Motif of the Month Jan 2014: Triangle Granny Crochet Tutorial

Hey everyone, it's Deja from crocheteverafter.com. Today we're going to make the newest motif of the month which is a triangle granny square and this is an actual kind of half almost it looks like a granny square that's been cut in half so we're going to make this it starts from the center and works out so it's different from my other granny triangle square where it began in the center We used worsted or I used, there's no we here, and worked its way out so I used worsted weight yarn in orange. You can use any color you want. And I used a 6mm USJ hook. So you can substitute, you can make these bigger with bulky yarn and just get a bigger hook or make them smaller with smaller yarn and a smaller hook. But let's grab our yarn and hook and we'll get started. Okay so to start off our granny triangle, what it tells us is to begin with the magic adjustable loop. So all that means is I'm going to get ready to work in a magic adjustable loop, and I do that by taking the yarn in both my hands, this is how I like to do it, I have my tail below and pointing that away, and then I'm just going to take my hand and twist it. So the hand with the loop, just twist it down, and you'll have the beginning of a magic adjustable loop So that's going to loop the correct way. Now I have my working yarn here behind my loop, and I'm going to reach through and pull it up. And then just to make it secure so I don't have to worry about it moving around everywhere as I'm working, I'm going to do a little slip knot. That's totally my choice, you don't have to do the slip knot, but everything will still move with that slip knot. Now my instructions tell me to chain three, and all my chain threes in this entire pattern are going to count as a double crochet. So that's important, that means that that is a stitch, and we're pretending that it is an actual double crochet. Then, my pattern says, DC three times into my magic adjustable loop, so I'm going to double crochet three times by yarning over, reaching through the center, grabbing my yarn by yarning over, I kind of just lay it over, right over the top, and turn my hook to grab it, and pull it up, and you'll see how everything starts moving, it kind of flops away from me Hold on to your chain 3, it'll keep your stitches in line so you're able to pull that loop up. So if you're having trouble pulling your loops through, especially on a magic adjustable loop, hold on to what you've already worked on so it doesn't flop around. Then I'm going to finish off my double crochet by taking my yarn and wrapping it around back to front, turning my hook down so it slides easily through my stitches, and I'm going to go just through those first two loops Then I yarn over and go through the next two, or the last two, and that finishes off my double crochet. So again, I yarn over, I hold on to everything as I reach through. My yarn is already kind of right there to lay right over my hook so I can grab it and pull it up. Then I'm going to yarn over from back to front. I like to grab up here so that my everything stays where I want it to stay in line. Turn my hook down and pull through the first two loops. And then I push my loops to my shaft so I keep my stitches nice and even, yarn over back to front, turn my hook down and pull through the next two. And I turn my hook down because it keeps my stitches, or it keeps my hook from getting caught on my stitches. So I'll show you what that means in the next stitch. So again I've got three double crochets, that chain three counts as one, I need one more. So I'm yarning over, going through, grabbing my loop and pulling it up. Now if I just leave my hook where it is and I pull, you see that I get stuck on my loops. So if I turn my hook straight down to where my loops are around my stitch, it pulls through really easily. I don't get stuck on anything. I grab it, turn it straight down, and pull through. Now we're going to make the point of our triangle, and we're going to do that by chaining one. And so I yarn over and I pull through. So I got chain one, and now I'm just going to repeat this. I'm going to do four double crochets, because remember that chain three counts as a double crochet. I'm going to do four double crochets on the other side of my triangle. This, of course, does not look like a triangle yet, but it will probably by the next three double crochets. And you'll see that I keep my stitches right next to each other, I don't like come way over here and start doing stitches because then I'll have big gaps in my stitches and they'll be misshapen and not quite the same. So keep all your loops real close to each other on your magic adjustable loop so that they stay the same size. Alright, I've got all four done, now I'm going to close up my loop and what this is going to do is create the bottom center of my triangle. So this is where the triangle begins. So this is the bottom of my triangle and this is where the point will be and it will get more pointy as we go. Okay, we finished row one so we're going to turn our work, turn our little triangle, and we're going to chain three. That's going to count as a double crochet again. That's going to start off our next row and give us the height we need for our first double crochet Now we're going to work on that same stitch that we just chained three out of. We're going to put three more double crochets. So it's just like the beginning of our triangle where we did chain three, three double crochets. So it's a pattern. Every time you start a row, you're going to chain three and three double crochets in that same stitch. So when you're all done, you have four stitches all together. So one, two, three, four. Now we're just going to skip all of these double crochets that we did along here. So three double crochets, we're skipping those, and we're just going to start double crocheting in this chain one space. We're going to start making the point again of our triangle. So this time we're going to do three double crochets. So we start off with four, and then every space that we come to, we're going to do three. That's going to make more sense in the next row that we come to. So now we're at the point of our triangle, so we're going to chain one again and double crochet three times in that chain one space again to start working down the other side of our triangle. And then just like we did here, we're going to skip the three double crochets, and then we're going to work into the top of this chain three. So the chain three looks a little funny. This is the bottom bumps. If we turn it over, you can see the front of our chains. All you want to do is make sure that you're at the top of your chain three, and I like to catch two loops. So what that means is, when I go to put my hook through, this is my back bump, let me bring it closer so you can see. So you can see one, two, three back bumps. In the front of the chains, here's one, two, and three. So I'm working in that third chain, I'm catching the bottom bump in the, technically, the front loop of the chain. And what that does, let me show you, when I do that you can see that the hole that it creates is not too large. So you see a little hole there. Now if I just grab one loop when I'm working into a chain stitch, so I'm just going to catch this front loop here and work it normally, you'll see that this hole is much larger because that single loop is now pulling on all these chains. You can see all these chains got a lot smaller. Because that loop is yanking the rest of them out of shape. So by working into two loops when you do a chain, when you're working into a chain stitch, it'll help keep all your chain stitches in line, not stretched out. So we gotta do four double crochets like we did at the very beginning of the row into that spot. So I've got two. Another triangle. It's starting to take shape. I have finished row 2, and you'll notice that my center ring that I closed up at the very beginning is starting to open. I can either leave it like that, I can weave it in like that if I like the little holes that I'm getting, but if you want it completely closed, right before you weave it in, just yank it closed all the way, and then you can weave it in, and it'll stay closed once you weave it in. So don't worry about if it opens up while you're working, you can fix it at the end. So now you'll see what I mean by doing three double crochets in every space. So we're going to chain three, because that's what we do for every single row, and we're going to work three more double crochets in that same stitch. So when you're looking for the stitch, if you're not sure where to put your hook, turn your work sideways, and you'll see all these Vs. These are all of our stitches. They look like stacked Vs. We want to go under the first V, the two loops only, just two loops, The front loop and the back loop, we want to catch that first stitch. So that's the one that we're doing the three more double crochets into. So from the front, you can see the little hole, but if you're having trouble figuring out where exactly to stick your hook, just turn your work and go right under that first V. And you're just going to keep going back under that V for all of your stitches. After you do the first double crochet, it opens up pretty large, so it's pretty easy It'll be easy to see after that. I said we'll do three double crochets in each space we come to. We have that chain one space, or sorry, it was just, it wasn't a chain one space, it was just a skip, but it opens up because we skipped so many stitches. We skipped three double crochets, so even though we didn't do a chain, it's still really open. So we're going to go into that without doing any chains, and we're going to double crochet Three times. Sorry if I was confusing you with the chain one. There's no chain one, it's just a big space from where we skipped lots of stitches. And you'll see because we skipped the three double crochets here, we have another space. So that's what I meant. Then we're gonna just, no chains, and just skip the next three double crochets and double crochet three times in the top of our triangle. This is a fun pattern because that's all you're really doing is you're doing four double crochets At each end, and then three in each space you come to. Then all you have to remember is your chain one at the top of your triangle. So you don't really need the pattern once you know the pattern. And you can make these as big or as small as you want. These I'm making for a tutorial on how to connect them into a blanket. That was a viewer request. So I made a bunch of these triangles, and I'm going to do another tutorial on how to connect them into a blanket. I'm not going to make a whole blanket, but I'm going to show you how to do it. But you can make scarves. You can make what would be fun is one triangle in one color, another triangle in another color, and you can connect them because when you put them together, and I'll show you after we finish this one, it looks like a regular granny square. So if you wanted to make like a two-colored granny square, you could do that. So now I've got three double crochets, just skipping the next three, and I'm going to double crochet four times again on the top of that chain three. I'm going to catch two loops, and again. So this is the pattern, this triangle is going to be 5 rows big. So we have made 3 rows so far, and it's easy to count the rows because you can just count this middle part, you can see 1, 2, and 3. So we're going to do 2 more rows of that same pattern. We turn our work, chain 3, 3 double crochets in that first stitch. So you're going to do the same stuff two more times in two more rows. And then you'll get 5 centers. You'll have 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. So I'm going to keep working until I get to the end of the 5th row and then we'll meet up so you can see what it looks like when I put 2 of the triangles together. Okay, I'm working down the back side of row 5, and I just wanted to point something out before I finish off the triangle, and that's when you're doing the jump of the 3 stitches. Because we're not doing a chain 1 and we're just going straight across, you want to keep nice and tight, so you want to keep it the size of your shaft when you're going to skip and keep everything nice and close together so that You have a stitch that's not super large So you see that my stitches are kind of all the same size So what I mean is if I were to just pull out this loop so I could get over to my next stitch and then Crocheting really loosely you'll see that the stitch is much larger than my normal double crochets So it makes it look just a little messy Um, so if you don't like that look, you know, crochet, you can do whatever you want, it's no big deal, but if you don't like the look and you're wondering why you're getting this really long stitch when you're doing your jump, that's just, you're not keeping your loops tight enough. So just hold onto the tail and keep that loop nice and tight, and it'll keep your stitch more in line with the rest of your stitches. So that is a little tip. You can use it or leave it. But I am right here at the end of my triangle and I'm going to fasten off and I'll weave in a couple of ends in case you're wondering how to weave in with all of these spaces everywhere. So if you're wondering how to join these into a blanket, how to make a rectangle out of a triangle, you can look for that tutorial. That'll be coming up pretty soon. Um or subscribe to the channel and you'll get a notification when that happens. So now I have finished my last four, I almost ran out of yarn, so perfect timing. I'm going to fasten off, and I like to fasten off by doing a chain, and then I just pull it really long and tighten it down. And I cut my end, and then I pull out the extra yarn. to have one tail. Now when you're weaving in triangles, because you have this point that you don't want to lose, you want to be a little bit more careful. In case you're wondering where I got this needle that has this little Blunt edge on the end. It was like a sewing kit for my daughter. It was like a Michaels or Joann sewing kit So if you're looking for a needle that has a little blunt edge Go to the kit section of your craft store and look at those little sewing kits that they sell Yeah, and that's where I got that. So if you really like this needle and you want to get one That's where I got it from So you want to keep this point and you'll see that if I just kind of you know start working anywhere and I pull too hard I lose my point. So you want to be careful about where you start sewing your ends in. release this end. Your middle end. It doesn't really matter because there's no point as in a pointy triangle knot, but there's no point to sewing it in because there is, we need the ends gone. So what you can do is kind of go along your edge to start so that it's not pulling inward For your point. And then start going through your stitches. Just go right down the center of your stitches. This triangle is all one color, so it's easy to weave in. I can go wherever I want. This is an easy pattern to change colors, so you could change colors on every single row if you wanted to. That'd be a lot of ends to weave in, but you can get really creative on your colors for this. So that's an option as well for this motif. I made all my triangles in orange for my sewing tutorial, so I made this one all orange as well. So as you work, you'll notice that I'm going where there are stitches. I don't want to go across these open spaces, because then I'll either close them up, or I'll have a big ol' piece of yarn right in the center of them. So I only have two ends to weave in. And you want to kind of go back and forth, and that'll help lock it in more, Instead of just going in one single straight line. go all over your work. So I'm going to weave in the other end and then I'm going to show you how these can come together to look like a square. Alright, so here's my finished triangle. It's not blocked or anything. You can block it to get it to lay flat. You can use steam blocking if it's curling at all, but they lay pretty fat. Fat. Pretty flat. I have two in orange, but pretend this is maybe purple or whatever color. You can sew them together and get a two-tone granny square. You see when they line up, they look just like a regular granny square. So that could be something that you, um, might want to do for a blanket, just to change it up a little, or make, um, opposite colors, so maybe like a orange here, purple here, purple here, orange here, you know, whatever you like. But, um, the next tutorial is going to show you how to turn this into a blanket by joining this way. So we're not going to make squares, because you can just make a granny square if you want them all the same color. But if you want the triangle look, I'm going to show you how to join those into a blanket. So if you have any questions, leave them below, and thank you for watching.