Modern Crochet 101: Create a Pair of Fingerless Mitts

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm just copy on my site making two crew dot com. I share free modern Cochet patterns and tutorials. I learned how to crush a when I was about eight years old and my mom came to my third grade class to teach some of us a lesson and crushing my hands. Busy ever since. Nowadays you confined modern patterns that are nothing like the kirsch. You might have thought up 30 years ago, so it's crushing right for you. First, let's dispel him. It Houshang is a skill is not an art form. It's similar to learning how to write alphabet with a pencil. It might take a little while to convince your fingers do these little weird moves, but once you practice it for a bit, it will become second nature, and you won't even have to think about it when you're doing it. Of course, once you get the hang of it, you can be as artistic as you want in your executions. In this course, we're gonna be making a pair of fingerless mitts. These minutes are far easier than they look, and they make a great gift. Although I recommend keeping for yourself, you'll walk away from this course with the basic Cochet skills to make accessories like cowls and bags, Beanies, baskets and even in Afghan. But you won't be overwhelmed with more information than you need to get started. This course aims to get you pro shame. Not waiting through video for weeks upon weeks, we're going to cover how to reading your label, how to choose a yarn and cook for any project. How to do a chain stitch, how to do a basic single Cochet Stitch and then a variation on single Crush. A. How to change colors in the middle of a project. How does so you're mitt together and make it look finished and tidy like this? Plus, I've got you covered with some troubleshooting tips. Should anything go awry in the middle of your crushing, why you're learning? Feel free to pause, rewind and ask questions in the community or on my blog's making the crew dot com. All right, let's learn how to crush a and make some minutes 2. Choosing a Yarn and Hook: In this first lesson, we're gonna talk about how to choose the materials for your project. Luckily with Cochet, you really don't need a lot of stuff to get started. We're gonna talk about the yarn and the hook, though, that you're gonna use to make your mitts so you'll see in these two examples watches. They look a little bit different, And that's because this one was made with some thinner yarn and a smaller hook, and this one was made with thicker yarn and a larger hook and the size of the hook. And the thickness of the yarn is going to influence something that we call gauge engaged. Simply references. How many stitches are there in each inch of your crushing so you'll see in this? The stitches are closer together, and there's actually about 16 stitches across in this for inch swatch, and there's about 18 rose tall in this one, though in four inches there's only about 10 stitches and about 10 rows tall. So that means that any time you're using a smaller yarn ah, thinner yarn in a smaller hook, you are going to need more stitches to make up the same space Cochet Hooks come in a lot of different sizes, and the way you can tell the size is it should say it on the side. And it's measured in both, usually a letter and a millimeter measurement. So this one here, if you can see it's as I nine and 5.5 millimeters, so this one is a little smaller. The letter, the closer it is to beginning of alphabet, means it's a smaller hook, and obviously a lower number means a smaller hook. This one that was used for the Orange Watch is an end, so it's gonna be a bigger hook, and it's nine millimeters. The thing to remember with hooks and yarn is that the size of your hook and the thickness of your yarn is going to influence the gauge and relative tightness of your stitches in any project that you do. So just know that if you were trying to get in a lacy open, we've you might want to use a bigger hook with center yarn or the opposite. I recently made a bag that I didn't want everything falling out of, so I used a pretty thick yarn and then a smaller hook than I would usually choose for it to make sure all the stitches were really close together. So you might be wondering how to figure out which hook should go with your yarn. And usually if you turn your urine, label over and look for the crash a hook, which is right here. These are knitting needles. This is the hook. You should be able to find a suggested hook size right here, very small. It's as a size K, which is 6.5 millimeters, and not just telling me that if I use that with this yarn, I'll get sort of an average we've. It's also telling me that in a four by four inch square, I should have 11 stitches and 13 rose, so it should take 11 stitches and 13 rose for me to crash a a four inch square. And the reason that that's important, if you ever are trying to meet a gauge in a Cochet pattern, is if you're making something like a shirt that you want to fit like a size medium, it will tell you if you follow this gauge. If you're crushing is about this tight, you're gonna end up with the measurements of the shirt that the pattern says this is less important if you're making something like an Afghan were in the case of these mitts, because we're gonna customize them to the size of your wrist and hand for our project. Today we're gonna be using this yarn, which is called Wool Spun, and it's made by a company called Lion Brand. And I chose this yarn because it is fairly chunky. So your stitches are going to take up more space, and therefore your project's gonna go a little bit faster, which is always good when you're just starting out, you get some instant gratification, and this yarn is generally really widely available. You could get it at a store like Michaels or another craft store, and you can definitely get it online on their website or on Amazon. And like I said, we're gonna use a size K hook, which is 6.5 millimeters. Then we also need something called a tapestry needle, which is just a large, blunt needle with a big I, and that's gonna be this. So our project together. And then I put some button accents on my admits I did to permit. So I needed four buttons for mine. And then, of course, you're gonna need a pair of scissors to trim your work. So now that we've covered how to choose your yarn in your hook, let's get this project started. 3. Chain Stitch: Now we're gonna learn how to do the chain stitch. And the chain stitch is the foundation of any flat crow Shame project and sometimes round Kerr Shame projects. And it's called a chain because it looks like a chain, it also looks sort of like a braid. And if you notice in our mitt this first row right here waas a chain row, and from there I built all the rest of the stitches to make them it. So in order to make a change, we need to create a slip knot, and a slip knot is pretty easy. You just hold up two fingers of your non dominant hand, pull the yarn over your fingers, wrap it around the back and cross it over the an original strand. I'm leaving a few inches as a tail here. We're gonna slide it off my fingers, keeping the loop and pull the tail through the back to the front and tighten around that loop. So what I'm left with is not that I can tug on this tale a little to make the loop a little bit smaller. That's a slip knot. Let's try it again. I take two fingers put the yarn over my fingers, pull it back around and cross it over. I'm gonna slide it off and pull the back tail through to the front to create a loop. And then I could tuck on this to make the loop a little bit smaller so that I can put my hook through it and then I can tighten it down a little further if I feel like I need to. I don't want it totally tight to the hook, but I wanted to lose either, so just enough room to move it around a little bit before we learn how to chain. We need to talk about how to hold the yarn in your hand. This is by far the hardest part of Crow Xiang, and if it feels awkward at first, it is only because it is awkward at first. This is definitely, uh, gonna feel a little clumsy, and the more you do it, the more natural little feel in your hands. So first I'll demonstrate for a right handed person. I have the hook in my right hand, and I have the yarn coming from the back around to the front of my index finger and then I'm holding it kind of holding it down here with my pinky finger. Some people like to wrap it around like this to create a little bit of a lever to control the tension. I sort of like to just squeeze it, but there's really no wrong way to do this. Just figure out a way that you can hang on to everything and you'll sort of develop your system as you go. But I do want a little bit of tension down here, because that's going to allow this to be tight enough for me to work with it. Then when I'm creating a chain, I'm gonna put my to my thumb on my middle finger right here at this not toe. Hold onto it. If I don't do that, it's just gonna sort of flop around. Let's take a look at this for a lefty. A left handed person would put the hook in their left hand and then take the yarn from the back to the front and hold it down here with their pinky feel free deposit here. If you need to study how my hands look a little bit more before we get started to create a chain. I have my yarn in my hand. I'm pitching it down here, and a chain is simply pulling this string through this loop. So I'm gonna use my hook to grab the yarn and slowly rotate my hook a little just to tuck the yarn in to pull it through that loop. And that's my first chain stitch. So, you see, I have another loop on the hook so I can grab the aren't again with my hook, rotated a little bit to get it through and pull it through. And now I've made to chance stitches. I'm gonna grab the yarn again with my hook, rotated a bit and pull it through. So each time I'm replacing the loop that was on my hook with a new loop And then in this case and moving my fingers up a bit because I kind of want to keep them close to where I'm working right here. That will give me more leverage. So I'm gonna grab this yarn and pull it right through that loop. Gonna grab the yarn, pull it right through the loop. Crab, the armed, pull it right through the loop When I move my fingers up, have the yarn pull it right through the loop. Now, don't worry if your chains aren't exactly even first. It takes a little while to get the tension of the yarn just right so that you can make really even stitches. But with a little bit of practice, you'll get this part down, and that will make a big difference in how the beginning of your project that looks. There's practice this a little, um, and while you're doing that, I will tell you about how to count your chains. You can see here each chain is creating a little V. So each V is one chain stitch. Or I could just also look at this edge and see that each one of these little bumps is it change. So I have 123456789 10 11 chains here and the number of chains that you create at the beginning is going to directly influence the number of stitches that you have in your kirsch. A project. In upcoming lessons. We will talk about how to measure your hand to determine the size of your mitt and that will be how you decide how maney chains you're gonna create. So practice your chain a little bit, and so your stitches are fairly uniform, and then we're gonna move on to learning single crash a. 4. Single Crochet Stitch: now that you're rocking and rolling on your chain stitch what's certain? Not a single crush A and a single Cochet Stitch is the main stitch of Cochet. Every other Cochet stitches, some modification of a single Cochet. So once you know how to do this single crush A you're gonna be well on your way to being a master. Ah, in this mitt, this white section down here was worked all in basic single Cochet and the way that single crashing works is you're going to start on one side and work back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to build row upon row. And that's what creates the height in a project. So if you're right handed, you'll be holding your hook in your right hand like this, your yarn in your left hand, and then you'll be sort of holding on to your project a bit with these two fingers, the same way they were holding onto the not when he made a chain. So I've got my middle, my my phone holding the project and my pinky holding the yard again. However, you can make it work. It's not a glamour contest for your hands, so just figure out what feels comfortable. But I'm going to work my chain stitches with single crow shays from the right to the left that I'm gonna flip my project over and work from the right to have left again. So other writing, I'm always working from the right to the left. And if you're left handed, you are gonna be working with the hook in your left hand, the yarn in your right hand and you're always gonna be working from the left to the right, and you gonna flip your work over work from the left to the right. All right, now that we understand that, let's talk about the single Cochet. A single kirsch, a stitch has a height of about one chain. So it's really important to remember that whenever you make a chain, you are not going to single Cochet in the very first chain. That's closest to your hook. That is going to be what creates the height for the rest of your row of crushing. So there's always one chain lost to the first row of single Cochet. So in this case, if I wanted to have 10 total stitches in my project. I chained 11 because I'm gonna lose one as soon as I let it lift me up this row. So I'm gonna look for the second stitch, which is this one right here. Here's the 1st 1 Here's the 2nd 1 And that's where I'm gonna put my first single Cochet Now in a chain, we need to look for the spot where the hook goes in order to form a stitch. And here you can see it. It is right under this top curve. So I'm gonna put my hook right here holding on to this chain with my middle and thumb holding onto this yarn with my pinky and just like I did with a chain, I'm gonna pull this yarn, twist my hook a bit just to get it in there and tuck it through. I'm gonna pull it through that loop. Now I have to loops on my hook. So once again, I'm gonna grab this yarn and pull it through both of these loops. That is a single kirsch. Let's try it again. So I'm looking for the next chain stitch, which in this case is right here. Each of these little bumps is a chain, so I'm going to put my hook into this hole. I'm going to grab this yard, twist my hook a little bit and pull this yarn through. Now I have two loops on my hook. I'm gonna grab this yarn again and pull it through both loops. How are those hands feeling he feeling clumsy and awkward yet you will get over it. It is just a matter of your hands kind of catching up to your brain. It's awesome. That'll learn a new fine motor skill, isn't it? So here. I'm going to place my hook in the next chain, which is the next. A little bump right here. I just want to clarify it Isn't this bump even though I can see a little opportunity there ? Because I can tell this stitch was already worked into this chain. So I need to look for the next bump, which is this one right here. So I'm going to put my hook underneath it, pull the yarn through to create two loops and then put through one more time. Seven left with one of loop on my hook. Look for the next chain, which is right here insert my hook, pull the yarn through. So I have two loops and pull the urn through again. Look at that. Guys were crushing. Here we go. I'm gonna insert my hook right here in the next chain. Pull the yarn through and pull the yarn through both loops. Again, I'm gonna put my hook in the next chain. I'm going to twist my hook to catch that yarn and guide it right through the hole so that I create two loops on my hook. I'm going to grab that yarn, twist the hook again, pull it through those two loops. I'm gonna look for the next chain, grab my yard, pull it through. I have two loops. I'm gonna grab the urine again. I took my hook under and pull the yarn through my two loops. So case it's not obvious. At the end of each stitch. You should only have one loop on your hook. If you have more than that, you haven't finished the stitch or something else went wrong. I'm gonna enter right there in that hole, twist my hook and grab the yard. I have two loops. I mean, grab the year and again. Tuck it under. Pull it through both stitches. I'm gonna find the next chain, insert my hook, crab the yard, pull it through, and grab it again. Pull it through these two loops. And now we're getting really close to the end of the row. You might be tempted to just stop here, but there's actually one more chain toe work, and that is right here. This was our slipped up. So I have one more small, sort of disguised little bump right there. I'm gonna insert my hook into a bit. That very last stitch I grabbed the yarn through Got this yard, Pull it through. And there we go. We appreciate our first row. Now that is going to take a little bit more practice, and we're gonna get it by turning this around. I just took it just like this. This was in my left hand. I'm gonna turn it around, put it in my right hand. I didn't have to take my hook out. That just happened. You can leave yours. And so now I'm back essentially where I started every the hooks in my right hand The yarn is in my left hand. You should be back sort of the square one where you started. And if you remember, each single crush a row needs the height of one chain to get started. So at the beginning of each row, I'm going to chain one just like we did before we show you that one more time I have this loop on my hook. I'm gonna grab this yard and just slide it through. So I created one chain in the same way that we created the initial chain Same stitch. And now I'm going to work a single Cochet in the first single crush a stitch. So it's tempting to want to put your first single Christian right here because it looks like this is an opportunity to make a stitch. But you need to remember that that is your chain and you actually want to work in the next hole. So when you look at your row here from the top, you can see all of these V's. Each V is one stitch. So now that you're row a single crush A you're looking for that V and the whole underneath it is where you're gonna insert your your hook. So it's a little bit different than with the chain, but it's a pretty similar concept. So I'm looking for the second V right here, and I'm going to insert my hook right underneath it through both of these pieces of yarn all the way through and again, I'm gonna grab this yarn, took my Huck over it, rotate it down and pull it through again. I've ended up with two loops on my hook, as he could see. I'm holding this right here. I'm anchoring it with my thumb and my middle finger, just like we did on the previous row with a chain. So now that I have these both of these loops, I'm gonna grab this yarn. I took my hook under and pull it through so that I end up with one loop again. All right, that's the first single Qarshi of this row. Now we're gonna move on to the next one. So I look up here, have the next V, and I see that there's a little window underneath it. So I'm going to insert my hook right here. Grab the yarn, rotate my hook down, pull the yarn through Now I have two loops I'm gonna grab this yard to rotate my hook and pull the loop through to end up with one loop on my hook to work the next stitch. I am going to look for the next V. Insert my hooker right underneath it. Grab this yarn by rotating the hook down, pulling it through. Now I have to loops on here. I'm gonna pull the yarn through and end up with one. I'm going to do this a few times that you can just watch in case you need a few more examples inserting my hook, pulling the yarn through, getting to boobs, pulling the yarn through again and getting one there looking for the next TV right underneath it. I'm putting my hook through both of those lines of the V crabbing, the yarn pulling it through, getting two loops, pulling the earned through again, inserting my hook, pulling the yarn through, pulling the yarn through again concerning my hook, pulling the yarn through, pulling the air and through again, inserting my hook, pulling the yarn through, pulling the yarn through again. That's it. Guys were crushing. Nice job. Now that we're the end of the row, we have one last V This is not a stitch, but this is our final V, and it's important that we work that so that we keep the same number of stitches in each row. So I'm gonna insert my hook right underneath this V. Sometimes this last stitch of the row can be a little bit tricky, so you might need to kind of dig your hook in there. So I'm getting my hook underneath the V, grabbing the yarn, pulling it through, getting two loops and pulling the yarn through again. So now I've worked every stitch of the row, and it's a great idea, especially if you're starting out to count at the end of each row to make sure you have the same number of stitches that you had in the previous row. That's gonna help prevent you from making a triangle or something, and it will catch a lot of your mistakes before you go very far. So if you remember, we started with 11 chains, which we knew would create 10 total stitches. So let's count to make sure I haven't lost any 123456789 10. This a loop on my hook doesn't count as a stitch. So I have 10 V's here. So nothing went wrong in that last row. I'm gonna flip this around, and now I'm ready to start my next row. So if you remember, we need to chain one and then we're gonna work in, Not the chain Stitch, but the first single crush a stitch. So I'm gonna go under that V right here, Got my yarn, pull it through, put through again, Make a stitch, insert my hook, pull it through, pull it through again. That's all there is to single Curuchet. Now, before we end this lesson, let's talk about how to count the number of rows that you've worked. It's a little bit deceiving when you look at a kirsch, a project. So looking at this myth, each of these little sections right here is two rows. So in this case, I actually have one row right here and then I have 234567 89 So the way that I can count my rows is kind of look for these dividing lines right here. And know that in each of those sections there are two rows that becomes important if you're trying to make a pattern, uhm well to create your own pattern like an Afghan that you're making up or if you're reading a pattern down the road and do you need to be able to know how many rows you've completed? That's how you do it. All right. Now that we know how to single Cochet, let's move on and talk about how to make our mitts. 5. Making the Mitts: Now that you know how to chain and single Cochet, let's make some minutes. This myth is a very simple pattern because it's actually just a rectangle with a seam right here and a little hole left for your thumb. So when we're crushing, we're gonna make a flat rectangle, and then we're gonna learn how to sew it together. So in order to get started, we need to chain enough stitches to go around your wrist and hand. So we're gonna start with a slip knot, get the yarn on your hook and they were just gonna chain somewhere around 20 to 25 stitches before we measure on your hand. How It's fitting. I would say I have fairly small wrists and my mitts have about 20 stitches on them. So yours might take more or less to fit comfortably on your wrist and really more importantly, around the widest part of your hand. So I'm just changing several stitches. Let's see how many I have here. Do 468 10 12 14 16. I'm gonna make four more. Now I happen to know that 20 is about the with that I want of my mitt. But for you. You can measure it by just wrapping around your wrist, figuring out if that's a good circumference for your mitt. And then you also want to just check it this wider part of your hand because that's where it could get tight. If you don't have enough stitches, so I'm measuring it there. It's a little snug for me, but that feels comfortable and cozy. So I'm going to use 20 stitches to make my admit. So in order to use 20 stitches, I actually need to make 21 chains because we're gonna lose one chain when we start Cochet. So I have 20 here. I'm gonna make one more chain, and now I'm ready to start single crushing. Feel free to pause the video. If you haven't caught up to this part yet, measure your chain on your hand and started again. When you have a good chain and you are ready to start single crushing to to single Cochet, I'm gonna find not the first bump here because that's the chain that I'm going to use for the height of the single Cochet. We're gonna find the 2nd 1 I'm going Teoh, insert my hook grab the yarn, pull it through, so I have to loops. Grab the arm, pull it through. That's my first single. Crush a stitch again. I'm going to insert my hook in that next bump, pull the yarn through so I have two loops. Pull the yarn through again, so I end up with one loop on my hook, going to insert my hook in the next bump, Hold the yarn through, pull the yarn through both loops. It feels probably the most awkward when your chain and your work are very small. The more height that you get on your project, the more there is to grab for your hands, and it's not gonna feel so tight and potentially cramp. E. And your hands are just get more used to it and you'll find a way to work it comfortably. But this part is always a little tedious, even for me. And I've been Cushing a while, so I'm just gonna work all of these chain stitches in single crow. Shay's. Oh, let's take a look at this. This is something that happens periodically, and this is just called your yarn splitting so we don't want to keep going when this happens, because it's going to result in some funky areas of your fabric. And this is potentially a spot where your Cochet project could kind of fall apart and start ripping. So I'm just gonna gently pull the yarn out, insert my hook back through these two loops and try to grab it again. There we go. That's just something that happens sometimes with yard. All right, I'm gonna single Cochet the rest of the stitches of this row. Now that I'm at the last chain of this row, I'm going to find that last little bump to make sure that I get 20 full stitches in here. So it's right here. That's the slip knot stitch. I'm going to pull my earn through, creating two loops on my hook. Cut the yarn put through again, and then I will have completed the entire row. It's a good idea here to count. And just make sure that you have the number of stitches you thought you were gonna have. Okay, we're looking good. I'm gonna flip this around so that the needle stays in my right hand going to chain one and then run a work in that second V from the hook right here, which is my first single. Kirsch a stitch. I insert my hook right here. Got the aren't pull it through. And now I'm going to continue in single crush A for a total of nine Rose. Not including the chain row. The chain row doesn't count were recounting that. So I've done one. I'm gonna do eight more as I'm crushing. I'm gonna stop periodically and count the number of stitches to make sure that I haven't lost or added any along the way 20. We're still looking good. As I come upon the end of this row, I want to show you. Ah, quick tip for troubleshooting if you find yourself a little bit disoriented in a stitch. So if you did something kind of goofy like I don't know like this, and all the sudden it wasn't looking like anything you were familiar with. It's pretty easy to take out. And you do that by just you. Removing your hook from loops and gently pulling the yarn out can take out a couple stitches if you need to. Um, just to get to a place where it looks familiar to you again and you know what to dio. So right now I can say All right, here I am at the beginning of a stitch and I can insert my hook again and just carry on like I would if this were, ah normal next stitch. And I think that's one of the main benefits of crushing is that if you catch your mistake early enough, it's really easy to tear out. Ah, little bit of work and sort of start that section over. It's kind of different than knitting in that way, because it's really easy to correct your mistakes. So now I'm at the last stitch of the row, and I am going to begin it just like I normally would and pull my loop through. But I'm going to stop right there because this is the point where we're gonna add our second color. So I know that because I look at this and I can say we have two rows here, two rows here to rose here to rose here and then one row at the bottom so I can see that I have 4.5 sections, which makes nine total rose, and that is where we're going to stop with this color. Unless, of course, you want this section of your mitt to take up more of your arm if you want your mitt to be a lot longer than keep going with the section as far as you want. But we are going to stop at nine. Rose and we're going to switch to our second color said to do that, I have this second color here, and I'm gonna just hold it in the back as if it wore my normal working yard. It's a little bit tricky because there's more strings to manage, but this will only happened for one stitch. So I'm holding knees and I'm gonna pull the brown yarn through these loops to complete the stitch. So now I have officially finished with the white yarn and I've transitioned to the brown yard. So when I flipped my work over so I can do it Chain stitch And now it's just as if I had a white yarn attached, but it has changed colors, so I'm ready to work the rest of this section in this brown yard, and I am going to trim my white yarn now I'm gonna leave a pretty good tail on it because we're gonna use this section of yarn to so the seam when the mitt is finished. So I'll just leave, like maybe a foot, just to be safe. I'm gonna trim that. And even if you weren't going to use it for the seam, you'd want to leave a fairly long piece because you would want to weave it in at the end so that you didn't have any odd strings hanging off or sort of random not around. And now that we are in the brown section of the MIT, we're gonna learn a new stitch. That's a variation on single Crow Shea. And it's very smart what you've been doing. But it's called Single Crush. A back loop only. So the back group on Lee is just as it sounds. We before had been going under both lines of this V, if you remember, and in this case with the back, we've only were only going to go under the back part of the V. So instead of inserting my hook in this window underneath, I'm gonna go over the top and through the middle section of the V. So I'm putting my hook right through the middle, and now I only have one piece of yarn going over my hook. But I'm gonna pull this year and through just like I did for a normal single crush A. And I'm gonna end up with two loops on my hook so I can pull the yarn through again. And it's just like a single crush, A stitch. It's just only happening in the back of every loop on the road, So let's try it again. I have my V right here. So I'm gonna insert my hook in the middle from the top down. Then I'm going to pull my yarn underneath and through. So if two loops on my hook, and then I'm going to grab this yarn and pull it through, it's very similar to what you've been doing, but it creates this nice ribbed look. As you can see, this section of single crush a looks a lot flatter. Single Cochet through the back loop only creates these nice bridges, and some people think it looks even a little bit like knitting. I like it cause it feels pretty clean and modern, so let's try a few more of those you might notice right after you switch colors that you have to kind of pull on these a bit just to make sure that they say snug and no unravel. And once we weave them in, you won't have to worry about him. It's just might feel like they're coming out a little bit. So Fulford Tuckerman. Periodically, I'm gonna put my hook in the top of the V, pull a loop through, ah, finish off the stitch, go through the top of the stitch, pull a loop through and finished the stitch. You might find that when you're doing the back loop, only that you need to support the back of the stick a little bit more with your middle finger. I like to hold my middle finger right there so that my hook sort of has something to press into. When I'm inserting it under that back loop, I think it's just this feels a little bit looser because there's only one piece of yarn there, so I like to support it in that way, we'll just find a way that's comfortable for your hands. It's my turn split a little bit here So I'm gonna take my hook out, get it on sturdy insert my hook, and we're going to finish off this row just like we would have a single Koshiro. Except for I'm gonna go under on Lee the back loop of this last ditch. And when I complete that single crush a gonna flip my work over, do a chain. And then in the second stitch from the hook, which is this first single crush A. I'm going to insert my hook Onley in the back loop again. So from here on out, we are doing Onley Single Cochet in the back loops for somewhere around 18 Rose, depending on how long you want your mitt to be and how long your arm and wrist star. As we finish up our last row of single Cochet in the back loop, we are going to count them. I've made 18 rows here, and 18 rose is just about enough to use up all of my tope yarn for two minutes. So if you end up making your mitt significantly wider than 20 stitches, you might want to make this section. If you're a shorter just to make sure that you have enough yarn for both of your myths. Now, in order to count leaves just to make sure we do have 18 we're gonna again look at the ridges just like we did when we looked at the sections of two in a single crushing. So in this case, every time we see a ridge, we know that's two rows, one over and one back. So we have 123456789 So nine times two is 18 rose. And if you get disoriented at all, once you make your first Met and you wanted to double check that you have the same number on both mitts, you can just wind them up and compare the number of ridges just to make sure that they are gonna be the same size on your hands. So now it's time to fasten or yarn off. And one of the things that's great about her saying as opposed to something like knitting, is that it is super simple to fasten it off so doesn't unravel anymore. So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna leave a pretty long tail here because we're gonna use the tail too. so the seemed on the side of the myth. So I'm gonna leave about 15 or 18 inches. I'm going to trim my yard, and then I'm going to pull on the string so that I'm gonna make the loop bigger and bigger and bigger until the tail comes all of the way out, which, on its own tightens up this last ditch, and it shouldn't really be able to unravel from here. Um, if we weren't sewing a scene, we would weave this piece of yarn would be much shorter, but we'd leave this in to finish it off. So it looks clean and tidy. In the next lesson, we're gonna learn how to take this rectangle and make it into a mitt. 6. Finishing the Mitts: you've learned how to take a ball of yarn and a hook and turn it into this. It's pretty awesome, huh? We're but the finishing touches on this so that you can aware your mitt around with pride. So what we need now is the tapestry needle that you got. And we are going to practice weaving in the ends so that they don't unravel and so that everything looks nice and clean when you're Mitt is finished. So I have the side. I decided this is the side that I'd like showing out on my hand. And so this is gonna be the inside of the MIT. So I'm going to take the tail that is down here. The long tail I'm gonna keep too. So this together. But the short tail from when we switched colors, I'm going to thread it through the tapestry needle. And now we're going to just leave it back in and out of these stitches to try to disguise it so that it is tightly secured in there. But no one can tell that it's there. So I'm going to go in and out of some stitches. And ideally, this tale would be a little bit longer, but this will work. I'm just taking my needle in and out of some stitches, like this, kind of going along with the way that I look the way that I see the cushy stitches and the yarn already going there was going in and out. Um, I'm gonna do that several times. Just tuck it in there safe and sound and basically done as far as I can go this stubby little tail. So I have woven it, and you can't even tell it was there. Yes, and I'm going to trim it off really close to the stitch, and we've got that one done. So I'm gonna do this last bottom one. We're going to use this to so this section together because we're gonna want white yarn for that kind of disguise. The seem. So I'm going, Teoh, we've that this last a little tail in. I just kind of going in and out of these stitches, um, tucking it away. This tends to be one of the more tedious parts of crushing. So if you're doing a big project, we're switching colors a lot. Um, it's kind of nice if you weave in the ends as you go so that you're not left with this massive weaving project at the end. Unless you like that sort of thing. In which case you can definitely come over to my house and I have a bunch of half finished projects that you can wrap up for me. So I have that pulled through. I'm going to trim it off just like you did with the other one. And now we're gonna so this mitt into a tube. So I'm going to thread my needle with this longer strand at the top of my mitt. And as we're doing this, we're gonna want to make sure that we're keeping each rib lined up because that's going to make sure that we, this seem, ends in the same place so that the white and the tope wind up together. But also, it's gonna help kind of keep us and check along the way so that this looks nice and clean, and the seems sort of disappears within the ridges were essentially doing what is a little bit similar to threating some shoe laces here. We're just gonna work back and forth between these edges and then gently pull them together So that the seam, um, kind of received into the background. So I'm going from over here. I'm just gonna go under this stepped right here to connect them at the top. Then I'm gonna be working, gonna turn it this way so I can use my right hand here, but I'm gonna be working in and out underneath and through these stitches. So this is often called the mattress stitch. I'm gonna leave it loose for a minute, so you can kind of see what I'm doing. I'm going under the stitch. Now, this is the top of a ridge. So I wanna make sure I'm at the top of a ridge here just to make sure that they line up. And because I'm not pulling a super tight, you can see that my yarn is just going from here, under here, back around, under here, back around. Then I can go through here and you're gonna wanna pull yours tighter than this. I'm just doing this to show you. Uh, then I'm gonna look for this top of this ridge here on top of the ridge here. It's gonna make sure that those are lined up. When I find the stitches, I want to go under so you can see it's a little bit almost like a course it but the pieces aren't actually crisscrossed. So now I'm gonna tighten this up a little bit. The key with the seam is to get the You aren't tight enough that there's a big gaps showing , but not too tight that it puckers because then it'll make the seem more noticeable. You can see that you could tell a little bit that there's a seam there. But if you're not really looking for it, it just looks like this is continuous, Curuchet. So I'm gonna go through a few more of these and then I'm gonna measure for my thumb hole. I'm just going back and forth to clarify here. I'm definitely not going over in a whip stitch, so I'm not going over and through and then back over the same way I'm going back and forth . If I went over like a whip stitch, I think you'd be able to see the yarn a little bit more in the seem. And that's not what we're going for here. That is a technique that you might use at some point, but that's not what we're doing here. So now that I've done about two inches, I'm gonna slip this on my hand and see if it feels like a good spot for my thumb hole. Looks like we're getting close. My thumb is a little bit lower down, so I'm going to do a few more stitches of the seam. And since I already have one of my mitts made, I'm going to compare them just to make sure that I'm getting the some hole in the same spot . So I've made it to their and on this met. Let's see, I have 1234 ridges here and 1234 So it looks like here my thumb whole starts about in the middle of the fourth ridge. So that's right where we are here. Me, a little past that mean we'll take out one stitch. I just I took my needle back through, and that seems like a pretty good spot for a thumb whole right here. So to leave this section open, I'm just going to thread my needle down the side. It's running like I was doing when I was weaving in the end. I'm just kind of trying to disguise it as I Cruz down here and find the spot where I want to start seeming again. So let's compare it to this one. My thumb whole here looks to be about 2.5 bridges long. So this is You are right. So I want to bring my urine to about here, click and start seeming again. Now it's important to note that when we wove are ends in. We were looking at the side, we wanted to be the inside, and now that we're doing our scene, we just have the outside. This is the site I want showing. So I have that facing out, and it's a little different than some sewing projects you might do where you would turn it inside out. Then, after you seem, if this were just seeming it with the outside showing. So I'm gonna have lined up my origin's just to make sure that everything is an order and I'm the keep going back and forth down the seam until I get to the linen colored section. I find the easiest way to do this, too. Put the needle in my dominant hand and lay the thing that I'm working on sideways like this . Otherwise I end up needing to switch the yarn or the needle between both hands back and forth. And that's just a little bit slower. And clunkier for me came in a line up this bottom part because I want to make sure that this seem is as inconspicuous as possible. So I want the the dark part in the light part tow line up pretty well, some right here. And at this point just because this is a seem and I wanted to stay really tight, I'm actually going to tie and not with the white yarn. But, um, if you wanted to avoid any knots in your work, you could also just a We've this in like we did with the other, uh, ends. And that would stay pretty strong, too. Um, I'm not a purist, so I'm just gonna tie a little, not sort of like a square, not just one not like that. And then a second. Not like this. I'm gonna kind of took it on the inside, so that's not showing. And then I'm going to take this yarn and I'm gonna We've it back through just like we didn t happen We were weaving in her ends Find some places to weave in and out because then I'm gonna trim it off and we're gonna be done with this yarn. So since this is the outside and just in case this unraveled a little bit or something, I wanna make sure that where I finish it is on the inside. So I'm going to weave it through and pull it out and trim, Not till So now the only part left the scene is this linen section, and I'm going to use the tale that we left over when we stopped single crashing. So I'm going to threaten my tapestry needle onto this leftover tail and then I'm gonna work back and forth just like we were doing in the Tope section again. I want to kind of look at these rows and make sure that they are lining up so that the seam looks really straight and even And then I'm just going back and forth under these loops trying to make sort of as flat of a seem as I can little hope disguise it And you know, if any of this isn't perfect, that's okay. Mr Important part is that you are learning how to crush a and you are just about to finish your first mitt. I'm kind of pulling that down there just to make sure that these rows lineup going in and out. And I'm gonna make sure to get this bottom stitch so that the bottom row comes together down here. And once I'm down here, I have two options I can do a little. Not for I can simply we've it in. Since this is at the bottom and its place, that's probably gonna get stretched out a lot. When I put my hand through it. I'm just gonna take my yarn, You know, we've it back up here that I'm gonna dio not that you might be familiar with if you hand so it all I have my urine coming up this way. I'm gonna come back this way and put my my needle through again. So I've made a loop and now I'm going to stick my needle through that loop and pull it tightly. That creates a little Not so you can do that. Two or three times and that will secure your yarn. And then you're just gonna We've, in this end, just like you did with the other color. Um, and I'm doing this inside the mitt now, so it will be even more hidden. But I just want this tale to be tucked away for safekeeping. So, as you can see, after I do this, you really can't even tell where the tail waas just sort of lost in the sea of stitches. Although by doing that, I untucked my last tail. So I'm gonna get that out. I can trim that last little bit off. That was my previous tale that I just uncovered. And then this is the piece I was weaving in. I'm gonna trim, not there. And now when I turn this over, I have completed one entire mitt. Check that out. All right, let's try it on. Okay. So it feels like the thumb is in a good spot and seem feels tight enough. Everything's looking pretty good. So the last thing we can dio, if you'd like, is attached Some buttons and the buttons that I chose I think, look good. Maybe, like almost to the side but a little bit on the top. Maybe Like that. So I am going to take my mitts off. And this is essentially the side right here. This is the halfway point when maybe put him right about here and two. So these on I'm just going to use a basic feel and threat sewing threat. I am going to insert my needle from the backside through the button, and I'm not gonna pull the not all the way to the back. I'm instead gonna put my needle back in and pull it through here. And then this is a little trick I do just because it's hard to get the not from such thin thread to stay in the yard. So I'm just gonna put my needle through the loop at the bottom of my string and pull it down. That just makes a tighter connection in this. Lucy aren't with fabric. It doesn't matter because you have a little bit more to grip on to. No, I'm just gonna so this button on by going around a few times for each set of holes. Once I've done that several times, I'm going Teoh, place my other button on the MIT where I want it. And I'm just going to sort of we've my thread up a little closer to where I want the second button. No reason really to fasten it off and have to tie and not deal with that. So I brought it up there, replace the button where I want it, and then just put my needle out about where the buttonhole is gonna be. Repeat that same process going several times through each buttonhole. Once that button secured nice and tightly, I'm going to tie it off in the back. Similar to how we tied off. The topi aren't I'm just gonna take a little stitch like this. Pull my needle through leaving a loop. Very tingled loop, but a loop in the back. And then I'm going to put my needle through the loop, pull it tight. Actual results in a little, not do that a few times. Make sure these buttons aren't going anywhere. And I'm in a trim this thread. Look at that. We have, um it That's awesome, because far you've come. You have your first admit. Now the only thing to do is repeat the exact same steps for the second minute, you'll do everything the same way. Except for when you get to the part where you're selling on the buttons, you're gonna wanna put it on your hand and essentially so them on the other side so that the buttons are mirroring each other. So do that, and I'll see you in the next lesson for some troubleshooting tips. 7. Troubleshooting: now that we've gone over the basics of Kirsch A. Let's talk about some of the problems you might be running into. I had just about every one of these issues when I first learned how to crush A This 1st 1 we're going to talk about is in this case starting to look like a bit of a triangle or a trapezoid. And the reason that's happening is because the first few rows here's the chain and then the first couple rows are CO shade much tighter than the subsequent Rove's. And this is probably happening because the person is getting more comfortable holding the hook and the yarn and moving everything around. So this is actually a really good sign. If you're crushing looks like this because it means that you've likely gotten hanging things a little bit, and the rest of your roads are probably going to be fairly even and a little bit looser and more comfortable toe work. So if yours looks like this, you have two options. You can just keep going, but know that this bottom section might be a bit tight on your wrist or you can tear it out . Countless is practice and know that when you begin again, you're probably gonna have stitches that look a lot more like this because you really just figuring out how to hold the yarn and the hook. And since you're getting the hang of it, you're gonna be able to make more consistent, even stitches that are right at a good tension. Now let's pretend that your work looks like this, and let's say that this is the bottom chain and your first few rows, and it's getting tighter as you go. This usually happens because as someone is trying to hold everything in their hands and figure out how to manipulate the yard and move it around, it's just tricky and they clamp down and they just start making it tighter and they work harder and they're grinding their teeth and their probably throwing the rows, and that I've definitely been there, and that is a sign that you probably just need to shake your fingers out, remind yourself to relax and try to pull the are now each time you're making a loop and give yourself a little extra yarn so that you can have enough leeway to pull it through with a little bit of ease because as it gets tighter, there's a tendency to just make it tighter and tighter and tighter. And that's why this would be taking the shape of going to a point like this. So in this case, you have two options again. You can keep going on this and really remind yourself to relax. Or you can tear it out and start from the beginning because at one point you had fairly loose stitches or moderately loose stitches. And then you can just start again with a mindfulness to really allowing yourself enough flexibility with the yarn to make all your stitches loose enough and even enough to keep the side street. Let's talk about another very common problem that also results in a trap aside, this one is a little different if you notice here, this one, you can tell the stitches are a little closer together down here, these that all looks evenly engaged. But the trouble here is that this person is Crowe, saying a single crush a in the chain that they do at the beginning of a row. So if you remember in the single Cochet section, we talked about how, at the beginning of the next row, you're always going to do one chain to get the next row started. Now, if you're forgetting that that's a chain and instead you're putting a single crush a stitch in it. Instead of skipping that stitch, you're gonna end up with one extra stitch on every row. So this is where it becomes really important to just count your stitches as you're figuring things out because you'll be able to figure out very quickly that you started out with, say, eight stitches here and up here, you're already up to 13 stitches. That would be a queue that your crashing into the chain when you should be skipping it. So I'm just gonna tear this out and show you an example of what I mean at the beginning of this row. All right, this is the end of the last row, and I'm gonna flip it around and do it chain. Now, this chain does not count as a stitch. This is just a little ladder to compensate for the height of the single kirsch A. So I should not be crashing in here. Instead, I should skip that stitch and instead single crush a right here in the next rial single crush a stitch. So if I started doing that now, the bottom of my work would still be sort of like a trap is oId But then things would even out, and they would be parallel lines for the rest of the peace. So if your work is looking like this and you're noticing that you started with a certain number of stitches and now you're ending up with more, probably the best thing to do would be to rip out, uh, the length of the work that you've been adding stitches. Otherwise, you're gonna end up with admit that is too big for the top part of your hand. So let's talk about one last issue you might be running into, and it's sort of the opposite of the last one we talked about in this case. This is our beginning. So this is the chain, and the stitches look pretty even throughout, so we know that we're not, uh, just getting tighter as we go. But something's happening that's making the top narrower than the bottom. So if I count the stitches down here, I see that we have 123456789 10. So he started with 10. Yet when we look up here, let's see how many we have. 12345 So somewhere we lost five stitches and a likely place that they went Teoh is at the end of each row or at the beginning of the next show. If you've forgotten to put a chain before you start a new row yet you're still skipping the first stitch. You're going to be losing one stitch each row. So let's tear this out right here and take a look. What might have happened? Okay, so I'm at the end of this row. Let's pretend that the rest of this isn't also messed up because you would want to tear it out all the way to the beginning of where you have started having an issue. But we'll just start from here. So I'm at the end of the road. I'm gonna flip my work around now I have to do a chain stitch here. What was happening in this is that the person was not doing a chain yet. They were still not crushing the first stitch of the row. So they were just working right here. So you can tell if you're just skipping over one like that. But you haven't compensated with adding a chain. Then you're gonna lose one stitch for each row. So instead, what I should do is at the beginning of the row, I should chain one, and it's the chain that I'm always skipping. So skip that and then I'll work into the first single Kirsch A of the road. And by doing so, I will maintain the same number of stitches in each row. So I'm essentially adding a chain in order to skip it on a TRO. I hope that these tips help you if you're running into any issues. Of course, you can always go back through the lesson on single Cochet if you feel like you need a little bit more time to master it. And if you have further questions, go ahead and ask them in the community or reach out to me on my block 8. Conclusion: congratulations on making it this far. I'm really proud of you. Please share project in the community. Whether you've only made it through one minute or part of one minute, I'd still love to see your progress. Visit me at making dooku dot com for more beginner project ideas in tutorials to take your skills to the next level. I'm also active on Instagram and YouTube. Just search making do crew, and I'm always happy to answer any cruciate questions you might have until next time. Thanks for watching and Happy Christian.