Motif of the Month May 2016: Flower Power Motif Crochet Tutorial

Alright, to get started we're going to do a slipknot on our hook, so we have our tail, just make a little loop, and you reach through and grab the tail that's attached to your working yarn, and we're going to make a big hole for the center of this motif, so we're going to chain six, so always come from the back to the front, down, slide through easily, and then we're going to join with a slip stitch in our first stitch, so just go right back to that very first V, insert your hook, kind of lay over your yarn and pull that through easier. So for round 1, what we're going to start with is a chain 5, and that's going to count as a double crochet, so these first 3 chains are taking the place of a double crochet, so we count that as a stitch. And then our next chain two is going to be a spacer between our next stitch. So the pattern for this round is going to be to double crochet into the ring, so yarn over back to front, insert through the ring, and then grab that yarn, just lays right over the top, turn it to catch it, pull that up, yarn over back to front, point it down to get through the first two loops, and the second two. So that's our double crochet here. We have a chain two, a double crochet, then we're going to chain two again. So that's our spacer that we're going to put between each, sorry, These are each double crochet. I'm going to do that all the way around so that we'll have 8 spokes on our wheel at the end of the round. Once you have 8 spokes, we will join up and do the last 2 chains and join. Okay, I've got my 8 spokes. Now I just need one more chain too. That way I have spacing between each of my double crochets. So I need to join, but I need to join in a particular spot of my chain 5, and I need to join where the top of my double crochet would be, so that would be the top of, or the third chain out of my chain 5, so I need to count up 1, 2, and 3, or you can count backwards and go 1, 2, 3, either way we need to work into that third chain and make our slip stitch to join. That is round one done. I'm using my favorite new little counter ring tool. I'm giving these away periodically on the website, so make sure you're heading over there to see what the giveaway is going on. All right, so for round two, now we're going to chain three, and that's going to count as double crochet again. And now we're going to work into these chain two spaces, which is very easy. You don't have to look for stitches, they just work all the way around them. So we're going to do three, Double crochets around here, through, one, three. And then the part that's going to be the most difficult of this round is working the next stitch, because you want to work it into the top of the next double crochet. So sometimes the ones that you work around the chains can cover up your stitch that you should be working into. So you can kind of see it, you can kind of see that little V right here. You can kind of pull this over if you need more room. You can see it kind of opening up right there, that little hole that we have. Right here, that's where we want to work into. Yarn over, insert our hook, make sure we catch those two loops at the top, and do our double crochet. Then again, we're going to do three in our chain two space, and then find the top of our double crochet, it's sitting right there, and do that. And then we're going to just do that all the way around, in this circle now. Okay, I just made my last three double crochets in that chain two space, so this chain three that we began with was attached to this first double crochet, it counts as a double crochet, so we are done with the round, now we just need to join, so again, we're joining at the top of our double crochet, which is our chain three, so we go one, two, and three, and slip stitch right there, and then we are ready for round three. So I'm going to chain 7 this time, and that's going to count as a double crochet, so 1-2-3 my double crochet, and then a chain 4, which is going to count as a, I call these petals because it's a flower to me, and then we're going to skip our next stitch. So this chain 7 counts as a double crochet and a chain 4, so that counts as a stitch On top of my last. So I'm skipping my next one. So this next post right here, I need to skip. I'll look at the V and skip that. Then I'm going to do a double crochet in the one after. Yarn over, skip that next stitch, and then go under both of those loops. You see they're kind of facing you. As you work them around, they kind of tilt towards you. So you need to come up and under those two loops. And then do your double crochet. Notice the chain kind of like curls around your hook, just kind of move it out of the way as you're working and it will go back to normal. So that's what we're doing for this round, very simple. We're going to chain four. One, two, four, make them nice and uniform. Then we're going to skip our next stitch, so that one is attached to that post. Skip this next post and we go into the one after and do a double crochet there. So we are doing a total of 16 of the double crochets going to the 1F. So you see, even I have to kind of stop and work, like, where was my last stitch? Okay, there's my last stitch. Skip that one, work into that one. So take your time when you're putting these in so that you don't end up skipping too many or too few and being off and then having to rip the whole thing out and start over. So we're gonna work all the way around the circle and then we're almost done with the motif. Last chain four, last double crochet. So I skipped that one. If I did this correctly, I should have a space here and a space here. Because we want a space between the very last double crochet and the very... I keep missing my yarn. And the very first double crochet. So we need to do one more chain four because we can't just join it like that or we'll have a funny petal. And then same thing, we've got to join at the top or the third chain, top of our double crochet. So we go one, two, three. Insert there, but technically you could stop after this round. I just think that the petals are very messy looking so you were to do like a join as you go because what you could do while you're making these chains is This is interesting. interlock them with the next motif. So if I took this finished one, this one has the last row on it, but if I wanted to join these up, I could reach through the petal, pull this through, And then do one of my chains like that and then do my join or whatever it may be. I would join up. I would do it much neater and make sure that they're all facing the same way. But I could join them as I go that way. The only problem is the ones that I don't join up are going to be floppy. So I don't really like that look so that's why I put this last round on here. But it's up to you. You could stop right now if you wanted to. I am going to do one last round And it's easy, it's just single crochets. Chain one, and then we're just going to single crochet inside of all these chain spaces. So we're going to do four inside of each chain. We're going to stiffen up those petals and make them not... you could definitely starch this, that's probably the best way to get it not floppy if you didn't want to do this last round. If you just block it, these are still very... They're very thin, so they will still probably move around. If you're using this for an applique though and you're sewing it, you should be fine too if you want to do this last round. But we're just putting four in each chain four space. We're not doing anything right over it all the way around. I'm just going to join with a slip stitch in the top of the very first single crochet. The one in purple that I was showing you earlier. And the reason why is because I think this would be such a cute motif for like a really summery looking blanket. Or even if you did this in really chunky yarn, this would be like a really cute, um, whatever you lock on. Connect these in little spots and you can have like a really cute summer rug that you could put in your bathroom or whatever it may be. Just make sure that you get yarn that you can wash. But that would be a really cute option for these. So this is one with all the ends woven in. Just two ends when you do the single colors. But you can definitely do a couple colors for the rounds if you wanted to. But I like kind of these solid colors and adding them all together. So that is the main motif. If you have any questions, leave them below. And thank you for watching.