Crochet Poncho for Beginners (it's just a rectangle!)

Hey everyone! Today we're going to be making this poncho and it's one of my favorite things I've made. It's really great to style for the fall and winter with different layers and it's really simple and great for beginners because it's just a rectangle. So we're going to walk through all of those steps, so let's get started. To construct the poncho, we'll be crocheting a long rectangle, folding it in half, and then it makes a smaller rectangle. And then on the long side of that, we'll slip stitch and leave a one foot head hole. So now that we have the head hole, if we rotate this smaller rectangle, it creates that asymmetrical look of the poncho that when you wear, it drapes really nicely. But if you put your arm up, you'll see that smaller rectangle that we created and the portion that we slip stitched to then create that one foot head hole. For the brown poncho, the dimensions of my rectangle were about 21 inches by 56 inches, whereas for the black poncho, it was about 21 inches by 66 inches. I made the black poncho first using this rule of thumb. If you measure from your collarbone down to where you want the hit on your arm, that's going to be the short side of your rectangle, and then for the long side, it's twice that plus 24 inches. I made this black poncho first with acrylic and it's great, but it's a little bit stiff and has a lot of material hanging down. So for the brown poncho, I wanted to have less material, making that rectangle with 56 inches instead of 66, and I also used a soft yarn. This wool cotton blend from Woolfolk I found at my local yarn store is a great option, but it's a bit expensive. It's $22 for 164 yards and I used a little over six of them. So you go to Michaels and find a soft yarn that's a similar weight. I found this heathered bamboo from Loops and Threads and it's about six to eight dollars. You'll also need a crochet hook. I used a five millimeter hook for the acrylic yarn and a four millimeter hook for the wool cotton blend. You'll also need a sewing needle to weave in your ends and a measuring tape. Next, you can choose any pattern for the rectangle to make our poncho. I recommend some sort of mesh pattern so there's holes and it's a bit more breathable and it's also quicker to crochet. For the black acrylic yarn poncho, I used double crochet mesh. And then for the wool cotton brown poncho, I wanted to play around with different patterns, so I made this swatch and it has double crochet mesh, triple crochet with different hook sizes, and then I settled on this mixed woven mesh from Nordic Hook, which I'll link their free pattern down below, and that's what I used for the brown poncho. So feel free to choose any pattern that you like. At this point, you might be ready to start your poncho, so feel free if you are. I'm going to walk through the crocheting step by step and go through those two patterns. The double crochet mesh is great for beginners and just uses chains and double crochet, and the mixed woven mesh adds a little variety with triple crochet too. At any point, feel free to pause or slow down the video to align with the speed that you would like. The double crochet mesh pattern starts out with a foundation chain represented by those circles, and then there's double crochets represented by that t-shape with the slash that have one chain in between each double crochet. So double crochet, chain one, and then double crochet, which creates a hole in our pattern, hence why it's called a mesh pattern. To start, we'll make a slip knot, and if you need a refresher on any beginner crochet techniques, feel free to check out my videos for absolute beginners. So next we'll be making our foundation chain. This is going to be an odd number of stitches, and it's the width of that large rectangle we talked about earlier. So mine was 66 inches for this black poncho, but choose whatever width is going to be best for your measurements. Now that we have our odd number of chains, we're going to chain three more. So we have one, two, three, and that's going to count as our first double crochet. And then in the sixth chain from the hook, so we have one, two, three, four, five, six, we're going to do a double crochet. So we yarn over, insert, yarn over, come out, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So now we've created our first little mesh hole, and next we're going to chain one, and then in the second chain from the hook, one, two, we'll do a double crochet. So you'll yarn over, insert, yarn over, come out, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So just continue this until you get to the end, doing a chain one, and then in the second chain from the hook, you'll do a double crochet. At the end of the row, you'll do your last double crochet into that last chain, and then we're going to chain three, which will count as one double crochet. So we have two, three, and then we're going to chain one more. So we'll chain one, and then flip our work. Next is a double crochet into that double crochet down below. So we'll insert, yarn over, come out, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, and pull through two. So we've continued making these mesh holes by doing the chain one, double crochet into the next double crochet below. And you'll just continue this all the way until the end of the row. At the end, you'll see all those chains we made at the beginning, and you're going to double crochet into the second chain from your hook. This will finish out our second row, and you're going to repeat the instructions for the second row until you have the number of rows that gives you that height of the rectangle for the poncho that you like. So mine was 21 inches, but continue crocheting until you have the height that's best for your measurements. For the mixed woven mesh, I used Nordic Hook's free online pattern, which you should definitely check out in the description box down below, and I'm going to walk through the steps that they've instructed and add my own little tips and tricks. And I wanted to go over this pattern before we get started. So there are two different types of rows. You're going to start with a double crochet row, that's the one on the bottom. We have five double crochet clustered together, and then there's a three chain chain space, which makes that little hole, and then another cluster of five double crochet. You just repeat that for that whole row. For the second row, it's a triple crochet row. So you have that cluster of three triple crochet with one chain in between them on top of that five double crochet, and then again a three chain chain space. Alternating the double crochet and triple crochet rows plays around with the heights of those stitches and creates different size holes in our mesh. I think it creates a really cool pattern. You're going to start by making a chain that's around the width of the rectangle. We want this chain to be a multiple of eight plus seven. So you'll crochet in sets of eight, crochet eight, and then another eight, until you have about the width of the rectangle. And when you have almost that width, then you'll crochet seven more chains. I crocheted 319 chains, and it was helpful to add a stitch marker every 24 or 48 stitches to keep track of how many chains I had. Next, you'll count four stitches from your hook, and in that fourth stitch, you'll do one double crochet. So yarn over, come out, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, and pull through two. Then you'll crochet one double crochet into the next chain, and repeat that two more times for a total of four double crochet, and then you'll have that chain three at the beginning, which will count as one double crochet. So we're creating this cluster of five double crochet. Then you'll chain three, and do one double crochet into the fourth chain from your hook. Then you'll do another double crochet into the next stitch, until you have another cluster of five double crochet. Repeat this part until you get to the end of the row. So you'll do a chain three, and then in the fourth chain from your hook, you'll do a cluster of five double crochet into each of those next five chains. This is probably the hardest part of the pattern, is getting it all set up. So it's really important to be diligent about making sure that there's five double crochet in your cluster, and that there's three chains in between each of those clusters. So this is going to make sure that the pattern goes smoothly all the way until the end. When you get to the end, the fifth double crochet of that last cluster should fit perfectly into that last chain. Now that we're done with our first double crochet row, we'll start on a triple crochet row by chaining five. Four of those chains count as the first triple crochet, and that fifth chain counts as the chain one in between our triple crochet. Next we'll do one triple crochet into that third double crochet in that set of five. So we yarn over twice, insert, yarn over, come out. So we have four loops on the hook, and then yarn over, and pull through two, yarn over, and pull through two, yarn over, and pull through two. So this stitch is taller than the double crochet, it's a triple crochet. Then we'll chain one, and do one more triple crochet into that last double crochet of that set of five. So now our triple crochet will always create these pillars above the foundation of that five double crochet. There will always be a triple crochet at the beginning, the middle, and the end of our five double crochet, and have a one chain in between each of the triple crochet to create that little space. Next we'll do a chain three, and then create our with one chain in between. So that'll look like one triple crochet in the first double crochet of five, chain one, triple crochet in the third, chain one, and then triple crochet in the fifth of those five double crochet. So continue that until you get to the end. The last triple crochet you'll do into the top of that chain three from the beginning. To start the double crochet row, we'll chain three, counting as one of our five double crochet, and then we'll double crochet into the space between our triple crochet below, then in the top of the triple crochet, into the space, and then into the top of the next triple crochet for a cluster of five. For the rest of the row, you'll repeat chain three to create a chain space, and then one double crochet into the tops of the next five stitches, which are our triple crochet in those chain one spaces. Now the pattern just repeats, alternating double crochet and triple crochet rows until you have the height that you want. Next up is everyone's favorite step, weaving in all of your ends. Now is a good time to block your rectangle if you would like to. I'm not an expert in blocking, so I would definitely recommend checking out someone else's video, but I did this for the black poncho because it was that acrylic and a little bit stiff, so I wanted to be softer and lay a little bit better after this process. So how I blocked it was I filled up my bathtub with water, put the rectangle in, made sure it was all wet, drained the water, squeezed the water out, and then rolled out a towel, put the rectangle on top, rolled it up to try to squeeze out more of the water, then I got a fresh towel, laid out the rectangle, and tried to space it out so it was the appropriate shape and the appropriate width, and then I let it dry for about one day. It's finally time to take our long rectangle, fold it in half, and then slip stitch to leave our one foot head hole. Here I have my folded rectangle with the head hole, and then to the right I have stitch markers holding the two pieces together, and now we'll just slip stitch from the corner all the way until the head hole. For your slip stitches, it's pretty simple, just make sure that your stitches on both sides of this folded poncho match up so that it's all seamless. I would also recommend your last row be a double crochet row because it's going to be a little bit more sturdy for this slip stitching. And just continue slip stitching until you get to your last stitch marker for your one foot head hole, or feel free to make a different size. Weave in the last of your ends and then flip your poncho inside out. Now the poncho is finished, please let me know if you ended up making it, what yarn you chose, what colors, what patterns, I would love to know what you did. So thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.