Learn A Stitch Washcloth 3: Mini Shell Stitch Crochet Washcloth Pattern

Hey everyone, it's Deja from crocheteverafter.com. Today we're doing our newest Learn-A-Stitch washcloth. This is the number three and it is the mini shell washcloth. So if you look closely you'll kind of see these little tiny band looking, I'm calling them shells, so I'm calling this a mini shell because they're very small, very easy. It's a one row pattern repeat, another washcloth repeat. And I'm also doing a new kind of edging. This is a very cool new edging that I found recently and I'll show you how to do it. But go ahead and grab some cotton yarn if you want as long as it's worsted weight and a 5mm US H and we'll get started. Okay to get started with our small shell washcloth you're going to start with a slip knot on your hook keep the tail long enough for weaving in and we're going to start We're going to start chaining. We're going to chain 22. I'm going to yarn over and come back to front. Turn my hook down and pull through the loop already on my hook. I'm going to do that 22 times. If you want to change... The size of the washcloth, or if you want to use this stitch pattern for a scarf or a blanket or anything else, you're going to change your foundation chain, or make your foundation chain, in any multiple of two. So basically just an even number of chains, and you can adjust the size of this stitch pattern. So head up to 22, and then we'll go on to do our row one instructions. Okay, I've got my 22 chains, and now we're ready to begin our first row, and what we're going to do is we're going to start in the fourth chain from our hook, so you don't count the loop on your hook, that's a working loop, you just count backwards, an easy way if you're new to crochet is just count these little loops on the side, which will be the back loop, it's also, if you look at it, you'll see that each chain looks kind of like a V, so you can count the V's as well. Whatever is easiest for you, but we're going to count 1, 2, 3, and 4, and this is where we're going to insert our hook into this fourth one. I'm going to work into the back loop of this chain because it's really fast and easy, and since we're going to put a border on this washcloth, we don't need a really nice edge. Probably for the next washcloth, I'll work into the bottom bump of the foundation chain so you can see how that looks, but for this one, we'll just go with the back loop. So I've inserted my hook into that fourth chain, and I'll go 1, 2, 3 to hook right in there. Then we're going to do a few stitches in this foundation chain. We're going to do a single crochet, so yarn over, which is kind of just laying your hook over, or laying your yarn over your hook, and grabbing it and pulling it up. Yarn over and pull through the first two. Then we're going to chain two. We're just going to kind of create our little shell. Chain two, and then we're going to go back in that same chain and do another single crochet. So when you're working in a foundation chain, if you're new, it can get a little difficult to see where you should be working. They start getting pulled out of shape. Just pull them apart, and they look more like the Vs. So if they start getting pulled out of shape, just stretch them out, and you'll see them better. But for working in the same chain, you kind of want to pull up. Because we have our previous single crochet, we have that same hole. We're going right back into that hole and doing another single crochet. So yarn over your yarn, pull it up, yarn over, and pull through two. So this is where you might want to pull together like this to find your next chain, because we're going to skip the next chain, which is right here, so you can... Pull, see where this stitch is attached, and then look for that next loop, that back loop, that's the next one we're going to skip, and then we're going to go into the next one and do the same thing we just did. We're going to single crochet, chain two, and then we're going to single crochet right back into that big hole we just created. Sorry for the voice, I'm getting over being sick, so it's coming and going. Again, we're going to skip the next chain, so you can see that loop here, and we're going to go and do the same thing in the next chain after. That's what we're going to do all the way across, just keep single crocheting, chain 2, single crochet in every other chain, and then at the end we'll meet up and I'll show you how to work that last stitch. Okay, I'm doing my last little shell here, and then you'll see that I have two chains left. Remember, we're skipping each of those chains, one chain and then we work into the next chain. For this last chain, we're doing something different. We're going to do a half double crochet. So that's going to bring us up to the height of these chain twos and how we've got what we've got going on. Don't worry how this looks kind of twisted and funny. Once we start working into it, it's all going to grow in height and it'll look correct. But we're going to half double crochet in this very last chain. So yarn over before you insert your hook. Insert your hook in that back loop, lay over your yarn and pull it up. Sometimes this last chain can be a little tight, so... Because it's the first one you work, so sometimes it's a little tight as it is. Then we're going to yarn over and pull through all three. To get through all three loops nice and easy, just turn your hook down, point it straight at the middle of your stitches here, and it's going to pull through nice and easy and you won't get caught on anything. Alright, so now for Row 2, and this is basically the same thing we're going to be doing over and over again, so this is our repeat row. We're going to start with the chain 2, as we're getting it up to the half double crochet height that we have on the ends. Remember we skipped 4 over here, so that was like a half double crochet and one of our skip stitches, like we did here. So that's why we have... So we chain 2 for like a half double crochet, and then we're going to start working into these chain 2 spaces. So this is really easy to find, really easy to work, and we're going to copy what we did with the row below. So find your first chain 2 space from the row below, insert your hook through that big hole that's there, we don't work into any loops. The rest of this project, except for the last stitch of each row, there's no loops to work into, so it's very easy. I'm going to yarn over, pull up a loop, single crochet, chain 2, and then single crochet right back into that chain 2 spot. Then I'm just skipping over to the next chain 2 spot. So I'm not doing anything in between here, I'm just going straight to the chain 2 spot and doing a single crochet, chain 2, single crochet. So this is a super easy stitch pattern because you don't really have to look where you're going, you just gotta find the next chain 2 and insert your hook in that big hole that's there. We work all the way around, so single crochet, chain 2, single crochet. So I'm going to do that across, and I'll meet up right at the end of the row so I can show you how you finish it off. Chain 2, so I'm going to do my chain 2 crochet. And then, for the very last stitch of the row, I'm going to work a half double crochet in the second chain. So we have 3 chains here. So I want to do a half double, so I'm going to count 1 and 2, and I'm just going to put my hook right there. The center of that second chain and do my half double crochet. It'll be a little bit easier to see for every row after because you just have that chain two that's over here at the very beginning. So we're going to turn our work so you can see now we're starting to flatten out here. Now we're more straight across. So now for round three, row three, we're going to chain two again and we're just going to copy what we did. So this is just a one row pattern repeat. So I'm scooping into my chain three These are the washcloths that I wanted to start out with. Nice, easy repeats that you can do in front of the TV, but you get really pretty results, really cool textures. So, we're gonna keep on going with this. I'm gonna go back to the end one more time to show you how to work into that chain two. And then you'll be on your own. Now I'm ready for my half double. Now you can see my chain two better. We have one and two. Also, if you pull. The chain that's attached to this loop there that's going on. So just get right into the middle of that chain, pull up your loop, and pull through. all three good little fast washcloth working up here, so just keep on going. We will meet back up when it's all done and put the edging on. Okay, I finished the washcloth, or at least I finished the main part, we saw through the border, but just like I was saying before, just so you can get a visual, if you're making your own and you're not following the gauge, just fold it on the diagonal, and once both sides line up, you should have close to a near-perfect square. So also, how to count these rows. If you're new to crochet, these don't look like our normal single crochet, half double crochet, where it's in a line and it's a lot easier to count. So we need to find a spot that we can recognize for each row. So because we have those little mini shells, we have the two single crochets, so these little Vs right here. These are the bottom part that goes into our stitch when we make our single crochets. So, if we just follow these up, we can count our rows. So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18. So we have 18 rows all together if you're following my gauge. It's how many rows you're going to do to get your squares. Now, we're going to put one last row, because we have this kind of dipped row up top, and we have a straight on the bottom, so we want to make this like a square, so we need to make one last row to kind of cover up all of our bumps. So what we're going to do is we're going to chain one, and then we're going to single crochet into all of the single crochets. of row 18, but we're not going to crochet into these chain two spaces. I'm going to crochet in this first stitch, this first single crochet. So remember, this looks a little confusing if you're new to crochet. It kind of looks like your stitch is facing you, but that's just part of the stitch. Turn it sideways and you'll see your actual loops that you're working into. Head under just those top two loops. Single crochet, and this is the first single crochet of the very last shell we made, so we single crochet into that. We're going to skip over these two chain twos, and we're going to single crochet into our next single crochet. Same thing, our next stitch is part of the next shell, so we single crochet in there, skip over the chain twos, single crochet in the next. We're just going to do that across. And then we're going to do the edging. So keep going with each of those single crochets to the end. Okay just finished the last single crochet so now we have a nice flat edge across the top of our washcloth and now it's time for the edging. So I had said that I was going to do a crab edging but I just found this new edging that produces the crab stitch effect but working As a normal kind of stitch. So just for reference, I'm going to show you what the crab stitch looks like. So instead of turning my work, I'm going to work backwards the way I came. So put my hook kind of going around and down. I would grab my loop, pull it up, pull through, just like kind of a normal single crochet, except I insert my hook into the next stitch here. And as I work these stitches, I would show you more if we were doing this edge, but we're not. I just want to show you what it looks like. It gives kind of this corded edge to it. So you can see it kind of wraps around and gives a corded edge. Now the new edging that I learned is going to do that same thing. It's going to be a little bit more subtle, not as fat, but I think that's going to look nice for this. And it's really easy. You don't have to work backwards, which feels kind of strange as you're doing it. And it's kind of a little fun stitch. So what you're going to do is you chain one like normal. Then you're going to insert your hook into your next stitch. So these stitches are nice and easy because it's just kind of like another row. But we're going to pull up a loop just like we're doing a single crochet. And then before we finish our single crochet, we're going to spin our hook all the way around in a circle. So we're gonna, we gotta go clockwise. So go around and up, and then just finish off your single crochet, and go into the next stitch, go clockwise, so spin it around all the way around, pull through, and you'll see that I'm starting to get that little corded edging. So it's a very interesting, easy edging where you're just going all the way around, big circle with the hook. It's going to create this cool effect. So you can see it's not quite as fat an edging as the crab stitch, or the reverse single crochet is also what it's called, but it's a lot easier to do. This little spin is quite easy to do, you just yarn over and pull through and head into the next one. And it's also, the corners are a lot more simple than trying to fit three crab stitches into one corner. Doing these little spin stitch, whatever you want to call it, spin corded stitch, they're a lot easier to fit into your corner. So as you can see, it's just giving me a little twisted edge. So we're going to go all the way to the end of the row, and then I'll show you how to do the corner over here, and we'll work down the side. We'll do a shallow side. It won't work if I did like a deep single crochet. The head over there will meet right at the end of the row. I'm at the last stitch of the row, so now we need to do three of those corded stitches in this one stitch so that we can make the turn and start working down the other end. So I'm just going right back in that same stitch. You see if you pull, you'll see the little hole right there, just head right back in. So I said I was gonna go shallow, so when I go shallow, If you saw my very first washcloth tutorial, I went nice and deep because the sides of that stitch were a little bit more holey than these last two washcloths. So this one's not too holey either, so I can do just one loop. I'm just going to grab one loop along the side. So just get under your loop, try to space them out nice and evenly, and then just do the same thing, spin it around. Don't put too many in at one area, and don't spread them out too far because it'll misshape your washcloth. If you put too many, it's going to fan out because it's going to push your washcloth apart because you have too many stitches in there. And if you don't put enough stitches, it's going to fold over the edges of your washcloth. So if you get a fan, or if you get your edges start to kind of fold over because it's getting pulled like a decrease, Need to remove some stitches and then space them out a little bit better So just kind of think of how far your normal single crochets are over here, and match that along the side. But same thing, we're just going to go down the side, then do three stitches in our corner, and go around the foundation chain side and the next side, and then we'll join up at the end. So finish your border, and then we'll meet up at the end for joining. Okay, finish the last. Stitch of this row and now I need to make my turn to join up with the very first one that I made. So I want to go back to where I made the first stitch right over here and I want to do two more so I can get a corner, or this last corner of my washcloth, I'm just doing two in that same spot. Then we're going to join with a slip stitch. So the crab stitch or the reverse single crochet in this one, they're both kind of twisted. So just get under the stitches best you can. You can even go like all the way through here to get your slip stitch. And just slip stitch that closed and then fasten it off. And then go ahead and weave in your ends and we'll take a look at the finished product. Here we got everything all done, everything all woven in. The edging is very cool. I like this effect. It's much easier than the crab stitch. So if you've done the crab stitch or the reverse single crochet before, let me know how you like this stitch if you've never seen it before. I actually picked it up. I'm doing the master's program from the Crochet Guild of America. I'm going to crochet.org to check that out. But they have a master's program, so I'm doing the whole course for that to get my master's pin. And this border was one of the actual... swatches that I have to make up, so that's how I learned this new border, which I really like. But let me know what you think of it, and just leave me comments below, but thank you all for watching!