn. You may not need to cut your yarn if you've reached the end of your skin. Alright, now that we have the end of our yarn and 12 inches of tail, we're going to pull that yarn through our loop all the way through and tighten it up. Now this is called fascinating off. It locks your stitches in place. Pulling the tail will not unravel your stitches. We're going to thread the tail through our tapestry needle. Now with the very first yarn tail located on the bottom left. It's on the right. Your very first yarn tail is located on the bottom left. Now taking care not to twist your scarf. Bringing the first row, the last row together with the wrong sides, facing. Line up your stitches. With the beginning chains. We're going to thread the tapestry needle through that last single crochet stitch. The first chain. We're going to go up under both legs of that single crochet and under that chain and pull through. Be sure not to pull it too tight or otherwise that's going to bunch up our fabric. We're gonna take our needle in, work in a thread it under the next chain. You can tell where to thread it through when you see these gaps in-between the stitches. Be sure to pull that tight and holding the sides together. We're going to come down underneath that chain. And underneath that next stitch. Pull through. Nice and snug. We're going to continue along this way until we reach the end of our scarf, go up under the single crochet, and under the next chain. Under the next chain. Next single crochet. Now this seam is called the mattress stitch. We are seeming both ends of our scarf together to create a single loop. And this mattress stitch is great for creating a CME that's nearly invisible. Once we flatten out or work, you won't be able to see it. There were some seams called the whip stitch. A bunch of different ways to seeing your work together. Some of them will create more of a ridge though, whereas the mattress stitch creates a flat seem and won't create a bump. All right, make sure that it's nice and snug but not too tight. We don't want to bunch up our stitches. Otherwise it's gonna look on puckered. You want it to be nice and smooth. Now once we've reached the end of these rows, we're going to weave in the yarn tail so it doesn't hang about our scarf. Now keep up the tail on the tapestry needle. And we're going to thread the needle through the inside of a few stitches. Now in order to ensure that this end is securely weaved in and doesn't come loose. We're going to go through a few stitches in for, in different directions. We'll take our needle. We're going to weave it through three or four stitches. Now you want to go through the inside of each stitch. We'll go through that direction. Pull it through nice and snug but not too tight. Now we're going to go through a few stitches the opposite direction. Now, go down to the next row of stitches, go through the inside of the crochet stitches. Now we're going to go two different directions. Next we're going to go down through a few stitches, up a few stitches. Now once we weaved in the tail a few directions, we're going to cut it close to our work. Then we're gonna loosen up those stitches just a bit. So that way you can't see that tail once it's woven in. And here's what that mattress stitch looks like. When you lay it flat. It doesn't create big old ridge when it lays flat on your neck. It's very comfortable. Once we've lived in that tail. We're going to repeat that step for that very first starting chain tail, as well as the two tails from when we've joined that second scan of yarn. Now, take a step back and admire your finished scarf. It is so beautiful. Nice job. 8. Outro - Thank you!: There you have it, an absolutely beautiful infinity scarf. Wear it with pride and be warm. If this is your first time crocheting, bask in the joy that is finishing your very first project. You have done a great job. Please share photos of your finished beginner crochet infinity scarves. I'd love to see them and please feel free to comment with any questions. I'm happy to help however I can. Thank you so much for following along with this class. I hope you feel confident in your work and encouraged to try more projects. I absolutely love crocheting and I hope you do to stay tuned for more crochet classes and take good care. Bye.