Left Hand Motif of the Month October 2013 Wagon Wheel Motif

Hey everyone, it's Deja Yetmir from CrochetEverAfter.com, and today we are making our newest motif of the month. And this is commonly called a wagon wheel motif. Since it's October, I'm making it in my favorite alternate Halloween colors, purple and green. So I'm just using some medium weight Knit Picks Bravo Worsted. In the purple and green color, and I'm going to be using a 6mm US J hook for the project. You can substitute with a smaller hook if you want kind of a smaller motif. You can pair, or you can use these as a coaster, you can join them around the edges to make a blanket, a shawl, just about anything, even though it's circular. But let's grab the pattern with the link below the video, and you can go ahead and get started with me. Alright, so to begin our project, what we're going to do is put a slipknot on our hook. The tail you just want long enough to be able to weave in, no specific length. And then we're just going to chain four so that we can make an open center ring for our project. So we yarn over, turn our hook down so we can pull easily through our loop, yarn over, pull through, and yarn over and pull through. So once you have your four chains then you're going to join with a slip stitch in the first chain that you made. So you can grab just the back loop or the back loop and bottom bump, whichever you prefer. It doesn't really matter because after we're done working round one, you won't be able to see it anyways. So I'm just going to put my hook right through that loop, yarn over and pull through that loop and then pull through the loop that's on my hook to finish my slip stitch. So now I have a complete ring and I have a center hole that I'm going to be working in for round one. Okay, now I'm ready for my round one instructions. What it's telling me is I'm going to do a special stitch called a DC Puff. Now, if you've never seen special stitches before, if you look above at the beginning of your pattern, it will usually give you the instructions on how to perform those special stitches. So for this DC Puff, what I'm going to do is I'm going to yarn over, and I'm going to insert my hook into the center of my chain four. I'm inserting it right into the center of my ring, and I'm yarning over and pulling up a loop. And it says to do that twice, so that means I'm going to yarn over again, go back in the center, and pull up another loop. Now I have five loops on my hook. My last step of my DC puff is to yarn over and just pull through all five of those. So now my puff is complete, and part of my repeat is to chain one. So that kind of locks my DC puff into place and allows me to start making my next one. I usually like to leave my tail out of small rings like this rather than working them in because Even if I work around this tail, I'm still going to have it sticking out at the end, so I'd rather just leave it out now so I don't have to worry about it, and I can weave it in at the end. So now I'm going to do another DC puff, yarn over again. You can see my hole has opened up more, so I can easily find where to put my hook. I'm going to insert my hook, yarn over, or lay over as I usually say, pull up that loop, yarn over, insert back in, pull it up, And I kind of pull high, usually I like to keep my loops the same size as my shaft, and I do that when I have regular stitches, but this DC puff, I want this center of my motif to be nice and puffy and large, so I'm pulling up my loop kind of as high as I can go, where I'm still keeping this loop the same size as my shaft, so just keep pulling those up, Each one is going to get a little taller than the last. Then I have five loops. I'm going to yarn over and pull through all five and then make that chain one. The chain one I keep the same size as my shaft also just to keep my stitches nice and even on top. So the only time I'm pulling out the loops are on my DC puff. So again, yarn over, insert into the center, yarn over, pull up a loop, pull it up nice and high, yarn over, insert, pull it nice and high. And then keep this last loop the same size as your shaft, so that way when you do your chain one, all of your stitches along the edge are looking the same size. So I've done three, I need to do five more, so continue around making your DC puffs and your chain one until you get a total of eight. I'm on my last DC puff, got the five loops, yarning over, then I have that very last chain one. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to join my round by slip stitching in the top of that very first DC puff. So I'm just going to put my hook through both loops, yarn over and pull that through, and then pull through the loop that's on my hook to finish off my slip stitch. So now I have all eight completed. And it tells me to fasten off and the reason that I'm not just joining my color is because I'm actually going to join it in those chain one spaces. So I need to fasten off my purple so I can start working with my green and I usually do like a long chain to fasten off. So we'll cut this and we'll get our green to start round two. Alright, I've got round one all finished and fastened off, and now I'm ready to join round two. So I'm going to be adding in my green color now. So start with a slip knot on your hook, always leave your tail long enough for you to comfortably weave in. So if you are good with weaving in short tails, you can make it short. If you like long tails to be able to sew easily, make them nice and long. Mine are usually 6 to 12 inches depending on how I feel. So the next instruction is with With the slip knot on my hook, I'm going to join my color at any of my chain one spaces. So I usually kind of just go, keep going in my circle. So I go to the next one that I come to after my fasten off, and I'm going to join it with a slip stitch. So I'm going to just grab it, grab with my hook, and pull it through, my tail over, and just pull through the loop that's already on my hook. And then I'm going to tighten that down, because that's just to join. It's not a stitch. That needs to be seen. So you want to tighten it down so it's just attached... Then I'm going to chain three and it says this chain three counts as a double crochet. So you can make it a beefed up chain three which I'll show you what that means. What I like to do if it's going to count as a stitch is usually make it a little bit beefier. So I pull out the loop a little bit each time I make a chain and I yarn over and pull through the loop and pull it out a little. Pull through and pull it out a little and pull through. The reason that I do this is because I'm going to be doing another double crochet in this chain one space also. When I do that, it kind of squishes down my chain three and it makes it look more like a double crochet instead of a skinny chain three that it is. So you'll see when I come back around that it's going to blend in better than if I just I just did a normal chain 3. Now, my next actual instruction is to chain two, and then we're going to have a repeat. So I'm just going to do a normal chain two, and then I'm going to go ahead and double crochet two times in my next chain one space. And that's what my repeat is going to be all the way around. Every chain one space I come to, I'm going to do two double crochets, and in between each of my two double crochets, I'm doing two chains. So we're going to do that all the way around for round two, and then join up and fasten off again. So two double crochets, two double crochets. When you're working into these chain one spaces, go all the way around the stitch. Don't try to find just a back loop or the top two loops. Just go all the way around the stitch and that's going to help open up your centers here because you want that nice big hole to show. Okay, I'm at my last. Double crochets and I just have two more chains to make and then I'm going to join my round. I'm going to join at the top of my chain three, so I find my third chain by counting up and I always like to catch two loops when I join with my chain and I'll show you why if you've never seen before. If I was to just grab my back loop like when I'm working foundation chain I usually just grab the back loop If I grab that for my slip stitch, you see that it pulls all my other chains out of shape and creates this big hole. So by catching two loops, it keeps my chains, pulling those to get them back to how they were, it keeps them from pulling out of shape. So grab your back loop and your bottom bump, and then slip stitch. And you'll see that it doesn't pull on the rest of them. Now I'm going to fasten this off so that I can begin round three. So when I fasten off, I just yarn over and pull a chain, and then pull it really long and tighten it down to cut it. Now I'm going to join up for round three, and I'm going to show you a little trick on how you can start a new round without slip stitching to join, so stick around for that All right, we've got round one and two done, getting lots of tails. We're gonna have lots of tails by the end of this. And now I'm going to show you a trick on how to begin a round without slip stitching and using chains. So as you can see, this is my beefed up chain three, so you can see it kind of blends in better with my double crochets rather than just a skinny chain three. So to begin this trick, You're going to start with a slip knot on your hook. Just like before, so this is going to take place of the pattern instructions that say join with a slip stitch and then chain 3. What we're going to do actually instead is join with a double crochet. Now the way we do this and the reason that it's not written in the pattern is because it's kind of hard to explain in words. You kind of have to see it to understand it. So with our slip stitch we're going to start doing a double crochet. We're going to yarn over. And we're joining in any chain 2 space. So again, I like to go just kind of left of where I fastened off. And I lost my yarn over, so make sure that you kind of hold on to it so it doesn't slip around like that and you lose it. So yarn over and kind of hold on to it. Then, you're going to insert your hook, keep your tail behind you, insert your hook in that chain 2 space. Then, we're just going to kind of do a regular double crochet. Yarn over, pull up your loop. You've got three loops, make sure you hold on to your loops so they don't unwind themselves. Yarn over, pull through the first two, yarn over, and pull through the last two. Now, we have just begun our round with a double crochet instead of that chain 3. So now we're really not going to be seeing a skinny chain 3 on this round. You can substitute this for any kind of pattern that wants you to join a new round with a chain 3. Okay, and when you make this stitch, don't worry about the tail being up top instead of being joined at the bottom like it would with a slip stitch. It's still the same process of weaving it and you still want to hide it in your stitches so it doesn't really matter whether the tail's up top or down below, so don't worry about that. Now, our pattern tells us that all in this same chain two space, we're going to do another Another double crochet. Then we're going to chain one and then do two double crochets. All going around that chain two and we work around the chains so that we get that nice big open hole again. Now we're going to chain one and start working our pattern repeat. So our pattern repeat tells us to double crochet two times, chain one, double crochet two times in every chain two space that we come to. And after we make this little pattern of our two double crochets, our chain one, In our two double crochets, before we start the next one, we're going to put one chain in between each of those. So I do one chain after that second set, and so what it essentially is, is two double crochets, chain one, two double crochets, chain one, all the way around. So again I'm going to do two double crochets, chain one, two double crochets again, in the same spot. And chain one again. I'm going to keep doing that in every single space I come to. So I'm going to make eight of these in all. Keep on working around and we'll meet up at the end of this round. I'm going to do my last two double crochets in my last chain two space. Sometimes these tails get in the way. Just kind of pull them aside if they're bothering you. Then all I have left is my chain one. Then I'm going to join up my round with a slip stitch in the top of my... Double crochet, since I didn't do a chain three, but I have just the normal V loop on top of the V stitch from my double crochet, so it's nice and easy to join with a slip stitch. So that's another benefit of working that joining double crochet instead of the chain three. So once again, I'm going to fasten off, because I'm going to do another double crochet join. So you can see that again with my green from my very last round. Cut this and get our green yarn. Okay, I'm ready to join in my green, so I'm going to do my double crochet join again so you can see that. So once again, we're going to start with a slip knot on our hook. If you're following the pattern, no problem, you can just do the slip stitch in chain three. But if you'd like to try this technique, it's pretty easy, you just got to hold on to your Loops so they don't start spinning around on you. So I can join with any chain 1 space it tells me. So again, I'm just going to go to the left of where I fastened off into that very first chain 1 space. So I'm going to first yarn over and hold onto my loop, and then put my hook through that chain 1 space, lay over my yarn, and pull up my loop, and then I'm going to finish off my double crochet. Okay so pull through the first two. Yarn over, pull through the second two. And notice I grab this tail when I'm pulling through. So if you're having trouble pulling through because it's moving as you're working, grab the tail with any fingers that you can, and it'll hold your loop steady so you can pull through easily. So that'll help you finish off your stitch. Now, we just have our last round to do, And what we're going to do is two more double crochets. In this same chain one space. So we're going to have three double crochets and then we're going to start our pattern. We're going to do a chain one. That's the end of the pattern actually. But we're going to chain, I'm sorry, double crochet three times in every chain one space that we come to. And in between those three double crochets we're putting a chain one. So we do three double crochets, a chain one. Then I go to my next chain one space, three double crochets in there, I'm going to do another chain one into my next chain one space. As you can see, the ones in between the two doubles in here are a lot bigger, so those are easy to see. When you get to your chain one space, you've got the connected double crochets in that from the round before, it's a little smaller, so don't skip those, you need to put your I'm going to put my double crochets in there. Find that chain one space, and put three double crochets in there. And you're doing this a total of 16 times, so you're going to have 16 groups of three when you're done. So continue going around with these three double crochets, and we'll meet up right at the end of the round again. I've got my last set of three double crochets. This is where I joined my last round, so I have all these tails sticking up everywhere. Just kind of work around them, push them to the side, until you're ready to weave them in. I'm just going to do my last single crochet and join up. Again, I have that nice V-stitch at the top so I can easily join my round. I finished my slip stitch and then I can fasten off. And I'm almost done. All I have to do is weave in my ends. So get your... Okay, cut it with the... Hold on. So get your yarn needle out. Follow your stitches and your color to weave in your ends. A total of eight ends to weave in. So this is a really cute project. four colors but you will have a lot of ends to weave in so keep that in mind if you're going to be making a lot of these you probably want to weave as you go so you're not having a thousand ends to weave in at the very end but this is your finished wagon wheel you can use four different colors if you want or just keep it with the two or make them all one color But if you have any questions, leave them below and thank you for watching.