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In this Crochet for Knitters Series weíve been covering a lot of different techniques,
and finally we get to put them together for a project.
And weíre going to learn how to make granny squares here.
And when I say granny squares, I mean these squares like this.
In this little sample here, these are squares that are this big, that are all seamed together
like this.
And you can do it that way, or I have this long-term project here [laughs] excuse me.
Where I am making one giant granny square, without seaming anything together.
And Iím using leftover yarn for this. And so this is a really long term project because
Iím collecting more dk weight yarn. Or, this is actually fingering weight yarn, to keep
making this project.
And Iíve used a lot of yarn so far, and now Iím waiting for more leftovers so I can keep
working on this.
But, the granny squares work up really quickly, itís an easy way to make a blanket, a quick
way to make a blanket.
And so far in these crochet techniques, weíve been stabbing into stitches, which can be
hard to get your crochet hook in there.
This goes so much faster. Because granny squares, we stab into these big gaps that are created
when we chain.
It will all be clear in just a minute.
Letís go ahead and get started right away with this.
Oh! There is a download associated with this video. If youíd like to get your free copy
of the granny squares pattern, you can click the link below, take you to my website, and
you can get your pattern.
Okay, letís take a look.
Here we are, weíre going to start with a slip knot, like we always do.
Iím going to chain four.
Okay.
Weíre going to make a chain ring with this, so I want to connect this around to itself.
Actually, for demonstration, Iím going to go ahead and chain an extra one.
I want to slip stitch into this stitch here, and Iím going to slip stitch into the left
leg of this stitch.
If you need a review of the slip stitch, Iíll give you a link here.
So Iíll stab into there, pull up a loop, and pull it through the second one as well.
Ta-da! We have a tiny ring.
Now granny squares are just a bunch of clusters of three double crochets together.
Iím going to chain three to get myself setup to work a double crochet.
And if you need a review of double crochet, Iíll give you a link right here.
Iím going to yarn over, stab into the center of the ring, grab a loop and pull it up, giving
me three loops on the hook, grab the yarn pull through two, grab the yarn pull through
two.
Just a regular double crochet.
Yarn over, stab into the center of the ring, grab the yarn and pull up a loop, grab the
yarn pull through two, grab the yarn pull through two.
Iím going to smush those together, those double crochets.
What I have here, when I start out itís a bit different than the rest of it.
I have a chain three here, then I have a double crochet and a double crochet.
It looks like three double crochets, because we are counting that chain three as the first
double crochet.
So that counts as a cluster of three.
Iím going to chain two.
And Iím going to work another cluster of double crochets.
Okay, I actually worked three this time, smush those around.
Chain two.
And work another cluster.
And while youíre working through this, I am working kind of quickly, you can just pause
the video to catch up, and work your double crochets, and then we can essentially move
on to the next step together.
So now I have one, two, three clusters of double crochets. I need to work one more.
Chain two.
Okay. Four clusters of three double crochets, chain two.
And I want to connect this into, umm, kind of a circle, kind of a square, at this point.
So Iím going to slip stitch into one, two, the third chain.
This is the chain three that we did right at the beginning.
Iím going to slip stitch into this third chain.
And there we are.
Take a look at this.
You should have four distinct gaps, where you chained two, with a double crochet cluster
between each one.
And it is already looking like a square.
Go ahead and catch up with me, and what weíve done here, and next up weíre going to move
on to the next round, or the second round.
Hopefully youíve caught up with me and youíve finished your first round, weíre going to
go into the second round of the granny square.
And when I work granny squares ñ you can do all kinds of different things with colors
and the way you put them together and everything else.
Iím kind of stuck on this thing where I change colors every two rounds.
So we did the first round in this red color.
Iím going to continue with the second round in this red color.
Letís go ahead and take a look.
Hereís a granny square that I did.
And thereís my first round, and thereís my second round, in pink.
And then I changed to this cream color for the third and fourth round, and then I did
border colors in this green, for the fifth and sixth round.
Okay.
Here we are with our first round finished.
And we were stabbing into the center circle for the first round.
Weíre going to be stabbing into these four corner gaps right here, for the second round.
And our working loop is right here.
We need to travel over to get to this gap here.
And to do that, Iím going to slip stitch, usually I find that just two slipped stitches
will get me close enough to this gap.
Iím going to slip stitch into the back leg the right leg, I guess of the V here, grab
the yarn, pull through both, stab, grab the yarn, pull through both.
And then I want to slip stitch into this gap.
So I stab into the gap, grab the yarn, pull up a loop, pull it through the loop on the
hook.
Let me show you that one more time.
Stab into the gap, grab the yarn and pull up a loop, then pull it through the loop on
the hook.
Okay, now Iím actually in this gap and ready to start working.
So I chain three to get started, get myself set up for double crochet.
And Iím going to work ñ you guessed it. Another cluster of three double crochets.
Just like with the first row, that first chain that I did counts as one of the double crochets.
So one, two, three, chain two.
And Iím going to work a second cluster into this same corner.
Okay.
So I have two clusters of three double crochets with a chain two between them in this corner.
Iím ready to travel over and start working in this corner.
Iím going to chain one this time. We only chain two on the corners, we chain one when
weíre working across to the next corner.
Iím going to work my first cluster.
Chain two.
[laughs] My working yarn fell on the floor a long time ago, and I didnít bother picking
it up [laughs], so Iím just going to pull a bunch of yarn on the table.
You notice Iím always squishing the stitches over to make room for the next one.
Okay.
One, two, three, chain two, one, two, three. Iím ready to travel over to the next gap,
so I chain one.
And work two more double crochet clusters.
Smush those over, chain two.
Chain one to move on to the next gap.
You see how much more quickly this goes when youíre not carefully stabbing into a stitch.
I think thatís the slowest part of crochet, is when you have to really watch where youíre
putting your hook into the work. And you just donít with granny squares.
Chain two.
Work my second cluster.
Okay.
Iím going to chain one here, because Iím traveling over to this one.
And just like we did with the first round, I need to connect this side to this side.
So I count up one, two, three, and slip stitch into that stitch to connect them.
Now let me straighten this out so we can take a look.
I should have four distinct corners.
With a chain one gap between each one.
Next up in round three, Iím going to show you how to change colors.
Okay, hopefully youíve caught up with finishing that round.
Weíre going to move on to the third round, and change colors this time.
Letís go ahead and take a look.
This is exactly where we left off in the last video, I have this one loop left here.
And all Iím going to do is just break the yarn, and pull that through, just like how
we fasten off in knitting.
Now, last time, we had to travel with slip stitches over to get to the next gap.
When you change colors you donít have to do that.
Umm, I apologize for the colors here. I guess itís kind of christmasey looking. [laughs]
But, it should be easy to see, at least!
I am going to start in a corner. Because I always start a new color in a corner.
You can start in a side gap if you like.
But I am going to stab into a corner, and just like when Iím attaching new yarn when
Iím knitting, Iím going to fold the yarn over, leaving myself about a six inch tail,
and make a loop, put that on the hook and pull up a loop.
Now to get started weíre going to chain three. To get started with double crochet I want
to chain three.
The one thing that I like to do to help secure the tail end is I hold both strands together
for the chain three.
Okay. So my end is kind ofÖuhh, Itís probably pretty much woven in there. I might want to
weave it in a little bit more, but itís pretty much woven in.
Now Iím going to work two clusters of three double crochet in this corner.
Anyway, thatís the way to change colors. You really just start working with it, and
chain up.
Oh, this yarn is so much smoother than the red yarn!
So again, just like with the other corners, the chain three that I did counts as double
crochet, Iím did two more, Iím going to chain two ñ Iím sorry, Iím going to chain
one. Because Iím going to travel over to this side gap here.
And Iím going to work one cluster of double crochets in this side gap.
This is where it starts to get a little bit different. Because the sides are becoming
longer.
So not everything is a corner anymore.
It will be clear here in just a minute.
So Iím going to chain one to travel over here.
To work two double crochet clusters in this corner.
And after I get these worked, I will go over again how the pattern is emerging here.
Hereís one, Iím going to chain two, because itís a corner.
Okay, letís talk about what we just did.
Whoops! I only worked one over here in this corner!
I need a second one! But I can catch it on the way over.
Okay, letís just look at the part I did here. [laughs]
We have two clusters of double crochets here, because itís a corner.
We have just one cluster here, because itís a side.
And Iím going to work a second one here.
If I had been thinking about it, I would have worked the second one while I was there, but
since itís the beginning of the row, I can just work it in there when I get all the way
around the whole side.
So now, as I go over to this side, I have this side gap here, where Iím going to work
one double crochet cluster.
And I have the corner, where Iím going to work two.
When Iím traveling from one gap to the next, I chain one between.
So Iím going to chain one, one double crochet cluster, chain one, and then a double crochet
cluster here, chain two, a second double crochet cluster in here.
Letís actually do it.
Chain one.
One cluster of three double crochets.
I should have been working with this yarn all along! It is so smooth!
It has baby alpaca in it.
Chain one.
To travel over to this gap.
Chain two after the first cluster.
And there you have it. You continue that around for this whole round.
And then from here on out, the only thing that really changes is that youíre going
to end up with more side gaps, thatís what I call them.
There is always going to be four corners, but youíll have more side gaps like these
here, where youíll work a cluster of one in each one.
If you follow the pattern, it will tell you exactly how to continue working for the other
rounds.
Next up, Iím going to show you how to seam the granny squares together.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this lesson, you have the option of doing a bunch of granny
squares and seaming them together like this, or you can keep working around and around,
like I did here, where itís just one giant granny square with no seaming.
I will tell you that if you choose to do it this way, youíre going to need greater and
greater and greater amounts of yarn to actually make it all the way around the whole thing!
[laughs] in one color.
Which is one of the reasons this project is on hold until I get a lot more of this weight
of yarn to keep working on that leftover blanket.
Okay, Iím going to show you how to seam here.
And crocheted seaming is really easy to do. Easier than mattress stitch. Letís go ahead
and take a look.
I have these two giant granny squares finished here.
And crochet isnít all that different from the right side to the wrong side.
But the wrong side youíll have your tail end, hopefully sticking out on the wrong side,
and the stitches look a little flatter.
Once you look at it, crochet for a while, it becomes easy to tell which is which.
The reason Iím mentioning this is because weíre going to seam on the wrong side of
the work.
Weíre going to have the wrong side of the work facing out.
And Iím actually going to turn it this way.
Now, the sides of the crochet looks like a bind off row.
With a bunch of Vs, and thatís exactly how weíre going to be ñ thatís exactly what
weíre going to work into as we seam.
Weíre going to find the bottom corner over here on this first one, and Iím going to
work into the bottom V, or what I would call the right leg of the V.
Iím going to stab into there.
And then over here, my Vs are going this way, Iím going to work into the top leg of the
V.
So Iím leaving a leg of V on the inside of the work.
Or on the right side of the work.
So I stab into both of those, and this is really just slip stitch.
Iím going to attach the yarn. If you were thinking ahead, you could have left long tails,
I suppose, at the end of your work.
Iím going to fold the yarn over, leaving myself like a six inch tail to weave in.
Loop it around the hook, and pull it through both loops.
Then again, Iím going to stab into the outside leg of the top, and the outside leg of the
bottom.
Grab the yarn and pull it through all three loops.
Outside leg, outside leg. Whoops, I grabbed too much there.
Grab the yarn and pull it through all three loops.
Iím slip stitching these, as I seam them.
And I want to show you what Iím talking about here, why weíre grabbing the outside legs.
Because it gives you this border, between the squares.
By leaving the leg of the V on the right side of the work and just grabbing the ones on
the outside, it gives you this border, which is really nice.
If you donít want the border, you can stab through both legs of the V, and have it go
like that, but I think it looks good.
Let me show you again.
Stab into the outside leg, the outside leg, grab the yarn, and pull it through all three
loops.
You see how quickly this goes.
And itís not just because Iím using super bulky yarn, this really does go quickly.
Whoops.
Letís take a quick look at how this looks on the right side.
Youíll see that border that I was talking about, showing up here like this.
Doesnít it look good?
Now when youíre seaming granny squares, I recommend that you do it just like you were
seaming blocks in knitting.
Seam blocks together all the way across to make a long strip.
And then seam the long strips together.
So seam these boxes together this way, and then seam the long strips together like that.
And that will do it! Youíre well on your way to making your granny square blanket!
Good luck.
[music]