Left Hand Motif of the Month September 2015: Circle Cluster Crochet Tutorial

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. Today is the newest motif of the month, October 2015, and this is the Circle Cluster. So just using two colors of medium worsted weight, this is just some Red Heart Super Saver, which gives nice crisp stitches, and a 5.5mm USI hook. You can make this up, you can download the pattern below, and we'll get started. So to get started, we're going to put a slipknot on our Grab the center and grab the ball of yarn, hook in and pull the same yarn that's attached to the ball to close up your slip knot. And we're going to go ahead and do six chains. So we yarn over always back to front, facing down, so you can pull through that chain nice and easy. On this very first chain, sometimes it'll be made kind of small, so if you're pulling tight and pull this through tight, you're going to get a small first chain. So one thing you can do to kind of make sure it's the same size as the rest of them is Slightly, give it just a little bit more room, and then start your first chain, and that way you won't have a super tiny first chain that's hard to work into. So again, we yarn over back to front, point down and pull through, and do that six times. That's going to give us an open ring for our motif. Six, and then we're going to join. You'll see that first chain looks just like the rest of them. We're going to join to make a circle by putting our hook in that first chain. You can go anywhere you like to this back loop. And again, yarn over. It's more like a layover at this point, it doesn't really wrap all the way around. So I lay it over and I turn my hook to catch it and I pull through, and then I pull through the loop on my hook. So now we have our open ring that we're going to work for our chain one for round one. So for round one, we'll get started right away, we're going to chain one. My stuff confused. And then we're going to do 12 single crochets around the ring. So what that means is we're going to insert our hook through the center hole, so our hole's nice and big, it's easy to see. You just see I hold on to my loop when I do this so that it doesn't slide off as I'm working, it just kind of helps to keep it in place. I reach through, I yarn over, and I pull up a loop. And then I yarn over and I pull through two for the first single crochet. So that's crocheting around the ring. So it's going around the entire ring instead of through any of the loops and that makes it able to slide. So you can fit all 12 because as you work you might run out of room and if you grab your stitches and just pull you can slide them over so the ring is visible. So go ahead and do 12 and we'll meet up at the end to join. Okay, I'm on my 12th single crochet. You can see I kind of run out of room, so I'm going to pull this over. One thing I want to point out for beginners who may not have seen any of my other videos yet is that when you're making something like this and you need to count your stitches, say you stopped counting or you lost track and you're new, it's hard to see where your stitches are. It's very difficult to make out what single crochet, where it begins and where it ends, looking at the front of it. So what I tell people to do is turn it sideways, and the tops of your stitches will always look the same. Whether it's single crochet, half double, double crochet, they all have this V look at the top of it. So count your V's. Don't count the ones around your hook, that one doesn't count. But count all of these that you see. So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. And you'll see one more V, it's kind of small, that was that chain 1. So you'll see that if you look at it, there's nothing coming out underneath it. So just make sure that you're not counting that as a stitch. When we join this, we want to go into this first single crochet, we're not going to go into the chain 1. All that does is give us a little bit of height so that very first single crochet isn't all squished down when we make it. So we're going to insert our hook under both loops. And then yarn over and pull through. And now we are all set for round two. Okay, to begin round two, we are going to do three chains. Let me say three yarn overs. Three chains, so we yarn over and then we pull through. We're going to do this three times, and this is going to count as our very first double crochet. So you'll see the instructions say, double crochet in your next stitch. So when you have something that counts as a double crochet, that takes the place of the stitch that would go here. So this is going to be our very first stitch, and then we're going to double crochet in our next stitch. So remember, if you're a beginner, turn your work sideways, look for that V, now it's upside down depending on which way you're working, and we're going to go under those two loops. So we're going to yarn over for two loops. To begin our double crochet, and then we're going to insert our hook under both loops and yarn over and pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through the first two, and then yarn over and pull through the second two. And then we're going to begin our repeat. So we're going to chain three again, but this is not counting as a double crochet, this is just as a spacer. And then we're going to double crochet in our next two stitches, so one in each. So again, I go through, I don't skip any, I'm going straight into the next one. I'm going to go into the very next one and do another one again, and then I'm going to do my repeat again. I'm going to chain 3. It tells me to do this 5 times, which is going to get me all the way around my circle. This is my last one. You'll see if you pull on it, there's a little hole. You can look for the next one, so you know not to go in that same one that you just made a double crochet. We're going to keep doing that until we get over to the end. Alright, I just did my last double crochet, and now I'm at the beginning chain 3 double crochet, but I need to do one more group of chain 3s, or not a group, but just one more chain 3, so that I can create another little spacer, like I have all the way around, and then I'm going to join with a slip stitch at the top of my chain 3, so I count 1, 2, 3, insert my hook in there, yarn over, pull through, pull my hook, And now I have my little kind of wagon wheel looking. So we're going to fasten this off. So just kind of make a really long chain. I do for an easy fasten off. Cut it. Grab my motif. Grab the yarn that's attached to the ball and pull it out. Now I have my finished round two. I'm gonna go grab the new color and we'll do round three. All right we're ready to start round three. So we're gonna put a slip knot on our hook again because we're gonna start the standing stitch pattern. So the pattern says start with or join With a DC cluster, or standing DC cluster in any chain 3 space. Whaaat? So, if you're new to crochet, and you're breezing or blazing through your pattern, and you didn't notice, um, the first page usually is kind of where special stitches might be, You see a weird stitch, like a DC cluster, and you're like, what is that? Look on your pattern, and it'll tell you exactly how to do it. So, to start a standing DC cluster, just a little bit different, so we're going to learn this stitch and do a standing stitch all at the same time, it's kind of like a DC three together, where you're putting three stitches into one, but we're only working into one space. We'll just start and you'll get the hang of it in a second. So we're going to yarn over and we're going to insert our hook through the stitch. So we're pretending like our yarn is already attached to our work, we're just going to do the stitch as if this yarn was already slip stitched together and everything is already attached. So we're going to insert through, yarn over, pull up a loop, and then to start the DC cluster we yarn over and we pull through the first two loops and we stop. Then we're going to yarn over again and go back in. So already our yarn is kind of attached now so it's a little bit easier to handle. We're going to pull up another loop, yarn over, and pull through the first two loops again. So it's kind of like starting two double crochets. We just didn't do that last yarn over and pull through the last two loops. We're gonna do this one more time. Yarn over, go through, pull up, yarn over, and pull through the first two. Now we've got four loops on our hook, and we're going to get rid of all of them with this next yarn over. So we yarn over, point our hook down so we can get through nice and easy, and pull through all four on our hook, and that's a DC cluster. Doing the standing DC cluster, it gives us no visible beginning, so normally you would chain 3 and then do like a 2 DC cluster to kind of make it all happen and to connect it to our previous color. Using this, you just start doing the stitch and there's no difference in the look of all of the rest of the ones that you're going to do. So for the pattern, we're going to do chain 4. This can be like a spacer, and then we're going to do another DC cluster in this same space. Can you see how I just kind of pull it over so I have more room? Yarn over, pull up, pull through the first two and stop, yarn over, back in, pull through the first two, stop, yarn over, go back in, pull through the first two and stop, and then yarn over and pull through all four. So I always point my hook down so I don't get stuck, because if I just kind of leave it here, I'm going to get stuck. So if I point it down... It's a lot easier, I can pull all the way through nice and easy. Okay, now pull through nice and easy. Just back up if you can't get through it right away. I was busy looking at my next instructions instead of paying attention to where my hook was. I'm gonna make sure that we are in the right spot. So we're gonna do another chain 4, and then we're gonna do that same thing. We're gonna do a DC cluster, chain 4, DC cluster, all in this next space. Oops, I'm gonna push over here. So you see I just kind of push back through to stop myself, yarn over, pull through the first two, yarn over, first two, went through, much easier that time. So this is basically what we're going to do all the way around, and then we'll meet up back at our join, and see where to put your hook. Keep doing these clusters and chain fours. It's basically a chain four and a dc cluster, just make sure you're doing two in each of these spaces. Just doing the last chain 4. There should be one between each and every cluster, and then we're going to join up with a slip stitch in the top of our very first DC cluster, and if you look at the top, you can see that it has its own V, so if you're wondering where to put your hook in all this, just look for that V, put your hook under both loops. Pull through and pull through the loop on your hook. Now we are ready for our final round. So our final round four is a very simple round. We're just going to chain one to begin. And then all we're simply going to do is four single crochets in every chain four space we come to. So we're not going to do anything in between. We're just going to go into the big space, yarn over, pull up a loop, single crochet, do that four times. And then once you finish off this chain four space, You're going to jump right over to the next one, so you're not going to do any chains, you're not going to work into that DC cluster, because remember there is a stitch. The stitch right here is connected. We're just simply skipping over it and doing four single crochets in every chain four space. Super simple, nothing fancy. So do four in every one and then we'll meet at the end and fasten off and weave in the ends and check out. With all my single crochets done, and then at the end we're just going to do a single crochet, a slip stitch, in that very first single crochet we made. So it might look a little kind of jumbled up here, all these different stitches and there's lots of Vs. Just look at your chain 4 space and kind of... Look at the V's. You have 1, 2, 3, 4. You'll see lines coming out of the chain 4 space, so you can find that very first one. You can see how there's two pieces of yarn on this stitch, and then two pieces of yarn connected to that stitch. So that's going to be your fourth stitch, the one connected here. So we're actually skipping the slip stitch and the chain 1, and we're slip stitching into that first single crochet. Yarn over, pull through, pull through the loop, and fasten off with a knot. So, it's like four ends to weave in, not too bad, but make sure you keep them in the color that they are so that you don't have anything peeking through. So, for this one that's kind of in between the pink and green, just run it back this way, and run it through all these thick stitches here, so that way you're not peeking through the green, because that would be not very cute in the big gold blanket or whatever, but I have one that's already woven in. You can see there's nothing peeking. So this is kind of a fun, easy motif. It's like a really open work kind of look. So it could be used for just tons of different stuff. I can think of a blanket probably wouldn't be the best idea, but anything that's summery or springy like a summer shawl, spring scarf, just connect them at different points and you can create a lot of different shapes with it. So that is the circle cluster. If you have any questions, leave them below and thank you for watching.