Crosshatch Shawl Crochet Tutorial for Beginners Easy Lightweight Fingering Weight Shawl

Hey everyone, it's Deja from KnitAndCrochetEverAfter.com and today we're making this crosshatch shawl. Download the pattern below and we'll get started. Let's talk materials. You're going to need about 750 yards of fingering weight yarn, and because this is worked lengthwise, you can get away with striping it. You can use self-striping yarn, all one color, variegated, whatever you want. Because the stitch pattern on this will kind of work with anything, feel free to get creative. You'll also need a four millimeter hook, Make sure it says 4mm. Depending on what manufacturer, it could say USF or USG. That's not the important part. The 4mm is the important part. I'm using a bigger hook than normal for this type of yarn because I want it more drapey and fluid. You could even go a little bit bigger. So if you only have a 4.5 on hand, use that. It's just going to make it a little bit more open. It's not a big deal. Next, you're gonna need scissors to cut your yarn, a yarn needle to weave in your yarn. You also may want to invest in some blocking materials. If you're gonna be doing a lot of projects where you think you're gonna be blocking, blocking mats, blocking pins, and blocking wires are gonna be your best friends. My favorites are in the links below. I'm gonna show you how I use them. When I block this project near the end, I highly recommend it. You're also gonna want stitch markers. This is all one basic stitch, but the stitch marker is for the beginning, and it'll save your life. So get a pack of stitch markers, I'll show you why and where we're using them, when we're When we're doing our foundation chain, when we get started, in just a second. Okay, so we're gonna get started on this. We're gonna begin with our border. So we're gonna do our foundation chain. You're gonna see why those stitch markers are important. And we're gonna do a single crochet border. Mine is three rows, can go thicker or thinner. But one important thing to note, if you want this longer or shorter, but who wants shorter shawls? If you want a longer shawl than what I've put in the pattern, you're going to add in multiples of 4 to your foundation chain. So I'll talk a little bit more about that when we're making the foundation chain, but just remember, add by 4s and pick how big you want your border to be and let's go make it right now. So, for our sample, I'm using a worsted weight yarn to begin with and a 6mm USJ hook. I wanted to give you a bigger yarn so that you could actually see the stitches a little bit nicer, so we're just going to get going. So we're going to create a slipknot on our hook, and I like to always kind of grab a fence, turn down, through and grab that working yarn, and then tighten the tail down. Make your end long enough to weave in, and then we're going to chain. So the pattern calls for a certain amount of chains for that size. Don't get too caught up in it. Unless you want to make the exact same size that I have, you can chain more or less. This pattern is super easy to customize because it's in multiples of four. So we're just going to do about 20 stitches for our sample, but you can definitely do a lot more if you want it longer or I don't know if I would go less it's pretty you know it's it's kind of at the minimum size that you would really want for a shawl but you can definitely customize it to be much longer if you'd like by just adding multiples of four. Once we get to 20 chains We will begin row one, and it's the same as row one, row two, and row three. 19, 20, I went too far. 21, 22, 23, 24. That works. It's a multiple of four. We'll stick with 24 then. So we're ready for row one. Okay, so for row one, row two, and row three, we're going to be creating our bottom edge border with just single crochet. Super simple to get going. So we're going to skip this first chain, so that way we have the height of a single crochet, and we're going to We're going to work into this next one. But, I want to challenge you to do something different. A lot of times when you work into a chain, you'll work into a back loop. I challenge you to turn your work over and learn, if you haven't already, how to work into your bottom bump. So if you look at this, you kind of see these little dash marks that are on the bottom of your foundation chain. The top have these V's like a knit stitch, but when you flip it over, you have these little dash marks. If you work into those, you get this nice V-edging along your border of your shawl. Then you don't have to add a border. If you work into this back loop, you get kind of this twisty rope. Which isn't bad either, but it doesn't match the other side, which you'll see when we end, is going to have the V's because it's our stitches. You'll see how we work stitches, they always look like V's on top. So I challenge you to work into the back bump, it takes a little extra time, but it makes it a lot nicer. So we're going to skip the first one, which is right here, that little dash, and we're going to work into that next one. So we're going to insert our hook in, pull up a loop, yarn over, and pull through. And once you do the first one, your chain turns and it's easy to see that next one. You can see that little bump coming up. I'm gonna go under just that loop and do my single crochet. Once you get the hang of it, it's really not that difficult. And I'm going to do a couple more here so that I can show you what the bottom of it looks like. I think it just gives it a much neater edge. So here's the top of our stitches. So if we had just finished this shawl, you have your v's on top and then we flip over to the bottom of our shawl and we have v's on the bottom. So it's just a really pretty edge. So we're going to continue on here to get to the end of the row. You definitely don't want to skip that last stitch, it's kind of a weird looking one because it's attached to the slip knot, but that is a stitch. If you're not sure, you can count your stitches. When it's really long, you just want to kind of take your time so you don't miss any. And I suggest actually adding stitch markers every bit. So if you are doing a really long foundation chain, put stitch markers, little clippable Oh, bold ones every. 20 stitches or so and then that way you can easily just go 20 40 60 and get that all worked out nice and easy. I'll link to some stitch markers in the description for you. But we work into that last stitch and then we have our row one. So we're gonna repeat that for row two and three so you're just gonna chain one and you're gonna work into that very first stitch. So just remember you Remember you always want to get under both loops. You want to catch both loops and that's where your stitch will be and you're going to be doing those single crochets across as well. At the very end we'll be working into this kind of funny looking one so just don't miss that. You can kind of see how your stitches come together in kind of a little t I guess maybe a pie sign it's almost like a pie. So, you got your little pies, you're going to make sure you work into that last one even though it kind of loops around and looks strange, and then come back and do row 3 as well, and then we're going to start our crosshatching. So go ahead and work on these rows and I'll see you in just a little bit. So we finished our border we're ready to move on to our cross hatches and those are actually just crossed treble crochets. I love treble crochets for open work projects because they work up so fast you will be amazed at how quickly you can get this large shawl done because of these stitches. So it's a really simple four stitch repeat that you can memorize quickly and multitask. Knit, flick, and crochet whatever you want. So I'm going to show you how to do that. We'll work this whole body and then we'll come back for the final border. Okay we finished our three rows of single crochet, we are ready for some cross trebles which is what our pattern repeat is going to be or what creates the crosshatch. So the beginning of the row we're going to do something a little different. Normally you would chain until you get to the height of whatever stitch you're making and you would skip this first stitch but that creates a gap and I'm going to show you that By alternating I'm doing what I'm going to show you and the chains on each side so you can see the difference. But what we're going to do is called a tall chain. And a tall chain is simply a really long chain. We're going to pull it the size of a treble because we're making treble crochets. So approximately the size, a little shorter is better than a little longer because it won't pooch out as much. So you'll see what I mean when we make it. We're going to yarn over and finish off that chain. So just one really long chain. Then, we're actually going to stitch into that first stitch, so instead of skipping it like you normally would when you start a row, you're going to do a treble crochet into that first stitch. And because I made this a little bit shorter, it blends into that treble, and you don't get the gap that you normally would when you chain at the beginning of a row. So, we're going to continue our pattern and Just know that both sides are going to have two treble crochets as borders, so that's always going to be the same all the way up. I actually need two yarn overs for my treble. I'm working in that second stitch and then we begin our pattern repeat. So we're going to create our crosses by first skipping two stitches and working a treble crochet in the third. So this one's a little bit different than the rest of the row, because we don't do any chains when we connect this treble to this treble, and you'll see the difference in a second. Then we're going to chain one, and we're going to do another treble, but we're going to do it in the first stitch that was skipped. So we're going to come work behind this one, and I like to turn my work to look for my stitches. So there's two Vs there. I'm going to get into that first V. And do my treble. So it comes behind the previous, create the X, see that cross? Then I'm going to do another chain. So from here on out, every time I make a treble, I'm going to do a chain in between. So whether it's the cross with the chain, or connecting the next cross. Because I have that chain, I'm going to skip one extra stitch this time. So I'm going to skip three stitches and work the treble in the fourth. That treble, Chain one, because I said I'd chain one after every treble. Then I'm going to come back and go into that middle stitch I skipped. So the first one is the chain one. I'm going into the next one to create my treble. So you can either work back one, work forward one, but it's the middle stitch that you're working that treble into. So again, we skip one, two, three, work into that fourth, chain one, come back and work into that second stitch there. So we're going to do that across here until we get right to the end where we're going to kind of mimic what we did over here. So let's finish doing these here, chain one at this point, because I'm matching what I did over here. I didn't do a chain one to connect to these two trebles, I'm not going to do a chain one to do these last two trebles of the row. One treble and the second one, and then on this side I'm going to show you that chain Four. And the gap it's going to create. So normally for a treble you would do chain four, and you get this skinny little chain, and you got three there, the last one. You get this skinny little chain here, and then you would work your treble into the second stitch here. Let me show you what that looks like as a difference. So you can see you have this big gap here, whereas over There's no gap because you actually have two trebles. You have a little bit extra which is better than I think not having enough. So you can see the difference and you can make your choice on that. Here it's a little bit easier finding your stitches from here on out. This is going to be the same for the rest of these stitches. You're going to go into that second treble, so you can look at the top still if you need to count But you're going to just do your stitches right on top of your previous. You're stacking them up, chain one always after the treble, come back, go into this previous treble. You'll notice the stitch is very big to work into, very easy to find. Chain one, treble, and you'll notice like I'm kind of grabbing the stitches where like I'm holding on to them. This keeps them from getting too super loopy. So I hold on to them as I'm making them, because if I just kind of just go it like this and, you know, pull it through, you'll see that my stitch is way bigger, and I can't keep them as consistent as I would like so that my stitches all look pretty uniform. So when I'm making my stitches, especially with treble crochets like this, I kind of grab onto everything as I'm pulling them through. I pull onto this so it doesn't get pulled out. I keep tension. So that's just a little trick if you want to make sure that kind of all of your stitches are the same size rather than just kind of pulling on them as you go. So I kind of work on those and pull them as I get to them. It's kind of a muscle memory thing. You just Start doing it, and eventually it just becomes second nature. But again, once we get to this end of the row, you're going to do those two treble crochets without the chain one at the very end. Last treble, last treble. And then you know that you're here, and you see no chain one, so you just do your two treble crochets. So this pattern's very easy to memorize because you're just working the exact same stitch that you did below. So this is your pattern repeat. You're just going to keep doing that over and over. Either follow the pattern that I've given in the description below or make it as wide as you want so you can Scrunch it down for a scarf, make it wider, whatever you want, but I'm going to do a couple more rows so you can see how those edges look by doing the tall chain versus the chain four, so you can kind of get an idea of which one you want to choose, and then we'll put on the ending border. So we're almost done. You've done the body. Depending on what you did, you might have done more or less than me. You can make a scarf out of this if you want, whatever you like. We're going to do three more rows of single crochet at the very top so that we get an even border on both ends. And then we're going to talk about blocking and finishing this guy off. I'm back and I've worked a couple more rows just so you can see the edges. So over here, these are the chain four edges. And you can see you have that gap between the chain four and that. trouble crochet, where over here you have a nice dense fabric that actually resembles kind of a border. So totally up to you which one you choose to do, I like the tall chain just because it does give you kind of more of a finished edge than these big kind of gappy chain fours. So now that we've done a few rows, I'm just going to kind of go over what you're going to do on the border so that you can know how to begin that first row of single crochet. So we're doing three rows of single crochet up here on the border as well. So we'll do a chain one and you're basically working a single crochet into every stitch you come to. And around every chain one. So you just want to kind of remember where those are. So there isn't a chain one between these two. So we're going into a stitch. It is a chain one between our trebles and the cross. So we're going into the cross and doing a chain one, our treble. And then there's always a chain one between the crosses. So we're going around that stitch. So you don't have to find the chain one. You don't have to work into any of the loops of the chain one. You can just go right into that chain one so it makes it nice and easy to work so it's not too bad for this first row of single crochet and then of course the second and third row of single crochet are just like normal where you're working into a single crochet stitch so not a problem at all with that one. Run through this row and take a look kind of at what it looks like when it's finished. Just because I'm gonna point something out before we move on to our next section, and that will be sew. And also with these chain 4s, you gotta find the top of the chain to work into, which isn't always fun. If this was my third row, I would fasten off, but I wanted to point out that when I finish this, it's not super pretty. It's quite lumpy. The stitches are not super even, the edges aren't very straight compared to my finished object, and that is because of blocking. Even with this worsted acrylic, which should lay pretty flat and even, you can see that this is not looking as good as it could be. So we're going to talk about blocking and how to make it look better. So go ahead and finish off your project. Do your three rows. Fasten off, weave in your ends, and let's go talk about blocking. Okay, so you've finished your project, and it doesn't look as great as you thought it would. The yarn is kind of funky. Your crosshatches aren't very open. Everything's a little wavy. Don't lose hope. You just need to block it. I talked about blocking in the beginning. Here is where it comes in play. Once you weave in your ends, you're going to go soak this in water. The cool water is perfectly fine, that's all I did on mine. Throw it in the water and let it soak for 20 minutes. The fibers will soak up the water and it will bloom, which is the term, and the fibers will let you manipulate them so you can stretch them out. You'll see in my video here, I used lace wires, which I love even for just rectangle projects because I can get the edges completely straight. As I work those wires in there. Pin them out, pull them pretty taut, not super taut, but just enough to get it where I want it and use the lines on my blocking knots and let it dry until it's completely dry. Unpin it and I have this perfect rectangle with beautiful open crosshatches that is ready to wear and looks great. So definitely if you're not liking the look right now, go block it. It'll make it look a hundred times better. So that was the crosshatch shawl. I am Deja with KnitAndCrochetEverAfter.com. Show me your finished projects. Head over to Instagram. Add hashtag KC and tag me. See what you make. Thank you for watching. Thank you guys for watching this video. I wanted to just throw out that I do have a Patreon page and I encourage you guys to check it out. I'm really trying to give away more free patterns and giveaways and things to try to make 21. 2021 better after the horrible 2020 that we had, and my Patreon page is kind of there for people that can support me so that I can continue to do this, but you also get some really cool benefits. You get behind the scenes, you get to pick what's next with polls, exclusive patterns for certain levels, and you do get some free stuff for signing up, so it's a really cool extra. People that want to help support and like what I'm doing and help me to create more. So please check out the link below. Go check it out and see what you think. No pressure. Just putting it out there. But thank you guys for watching.