Left Hand Motif of the Month: July 2013 Floral Daisy Motif Crochet Tutorial

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. Today we're going to make this floral motif of the month. It's the perfect size for a coaster, but you can also join it up and make a shawl or a scarf or even a blanket. You're just going to need scraps of yellow, white, and green. You can use medium worsted weight yarn or substitute bigger or smaller yarn to change the size. For the worsted weight, I'm going to use a 5mm hook, a US H hook. So I'm using 100% acrylic, but you can use cotton if you're going to do a coaster or whatever fabric you like. So let's grab the pattern with the link below and we'll get started. Okay, so to get started with our flower coaster, we're going to start with a yellow color for the center of our flower. I'll call it a daisy since they're kind of the same color. And we're going to do a magic adjustable loop, and we're going to crochet six single crochets into it. So when I do my magic adjustable loop, I always hold the tail on the bottom pointing to the left, and I just take my right hand and turn it down to cross over. Then I have a little ring. Then I'm going to reach to the center to be able to grab my working yarn and pull it through. So it looks kind of like a pretzel. Pull it through. And then I like to secure my magic adjustable loops with a slip knot. It's not required, you can just start doing your single crochets, but I just do that for my own personal preference. Remember crochet, you can do pretty much anything. I'm going to chain 1 and then I'm going to do 6 single crochets into my magic adjustable loop. So I just reach through the center, grab my working loop and pull that up, back through, Yarn over and pull through both loops. And you'll notice that I try to keep them close together. I don't try, I don't let them get really spread out on my ring, and that'll keep them more consistent. So I'm going to do six of these all together, and then we're going to close our ring down. Remember, if you have trouble counting the front of your stitches, if you're not paying attention, just turn it sideways and count your V's. We have all these V's sitting here, so we have one, two, three, four, five. So those are a lot easier to count than the front of your stitches sometimes. So I'm doing my sixth and final stitch for this first round. I'm going to take my little tail. It's going to grow when I pull my round closed, so it'll be long enough to weave in easily. Make sure you, if you like to do a very secure weave with sewing in your ends, make it nice And then I'm going to join with a slip stitch in my first single crochet. So remember, if it's a little difficult to tell which is your first over here, just count backwards from the stitches you made. Don't count the loop that's on your hook, count the Vs. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six. So that's where I'm going to join my round. Put your hook through both loops, yarn over and pull that through, and then slip stitch. I'm going to retug my magic adjustable loop to make sure it's closed all the way. You can also do it after, so it's not a big deal if it starts to open up. Just pull it closed when you're sewing it in. Now we're going to get started on round two. Alright, to get started with round two, my instructions tell me to chain one, and then I'm going to put two single crochets in every single crochet around. So that means I'm going to increase my six stitches into 12. So first I'm going to go ahead and just single crochet where I joined my slip stitch. So it's kind of a funny looking stitch. It's almost like a little peak here. I'm just going to go right under those two loops and pull up a loop and do my single crochet. I'm going to do that again in that same exact spot to increase. And then I'm going to go to my next stitch. I'm going to do two single crochets in there. This is making the center of our flower and after we finish this round we're going to switch over to our white color so we're going to do that right as we slip stitch to get kind of a clean color change. So we keep going all the way around. And our very last stitch, it looks like you should work into this last stitch, but actually it was from our slip stitch of the previous round, so it looks like we have a space here, but if we count our stitches, we'll see that we already have 12. So let's count, make sure we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So we don't want to work into this slip stitch right here. We're going to go ahead and join at the top, right at that very first single crochet. Just put your hook under. Oops, I'm sorry, we're going to change color, so we're going to stop right there, we're going to stick our hook there, and we're going to get our new color to join. Alright, I've got my new color, the white, and I've begun my slip stitch to join my round, but instead of finishing it off with the yellow, I'm going to join my white in. That way I can get a nice, clean color join and finish off my yellow. I always like to double knot my color changes when I'm doing These types of things, especially with a coaster, you're only going to see one side. But my knots are pretty small, so I just keep my new color on my hook so I don't lose it when I'm knotting my color change. You don't have to knot it. I just, it's my paranoia, I guess, that I like to double knot things. Otherwise, you can just leave it alone. You can go ahead and cut off your yellow tail. Make sure it's nice and long. So I'm just going to snip that and get rid of my yellow. Make it long so you can weave it in easy. And now we're ready to begin round three. So our round three instructions say to chain one, and then we're going to single crochet in that same stitch that we just did our slip stitch. So we're going to do one single crochet, and then we're going to chain two. Remember we have 12 stitches from the previous round. What we're going to do is just repeat that pattern. We're going to single crochet into our next stitch, and then we're going to chain two. Then single crochet in our next stitch. We don't skip any stitches and we're not increasing. We're just putting a chain two in between every single crochet around. So keep on going all the way around doing 12. Remember these are a little bit easier to count so make sure that you have 12 right when we get to our slip stitch. So we'll meet you right at the end there. Okay, I'm at my last single crochet, so this is my twelfth stitch, my twelfth single crochet. Before I join, I still need to do the chain two. So make sure you do your chain two, and then you're going to join at the top of that very first single crochet. Just put your hook under both loops, pull through, and slip stitch. And we'll get started on round four. Okay, we're on round four now, and we're going to start creating the petals for our flower. But first we need to kind of set ourselves up. So what we're going to do is we're going to slip stitch in this chain two space to get over to the correct area. So remember we slip stitched into this first single crochet. Now we're just going to reach through that chain two space, yarn over, and slip stitch. And that puts our hook in the right spot. Then we're just going to chain one for some height and single crochet right in that same chain two space. Now we're going to create our first petal by doing five double crochets through our next chain two space. We're not going to chain or anything to get over there. We're just going to start right from where we're at. So you're going to yarn over, stick your hook through that chain two space, yarn over again and pull up that loop, yarn over, pull through the first two loops. Yarn over, pull through the second two. So we got one double crochet made. Now we're gonna make four more of those. Pull through the first two, pull through the second two. Three and five. Once you finish your petal, We're going to go over to our next chain 2 space, and we're going to copy what we did in the first one. We're just going to do a single crochet, not slip stitch, chain 1. That was just to get our stitches in the correct spot to begin our pattern. Now this chain 2 space, we're just doing one single crochet. That's going to bring our petal down. Now we're going to start our next petal in the next chain 2 space. We're going to do 5 double crochets again. And then after that. We're going to single crochet in the next space. So that's our pattern all the way around. We're going to do five double crochets in our chain two space, single crochet in the next one. So at the very end of our round, we should have six petals. So go ahead and keep working on your petals, and then we'll meet up right at the end. Okay, I'm at my last petal. Remember, we started with a single crochet in our first chain two space, so our very very last chain two space It should be a petal, or a five double crochet. So once I finish that last petal, I'm going to join my round by slip stitching in that first single crochet that I made. So now we are almost done with the flower part. We have one more round for our flower, and then we're going to make our leaves. So let's get started on round five. Okay, so round five, we're going to start to accentuate our petals. So the first thing we're going to do is chain one, and then single crochet in that single crochet that we just joined our previous round with. Then we're going to start building our flower out by doing a half double crochet in our next stitch. So yarn over, put your hook through both loops, pull up a loop, and pull through all three at the same time. Then we're going to double crochet in our next flower, and then on our middle petal, because remember we have five double crochets of the round before, so we just worked into our first two, so now at the middle of our petal we're going to do three double crochets in that one stitch. So you're going to start with one, put your hook back in the same stitch to do your next one, then put it back one more time. We're going to make three double crochets to make the very tip of that petal. Then we're going to do a double crochet in our next stitch, and we're going to bring our petal down by doing a half double crochet in that last stitch. Then remember we had a single crochet in the middle between our petals, so we're going to do a single crochet in that stitch again. And then we're going to start our pattern over. We're going to do another half double crochet, double crochet, three double crochets at the tip of our petal, And that's the pattern that we're going to do all the way around. So the same petals, and do a single crochet in between each of these petals. A double crochet in the next stitch, a half double crochet, and a single crochet in that single crochet. So keep working all the way around until we get to that last petal there. I'm right at the end of my flower, I'm just going to do my last half double crochet. Remember we started with a single crochet, so there's no extra single to make. I'm going to join my round with a slip stitch in the top of that single crochet, and I'm going to fasten off my white. So the way I like to fasten is I just make a chain, and then I pull that really long and cut that middle of that chain. It's kind of the same as pulling out your loop and cutting your tail and then putting it through the loop. The reason I'm fastening this off instead of doing a color change like I did with the yellow to white is because the green, I need to join it at the tip of one of my petals. So let's grab our green and we'll start with our next round. Okay, we're on our sixth and final round. I'm going to go ahead and put a slip knot on my hook. So I just take my yarn and flip it over and grab my working tail, not my end tail. Pull that closed, and then I'm going to join this, you can really do it anywhere you want, I usually just kind of work right from where my last tail was, and you're going to join right at the top of the three double crochets that you made in that one double crochet of the round before, you're going to join at the top of that middle one of the three, so technically the second. And you're going to join with a slip stitch, so just pull your yarn through, and then pull it through the loop that you had on your hook, and you can just tighten that down. Okay, so to get started, what we're going to do is we're going to start working into the very next stitch. This slip stitch kind of counts for the very first stitch. So I'm going to half double crochet in my next stitch, and then I'm going to double crochet in the stitch after. I'm going to start making kind of the point of my leaf so I'm going to do two treble crochets in my very next stitch. For treble we always yarn over twice, insert our hook and we're going to put this one right in the same stitch as the last stitch, yarn over and we work off our loops in groups of two. Now we're going to make kind of a little point to our leaf and to do that we're For this set, we're going to chain two. And then we're going to slip stitch. Into this previous treble crochet, so this looks a little awkward, you're going to come down, come in front, and go under the top two loops, and then you're going to lay over your yarn and pull that back through, and I just grab onto this first loop so I can pull through easily, pull that through, and now I have a little point to my leaf. Then I'm going to do two more treble crochets, but first I'm going to skip this single crochet of the round below. So I'm not going to work into that. I'm going to work into the stitch right after. So I'm going to do two treble crochets right in there. Then, to continue our pattern on, we just mirror what we did on the other side. So I did two trebles, now I'm going to do a double crochet, then I'm going to do a half double crochet to bring it down. Then I'm going to slip stitch in that middle double crochet of the round below, and I have one leaf completed. Then I'm going to half double in the next stitch, and I'm repeating the pattern that I did over here. Remember I slip stitch, and I half double, double, two trebles, chain two, slip stitch, two trebles, double, half double. So it's just a reverse of my petals almost to get the pointed leaves. I'm doing a double crochet, and then two trebles in the next stitch. Remember we skipped the single crochet that connected all of our petals. So let me show you my slip stitch again after my chain two, because it's a little bit awkward to do. So chain two, and then I come back around from the front to the back under those top two loops. You can see there's a little hole. Push through there. Lay over my yarn, pull back through, and then I just kind of hold on to this loop so I can pull that loop through, because it gets a little difficult to try to just pull it. So I kind of grab hold of it so it doesn't turn when I'm trying to pull this loop through, and that kind of keeps it in place for me. Then I'm going to treble, I'm going to skip that single crochet, and I'm going to treble in my next stitch. So we're going to keep doing this pattern all the way around to finish off our leaves. And then we'll fasten off and weave in ends and we'll be done. So meet me at the very end of this round. I'm down to my last half double crochet. And I'm just going to slip stitch into that same round that we, or the same stitch that we joined our yarn with at the very beginning. So I just slip stitched that and then I'm going to do a little chain and pull it long to fasten off. And we'll get started on weaving in our ends. So when you're weaving in lots of ends that are different colors, you want to make sure that you're keeping your colors in the colors that you're weaving in. That doesn't make sense. Keep your tails, I have a green tail, keep it in the green, you have a white tail, keep it in the white. So as you're weaving in, don't cross colors. So that way, if you don't get it, Um, in between your stitches very well, or you don't keep it just in the wrong side of your work, it won't show through to the front. So if I put green in my white, it might show through. So I'm going to keep all my green in the same spot. So as I work, when I'm weaving in, I try to go in between stitches. So see how I'm coming out between my two loops from the front and back? I try to stay in between stitches and get to where my tall stitches are, so I don't go straight across because I have gaps in between each stitch, and if I go straight across I'm going to have ugly lines where I'm weaving in. And I pull as I weave, so I get my yarn nice and slack, and I go back and forth in between the stitches. So when you have these tall, spread out stitches, you're going to have to go Kind of in between, all the way down, and then turn around and come all the way back out so that you don't go across stitches. You can, of course, go just straight across the very top. I don't like to do that because it usually will come out after a while, after you've been using it or moving your project around. By going diagonally and weaving back and forth, you get a much tighter weave. Don't worry about splitting your yarn, so if you only catch like one ply, don't worry about that, because that'll help secure it even more, because it's such a tight ply that it'll kind of help anchor your stitches. So when I'm going across, you can see that I'm working between loops that I have. I don't just go straight across this big gap. So I'm going to weave in all six of these. And then we'll look at our finished project. All right, my motif is done. It is like perfect size for a coaster, or I can join up in my chain two points to make a blanket, a shawl, a scarf, whatever I want. See, both sides are pretty nice with the weave in. There's definitely a right and wrong side on this though, so be careful if you're making a lot of them to join up and join the correct sides when you're doing that. Um, so this is your floral motif of the month. If you have any questions, leave them below and thank you for watching.