Crochet Granny Squares for beginners, magic circle & colour changes

Hi there, I'm Crafty Patty and thanks for joining me today. In one of my past videos I did promise that I would do some crochet videos rather than all the knitting videos, so here we are. I'm going to do some crochet for you. I do have a crochet playlist and I already have a few videos there. I've got one on a market bank and I also have some scrap yarn baskets, so have a look there in my playlist if you want to watch those. Now I'm just saying I am a lefty, so I will be demonstrating left-handed, but I did go and watch some videos of right-handed crocheters and I was able to follow them, so I'm really hoping you'll be okay and you can follow along. It's really exactly the same thing, it's just that my stitches will be formed, I think, going to the right, I think that's right, that makes sense. Anyways, please let me know in the comments if you did okay and if you did, then I will continue to make more crochet videos for left-handed. Now crochet has been around forever and ever, but it's become very popular lately and you'll be able to see crocheted garments in the stores and a lot of people getting into it, but we're going to start you off nice and slow and we're going to start you off by making some granny squares and these are so fun because they knit up fast, you can knit them in any color you want, you could do retro, you could do neon pinks or you could do boho or whatever your favorite colors are, it's up to you and every color will look a little different in your finished product. So keep watching and follow along and we're going to start you on this flower granny square. And I've used these four colors throughout every one. The reason the fourth, let's see one, two, yep, the fourth row looks different all the time is because I'm using the escotti stripe loops and thread yarn and as you can see it's different colors so I'm getting a different color on the outside which I thought would be kind of fun. Use whatever brand you have, you can use cottons if you want, this happens to be acrylic yarn and they're all a medium four. It will tell you on the label to use a five millimeter crochet hook but I like to go down a size so I will be using four. And with those four colors I have changed it up by doing a different colored center. These ones have got the beige, these ones have got the blue and the yellowy orange of your different color. It makes each granny square look a little different although they all blend together nicely. A pair of scissors and a wide-eyed darning needle for sewing in your yarn ends. So let's get started and I'm going to show you how to start with a magic circle. Okay so now for the magic circle. Here's the yarn coming from my ball and the end. We're going to place the yarn on top forming a little circle like so. I'm just going to hold on for now with my thumb while I use my tension to do my tension. So I wrap around my baby finger and then I come up and I use my index finger to hold on to it. Now I'm going to transfer to my thumb and my middle finger just to hold on to that so it won't go anywhere. Let's grab the hook. We're going to go down into that circle. We're going to grab onto the yarn. We're going to pull it up. I'm going to use this finger here just to pull it down so it's nice and tight. Holding on with my thumb and then we're going to grab it through and make our first chain. There you go. You have made a magic circle. So in that one chain we're going to make three more chains. So I'm going to go one, two, and three. You don't count the one on the hook. You can see you've got one, two, three, and the one we started with actually makes four. Now we're going to do seven more to make eight in total because this counts as a double crochet. So we want eight in total. So let's do our first double crochet. So for a double crochet we're going to wrap around in the magic circle, grab the yarn, through the magic circle, and now you'll have three loops up here. So then we're going to grab the yarn. We're going to pull through two. You're going to grab the yarn and pull through two. And to finish off that one for our first round we're now going to just chain one. As you can see I'm left-handed so I'm working from left to right. If you were right-handed you'd be working this way and working around. And let's do another double crochet for you. Pulling on here, wrapping around into the magic ring, wrapping around, pulling through one, pulling through two, wrap around, pull through two. Remember you pull an extra chain. And as you can see I'm taking my little tail with me and wrapping around that as well and then that just helps so you don't have to weave it in afterwards. And let's do another one and tighten this up a little bit because it's a magic ring. You find this a little harder to hold on to all that. Counting the chain in the beginning we've got one, two, three, four, five. So we're going to do three more. And counting our first chain we now have eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So now we can pull on our little tail and that will close up our magic ring. And then we're just going to use a slip stitch to join our little circle together. So let's come into the stitch here, front and back, pulling it through and pulling it through like so. And we're going to cut that off because I'm going to do another color. So we cut off the yarn and I'm just going to hook that one more time and pull it through that slip knot just to secure it. And there we have our finished little circle. And let's finish off that first little tail from our magic circle. We just give it a little bit of time. Let's get our needle threading your yarn and then we're just going to loop it through. You can see where the yarn is coming this way. You're just going to loop it through some of those stitches again and then go over top of that last one we went under and then just bring it back again. I always like to go back and forth. It makes for a more secure top. And now we can cut that one off and it won't be in our way. And now you're going to have eight little holes here and that's where we're going to place our next round. So let's go into the first one here. Let's grab our next color. You can just do a little loop, pass it through. And now on the back side I just like to go and twist this over once or twice and bring this long yarn up again. And that just helps to hold it in place when we make our first chain. And then you can just tug down a little bit and it's nice and secure. It's not going to go anywhere. So we're going to do, that's our first chain, two and three. Three chains equals one double crochet. Now we want to make three more double crochets into that same hole. So again our double crochets wrap around into that same hole, wrap around, come through, two and come through two. So that will act as one double crochet. There's two and let's do two more. And then we're going to just do one chain and that helps us to get to our next hole. And now we're going to weave our tail in as we crochet so we don't have to weave it in afterwards just like we did on that center portion. So let's find our next hole and let's do four more double crochets. So wrapping around, into that hole, wrapping both our outside and that tail, through two, through two, and let's do three more. And do one chain and you're going to do the same for the other one, two, three, four, five, six holes. And of course you don't have to carry that all the way around. We've already carried it this far so we can actually snip that off and then you don't have to worry about it anymore. So that one's done. And now on my last double crochet to have four in this one section, and one chain, and now we're going to join our circle together. And you can count up. There's one, two, three, and through the front and the back of the crochet stitch, loop it through and slip right through. And let's cut off that yarn and just pass it through that loop and we're done with that one. Now while we're here, let's just clean up this end here. So we've wrapped it through here so I'm going to go over top of that one and bring it back through the other way again. And now we can cut that one off and that's all done. Round three, we're going to be crocheting in where all our one chains were. And adding our next color for round three. I'm choosing to do the blue and do our first chain. Pulling that down just so it locks it in. There we go. First chain there. Let's do two more. Okay and now we're going to do three more double crochets as always. Same thing. Back around. Two, three, two, one more. And right now I'm working on a corner. This will be my corner. I've got one, two, three, four. I'm going to do one chain and then I'm going to do four more into exactly the same space. We've done a corner so this is going to be just four double crochets in here and now we're ready for another corner. Four more double crochets and now we're back to the middle of our square. So just four double crochets and now we're back to doing another corner. So starting with our four again, do four singles there and then another corner and then another single and I'll meet you back there. And then we're going to join. So let's cut off some yarn and into the front and back of the stitch and slipping through that and slipping through your last stitch, which got tight for some reason. And just pull that through. And we're ready for our next round. And this is where I'm using the biscotti stripe for my fourth round. And I'm going to start on a corner for you this time. And so let's insert our hook right there. Let's grab our yarn as before. Just hooking it in and our chains. So I cannot look in the camera and crochet at the same time. One, two, three, okay. And let's grab that little tail, bring it over to the front so we can make sure that we're catching it. And we're going to do three more double crochets into that same hole. And this time I'm going to do two chains. So one, two, and now four more double crochets into that same hole. Okay, so we've got our chain plus the three for that side and four double crochets on that side. Okay, so we're just going to drop that to the back for now because I don't want the white showing on top of the blue here. So we're coming over and we're doing four double crochets, four double crochets. Then we're back to a corner and the same as this corner, we're doing the four, two chains, four double crochets. Four, four, another corner, same thing. Okay, so I think you probably have it. I am into my next one with just four doubles. And while I'm here, I'm just going to grab this one. We'll tuck this one into it's nice to kind of do it as you go and there's just less sewing after the fact. And now we're ready for our next corner and same as the other corners. And just like this side, you're doing your four doubles, four doubles, right in here, four doubles, four doubles, back into the corner, four doubles, two chains, four doubles, and then again, four doubles, four doubles, and then back to the corner, and two more. So we'll see it there because I think you've got it, right? And if not, it's exactly the same as this row here if you want to follow this row, except that we've got two on the sides instead of just the one. Oh, I wasn't paying attention. I cut my end a little short. Let's hope you've got enough. Slip it into this one, slip it into that one. Are we going to make it? And we want to pass that through. I don't know why I did that. Pass it through this one. There we go. And I think what I'll do is I'm just going to weave that in right now and we're just going to come through. Grab it into this one. Now, I haven't really gone over this of what is the right side and the wrong side of the crochet work when they look almost identical. So, because I'm a left-handed crocheter, my tail of my first row would have probably been here. If you're right-handed, your tail would be over here. But being that we have sewed in all the tails, we cannot see them. So, the other thing I look for is how are my stitches sitting on the outside. If you look up here, I can see the V of my stitches pretty easily on this side. On this side, I'm really only seeing the top or the one the back side of the stitch. Unless I go like that. Sorry, I got out of focus. Then I can maybe see them. So, that tells me I'm going to look for the side that I can see the V the easiest, which is this side. Here's one that I've done a single crochet all the way around. These have not been blocked yet, which I'm going to be showing you how to do probably in the next video because this one's going to get too long. But it does really make a nicer finish, whereas you see this one is a little bit up and down, a little bit. So, that's how I'm going to do a single crochet around the whole square. Now, you can pretty much see that I've got pretty even, well, sort of pretty even, stitches. So, I know where I'm going in for each single crochet. But in some areas, like say a joint or something, it might confuse you a little bit. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to count and make sure I've got exactly the same because then when you go to join these together, the joining will be so much easier because then you're going to be going right across one stitch to another and you're going to be even. I'm going to be starting in a corner. So, let's go through. We're going to grab our next color and pull that through. And again, let's pull up our first stitch here. Okay, so now to do a single crochet, now that we've added our yarn, we're going to go in to that hole, wrap around, come up, and then we bring our yarn, wrap around, and go through both of those stitches. That's a single crochet. So, into the hole, wrap around, and like I said, I'm going to do three in the corner. So, I want to end up, so I've got my last stitch right in here, right before I go and make my corner stitch here. Now, because I've already done a bunch of these, I know I'm going to be doing 16. So, here's my first one here, which is covered a little bit by my corner. And so, I'm going to go through front and back of each of those stitches. That's two, that's three, and I should have 16 before I get to my corner. So, I'm going to stop talking and filming so I can count these, and then I will get back to you when I'm just before my next corner. Okay, and there's my number 16 because I've gone back and I've counted them, and then I'm going to do three in here in my corner again. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's the corner or it's just hiding or it's not. Okay, so I just wanted to confirm and make sure that you've got even out stitches. So, when you go to sew these together, you're going to be a happy camper because it's all going to join up. I'm going to crochet all the way around with single crochets and I'll meet you back when I've got all my sides finished and I'm ready to join it up. And to finish this one off, I'm just going to go into the back of the stitch that I'm going through. Two stitches is sometimes harder, and why make it harder yourself? So, around and slip through, and let's pull that through one more time, take that off, and that's our final knot. And I've cut this short again, so you find that happens to you. You can come through with the back side of your needle and go through that way, and then you'll have a knot. And the square is measuring approximately pretty close to five inches by five inches, but when it is blocked, it will be a little bit bigger than that because you want to kind of stretch it out just that little bit, so it'll be a bit bigger than that. Well, I really hope that you were able to follow along to make your granny square. You can make so many things from granny squares, and depending on how you sew them together, you can make whatever you want. I will be showing you in the next video how to block the granny squares and how important it is because you want them exactly the same size when you're sewing them together, and it'll just look so much better. So, keep your eyes open for that video on blocking. Then the next video after that, or maybe I might build include with the blocking, I'm not sure yet, depending on how long the video is, I'm going to show you how I'm going to sew four of these together. Then we'll do like these two, maybe these two, and we're going to sew all these together, and we're going to make a little tiny bag. I think that's a great starter project, and then the other four will be for the other side. We'll show you how to do the handles and maybe possibly even a lining for the bag. So, make sure you have your notification bells on so you don't miss any of these next videos in this little series of these little granny squares, and you never know what crafty patty is going to be up to next after that. Maybe a garment, maybe a sweater, who knows? You better keep watching. Until then, happy crocheting, and bye-bye for now.