Chevron Tutorials for Chevron Basket

Okay, so the tall chain is something that I've come up with that will allow your chevrons to line up when you're working them in the round. So what we're going to start out with is a tight chain one. So you pull your, this is as if I had just changed my color or I had just done my slip stitch for the end of a round. Any round that you're working, this is what you're going to do whether there's a color change or not. So I have my loop on my hook, I'm going to do a chain and then I'm going to pull it really tight. That's going to help keep everything together and kind of lock in the beginning of my round because I'm going to pull a tall chain as tall as the double crochet that I'm going to make next. So pull it nice and tall and then lock that with another chain. So just make a little chain through it. Now what you're going to do is you're not going to work into that same spot that you did your slip stitch. You're going to work into the spot after, so you're going to go one over. The best way to count it is, remember, your chevrons are going to stack right on top of each other. So the DC fan is going to be in the middle of the previous DC fan. So it's going to be in the middle of the three that you made in the previous round. So what you can do is count three backwards from that stitch. So you're going to go one, two, three. And that's where you're going to put your first double crochet. So that's one way to remember, or you just don't work into that first one, work into the second one. So you do your regular double crochet, you do two more, because you do three in between your peaks and valleys, which is what I call the fan and the DC three together. So you have your three double crochets, and then you're going to put three into that stitch all together. So when you're doing the beginning of the round, if you forget where to put your hook, just count back three stitches from the middle stitch of your DC fan of the round below. And that way your tall chain will be in the correct spot and the beginning of your stitches will be in the correct spot and this will keep your chevrons completely lined up through the through the whole project. Okay, so we are at the end of our round and we're going to do our very last DC3 together and join the round. So what we have at the end of the round is we have two actual stitches and then we have this stitch that we skipped at the very beginning when we made our tall chain. So this is where the slip stitch was from the previous round. So we're using the last two stitches of our round and the very first stitch to do our DC3 together. And this keeps all of our chevrons stacked up. So I'm going to start by doing partial double crochets. I do just that first yarn through the first two loops, and I yarn over and go in the next one. And then this very last one is the one that you want to place in the correct spot. So you have kind of this spot here, and then you have this spot here. You want to go to the far spot. This is where the slip stitch was. Everything's just kind of pulling because of the previous DC3 together. That's why it's kind of, and it's a color change, and that's why it's kind of pulling apart a little bit. That's why I always say pull real tight when you're doing those chains and everything. So you're going to go underneath that stitch over there. And try to keep your yarn over over here to the right of your tall chain. And that'll kind of keep it tight as possible. If you're yarning over on top of your tall chain, that'll make kind of a really long yarn over. So just yarn over right next to the tall chain and grab your yarn and pull it up. And keep this DC3 together nice and tight. So that way it'll come together really pretty much all of them. You want to keep all of them nice and tight. So keep all your loops the same size as your shaft. You'll see that I pull really tight because I want really tight stitches for this basket. You'll see that it's very stiff and that's the whole point of using this smaller hook and pulling everything really tightly. So you see I have four loops on my hook. Now I'm going to join them all together by yarning over. And if you have trouble pulling through lots of loops, turn your hook straight down at your stitches and it's going to slide through much easier. So now you can see I finished my DC3 together. Now I'm going to join my round, and my next round is going to be in white, so I'm not changing color, but I'm going to go over here to that very first double crochet, go under the top two loops. This hook is kind of, I'm not a real big fan of this hook. It kind of gets stuck on stuff. It's very pointy on the actual hook part. I don't have a better K hook, so this is what I'm using. Now I have joined it and you'll see that my tall chain It gets put behind where it's not visible, so all you see are the double crochets that we've done. I'm going to do a tight chain just to lock it in so you can see my seam that I have going so far. So if I didn't tell you that this was my seam, you might not even notice it, but you can see right up here is where my seam is. But because we don't have any chain threes, and we do the tall chain that we end up covering up at the end, it's almost invisible. So pretty much any side of this basket, if I just start turning this really fast, and I said, where's my seam, you might not be able to find it. But you can pretty much use any side of this basket. Now my next round, I'm going to start finishing off my basket. I'm going to have some slip stitches. That I put at my DC fan area. Make sure on all your slip stitches here, and also at the bottom of your basket, right up here, or where we joined it, right here, at the very bottom, do your slip stitches nice and loose. Because if you do them too tightly, it's really hard to put your hook back in. So when you're making your slip stitches on your basket, make them loose enough that you can get back into them on the next round. Okay, so to change color, From your main color to whatever color you want to change to, you're going to do it when you do your slip stitch. So you can see I did my last DC 3 together here, and now I'm going to go over here to my very first double crochet of the round, and I'm going to insert my hook under both loops, and instead of pulling the white through, I'm going to grab my new color. I'm going to lay my new color right on top of my hook. I'm going to pull it through. I'm going to pull it through this loop. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to tighten down everything. And I'm actually, I like to double knot, or I like to knot my new colors together with my old. I'm just going to do one knot, just to get it nice and tight so it's staying together because we're working these stitches pretty tightly. Then, to begin with my new color, I'm first going to do my tight chain. So I pull a chain through and I'm going to tighten it down super tight. And that's going to lock in my slip stitch and it's going to lock in my new color. When I change color, which you'll see, I'm going to again I'm going to use that locking stitch, or I'm just going to do it on every round actually, just to lock in my slip stitch and to begin my new round. So I do the tight chain and then I pull tall so I can do my tall chain. Okay, so this is going to show you how to change color when you have a tail already attached from your previous color. So I've already completed my very last DC3 together that is covering that tall chain. And then I'm going to join my round by putting a slip stitch through that very first double crochet. I just go under both loops. I totally ignore my tall chain. That's just there to keep all of my chevrons lined up. So I'm going to go under both loops of my very first double crochet. And then instead of slip stitching with my old color, I'm going to grab the tail that I dropped off when I made my last color change and bring it up and lay it over my hook and then pull through and pull through the other one. Now this DC3 together wants to pull everything this way. So, I am going to tighten down. And do a tight chain to lock everything together and to pull my DC3 back over. So in my new color, I'm going to yarn over and pull a chain and then tighten it down. I'm going to tighten down my burgundy color here and I'll even tighten down the tail of the white so that it gets it nice and tight and almost invisible. And you can see my seam. You can't really see my seam. It's pretty invisible so far. And I'll show you the finished product, what the seam looks like as well. So I tighten that down, and then I'm ready to start my next tall chain.