Left Hand Motif of the Month June 2013: Patriotic Circle Motif Crochet Tutorial

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com and this month's motif of the month is this patriotic round motif. It is about four inches across so it's the perfect size for a coaster, but you can also string it up and you can make like a bunting or a banner out of it for you know decoration for Fourth of July or whatever it is you may want to do. I do, but... This motif is made out of worsted weight yarn, and I'm using a 4mm USG hook. You can also do bulky yarn, and it'll be bigger, and then you can use it for a hot plate trivet that you can put your hot plates on. So this is a pretty fun and easy motif, and it is great for the 4th of July, so let me show you how to do this right now. So the first thing we're going to start is with our white yarn. Obviously you're going to need red, white, and blue if you want to make the same one that I have made. And our very first instructions are to chain four and then join that with a slip stitch to form a round. So I'm just going to chain four really quickly. Then when I go to join my round, it doesn't really matter where you're putting your hook in that very first chain You can put it just under one loop or two loops, whatever you choose Because once you do Round one, you're not going to be able to see any of this chain. So it doesn't really matter what the join looks like So to begin round 1, my instructions tell me to chain 3, and in the special notes at the very top, it's telling me that all the chain 3s count as a double crochet, so we'll count that as our very first stitch. Then it tells me to go ahead and double crochet inside the ring, so if you have trouble... If you're not used to working inside of a small ring like this, you can always grab the sides and pull it open until you find the little hole that's actually in there from where you joined, that little tiny hole right there. But once you start working into it, it's going to open up. After you get used to working into rings, So I've got my double crochet. it's a lot easier to find. This is going to make my first point of my star. Now I'm going to chain one and then I'm going to have a repeat. So I have chain one and then it tells me to double crochet two times inside my ring. And I'm going to do that four more times. And what that does is create the four other points of my five-pointed star. So I'm just quickly going through the center. Usually I will leave my tail out, I won't crochet it into the ring. You can do that also. I find that sometimes it looks a little funny when I crochet it into the ring. I usually like to weave it in at the end just so I get it how I like. Whatever works for you is perfectly fine. You can see that my hole is opening up a little bit so it's a lot easier to see and work into. Once I finish, let's see how many points I've got. I've got one, two, three, four, so I need one more. This is a really fast pattern. You can make tons of these in one night. So you can crochet a whole coaster set for your next barbecue very quickly. So I've done all five points. Now I need one more chain because I have a chain one between all of my points. So I'm going to do one more chain, and then I'm going to join my round at the top of my chain three. So I just go right through. I usually like to catch two loops when I join around. The reason being, let me show you real quick if you've never seen this. If I just pull that last back loop and I pull my slip stitch through, you can see that that loop pulls on the rest of my chains and makes a really big hole. It's not, you know, horrific or anything, but I like to catch two loops because when you catch two loops, I catch that back loop in the bottom bump, Then I slip stitch. My hole is almost non-existent. It's much smaller. Now I'm fastening off after this. So once I slip stitch, I'm going to fasten off. And the way I like to fasten off is I just make a chain, and then I pull it really long. I've got my scissors. I'm just going to cut right at the end of that loop. And then I pull my yarn out that other end that I don't need. Now I have my very first round. It doesn't look much like a star, but after our next round it will. So the next round is going to be made with the blue yarn, and the reason that I didn't join it while I was working is because I'm actually going to start working in this chain one space, or any chain one space. You're just going to pick whichever chain one space you want. So I'm going to make a slip knot, put that on my hook. Then I'm going to join my yarn with a slip stitch in that chain one space. So you can pick any of the chain ones, I usually kind of just go right after wherever I fastened off just for consistency. So I'm going to yarn over around my first round, pull that up, and then pull it through the loop that's already on my hook. So now I've connected my new color to my chain 1 space and I'm just going to pull it nice and tight because it's not really a stitch at all, it's just connecting it to your work. Now I'm going to chain 3 and again that counts as a double crochet, that counts as my very first stitch. So I had, let's see, how many stitches? I had 15 stitches in round 1 and now I'm going to double it to 30 in this round. So what I'm doing is, in that same chain one space, I'm going to do another double crochet. This is my pattern that I'm going to be repeating, and then I'm chaining one, and then doing two more double crochets in that chain one space, so we're putting all of those stitches right in that chain one space. Now this blue is a pretty dark yarn. The key to working with dark yarn, so you can see what you're doing, is bright light. So if you have trouble seeing stitches when you're working with a dark yarn like this, get a really bright light and work under it. So now my repeat is I chain one and then I'm going to go over to my next chain one space from round one and I'm going to do the same pattern. I'm going to do two double crochets and then a chain one and two double crochets. And I'm going to do that in every single chain one space that I come to. to do my entire round two. So I'm gonna go ahead and keep on working around here. Remember in between each of these little stitches you're gonna put a chain one. So don't forget that chain one in between. So it's almost like two double crochets, chain one, two double crochets, and we're gonna work all Now I am at my last chain one space. the way around. You can see how working into these spaces forces those two double crochets of round one to space out and form that star pattern. So if you were doing this, you can also make this motif in just about any color you want. If you want to use this for anything else, you can change your color scheme and have it maybe look like a flower if you wanted to. That could be cute. Lots of different options with this. But now I finished that last double crochet and my pattern reminds me that I need to chain one and then join my round because I need to chain one between all of those double crochets. So again I'm going in the top of my chain three through two loops. And what I'm going to do, I'm actually going to stop here and I'm going to release that because what I want to do is switch to my new color now. So what I like to do so that I can get kind of a clean color change is instead of using the blue to finish off my round, I'm going to join in my white for my next round, which is my CA color. So to join it in, all you're going to do is take your yarn and lay it over your hook. Oops. Lay it over your hook and then you're going to pull it through that stitch and pull it through the loop that's already on your hook. That's going to give you kind of a clean color change so that you can start your next round nice and easy. And if you've seen other motifs that I've done, you know that I love to double knot ends because I am always afraid that I'm going to end up losing my end one of these days. So when I do that, I take my End of my new color and the end of my old color and just do a really tight double knot and always keep your hook in your loop because when you start pulling on your new color it's going to pull your loop tight around your hook. So I just double knot that. Let me cut my blue so it's a little easier. Sorry for all of these ends. I'm going to show you how to weave them in at the end so that if you have trouble weaving in multiple colors I'll give you a couple pointers on that. Let me just finish off my double knot so I know I'm nice and secure. Alright, so when I weave that in, it's going to be almost invisible. I have a little bit of a little... I kind of tied that a little funny. I have a little bump, but that's okay. Usually you're only going to see the front side of these. So next, I'm on round 3, and again, I'm doing a chain 3 for my double crochet. And then... What it's telling me, it says that I'm going to double crochet in every stitch I come to. So every single double crochet that I have of round two, I'm going to double crochet in those. Then when I get to my chain one space, I'm going to double crochet twice. Now because this counts as a double crochet, I do not double crochet into this stitch below. This is taking the place of a double crochet that I would put here. So instead I'm going to double crochet into this next stitch. Plus this is a chain 3 so it would be kind of difficult to do that anyways. So that will remind you not to work into that stitch. So that's going to be my first 2 stitches. Then I'm at my chain 1 space so I'm going to do 2 double crochets in there. I come to a stitch next. Make sure that you're kind of pulling your stitches over in your chain one spaces because sometimes it can cover that very first stitch that you come to after your chain spaces. And I'm going to do a double crochet there. So it's kind of like double crochet, double crochet, two double crochets because remember there's a chain one in between each set of double crochets from the row below. So it's like we're increasing every third stitch. If that does not make sense, don't worry about it, just follow the directions of double crocheting in each double crochet you come to, and then double crochet twice in that chain one space. As you get more comfortable with crochet patterns and terminology, all that stuff I said earlier will make a little bit more sense, but don't worry about it. Because you can still make this whether you know what that means or not. So we'll just work all the way around doing two in our chain one spaces and one double crochet in each stitch we come to. My last double crochet of my last stitch and don't forget that you have a chain one right there at that very end so don't join your round right after that last single double Double crochet. You need to do two more in that space. That way you have the correct number of stitches. Remember, when you're counting your stitches, if you're new to this, when you're counting your stitches, an easy way to count is to count just the top here, count the Vs that you see. You want 40 of those, and you're counting this chain 3 as one of them. So you're going to have 39 actual double crochets for this round, and one chain 3 that counts as your 40th double crochet. So if you're not sure if you... Um, crocheted correctly, stop and count those and you'll know that you've got every space that you were supposed to. So I did those last two, now I'm going to join at the top of my chain three again. Two loops, and actually I'm going to stop because we're joining up our red for our very final round. So I'm going to do the same thing that I just did, I'm going to go ahead and cut this end right now so I can tie it off a little easier. Got my red, and again you're just going to lay it over the top of your hook to catch it Pull that through and pull that through your loop. I have really long ends on this. You don't need this long of an end. You only need maybe four inches, if that, to weave in. I'm just excessive right now. Usually I wouldn't even have this long of an end. But whatever is easier for you to sew in, because remember you have to sew all these ends in at the end. That's a much better knot. You can see how small that is. Thank So, whatever is easiest for you to thread and sew, that's the kind of length that you want to go for. Now, we are on our very final round. You can see this is a very fast project. We're going to go ahead and chain 3 again for our very first double crochet. you. And then the pattern tells us that we're going to double crochet in that same spot again. So when you're doing that, just kind of look for where you did your slip stitch. That's where you're going to insert your hook again and double crochet. And what this does is it creates an increase. It creates two double crochets in one stitch. Then it tells me to double crochet in my next four stitches. So I'm just going to do one double crochet in each of those. And we're increasing our stitch count up to 48, which will help our coaster, or whatever you're using this for, lay flat. So that's why we have kind of a strange increase this time. So we've got 4 regular double crochets, now we're going to increase again. This is where our repeat comes in. It says we're going to do 2 double crochets in our next stitch, that's going to increase us. And then we're going to do four. Double crochets in each, one double crochet in each of our next four stitches. And we're going to repeat that seven times. So we're going to work our way around following that repeat until we get to the end of the round. Now I'm here at my very last double crochet of my round and I'm going to go ahead and join it up and fasten off and start weaving it in so you can see how I like to do that. So, I've done my slip stitch, and then as I like to fasten off, I pull one chain through and pull it really long, and just tighten it down to secure it, and then I cut that end. I've already got my yarn needle ready to start weaving in ends. There's quite a few for this project, and there's eight in total if you don't, um, I'm going to crochet them into your project. I usually like to weave them in just to make sure I get them nice and tight. I'm just going to thread my yarn needle. This one has a bent tip which is really good for amigurumi but I like using it also because it's easier to kind of get under and back out because it's got that bend. So when I weave in my ends I always try to keep it in between my stitches. I don't want to go straight across this big hole right here because then I'm going to have my end messing up the look of my star. So I go in through where the thick part of my stitches are and then I can work my way up a star leg and back down a star leg. This is 100% acrylic yarn, I wanted to do it in cotton since I was kind of making it for a coaster, but I couldn't find a good royal blue. You can do cotton, you can do acrylic. Acrylic would probably be really good if you're making a banner, because it's pretty weather resistant, so if you're putting it outside for a barbecue. Even trying to felt these would probably be really neat. If you do it in a wool and then felt it, it'll be a waterproof coaster. It'll help with the water retention. So you've got lots of options. Again, you can do the bulky weight yarn. You can see I'm just kind of going back and forth all over the place to get my ends nice and secure. So that's what I'm going to do. Notice I'm only keeping it in the white, so whatever color you're working on, keep those stitches in that color. That way you don't have anything showing through the front, even if you're only working more in the back of the stitches. So the blue is a little bit more spaced out. As you can see, it's kind of like, here's one and there's one. So when I'm doing the blue, what I can do, I'll show you how I'll switch over to the other side. Usually, this one was connected up at the top. So I can go under these white to get to the next section of blue. And it won't show through on either side, because, remember, this white goes around the chain one of blue. So if you need more room to stitch in your end on the next section of blue, just go under the stitches that covered that color. So just keep on working all of your tails in. I usually try to get them a good 4 inches at the least. And that way, as you're using them over the years, if little ends start to poke out, you can just cut those off and you'll still have lots of ends that are still woven in well so that you won't end up having just a little short end that's going to stick out forever. So this is your patriotic motif, coaster, bunting, whatever you want to use it for. If you have any questions about it, go ahead and leave them below. Hopefully you make lots of them for 4th of July, and I hope everybody has a happy 4th, so thanks for watching.