14-Day Learn to Crochet—Project: Elemental Beanie

Hi, I'm Brenda K.B. Anderson, welcome back to the 14 day Learn to Crochet series. In this video, I'm going to be teaching you how to make this elemental beanie pattern. Here's the sample. It's just a simple top-down hat that begins with a magic ring, and you work your way down, and then we change stitch pattern down here at the bottom for a nice bit of contrast. I'll be walking you through how to create this hat, and we're gonna take a look at the pattern first, and then we'll talk a little bit about yarn, and then we're gonna begin. So when looking at the pattern, you'll see towards the top that there is a section about the sizing. So you'll have to figure out which size that you wanna make first before you begin, and when you're looking at that section, there's a bunch of numbers. So the first number, 17.5, that's outside of the parentheses and then there's three more numbers within the parentheses. So what does all that mean? That's a lot of numbers. The numbers all correspond to different sizes, so if you're making 17.5 inch circumference hat you would always look at the number that's in front of the parentheses within the directions. For example, if you go down to the pattern section, underneath beanie, and you take a look at what says rounds seven through eight and then in parentheses, it says seven through nine, seven through 10, seven through 11. What all those directions are telling you how many times to work, how many rounds you're doing depending on what size you're doing. So if we're doing the first size, you would only work round seven through eight. If you are doing larger sizes, you just follow the corresponding information here depending on where your size is located within the parentheses. So if you're doing the first set of directions in the parentheses, you would follow the directions right after the parentheses start here and for rounds seven through nine. So sizing within the pattern, this is an easy way for us to condense all the information for all the different sizes at the same time, but you also have to keep track of which number you should be following. And I think for somebody who's starting out, the best way to do that is to just go through and highlight all the things that pertain to you and your size. So you would use your highlighter and you would highlight 17.5 if you were doing the smallest size, and then you would go through and look for anywhere where there's a set of parentheses and highlight what's just on the outside of the parentheses that pertains to your size. And that way, when you look at it later, it'll be easy to follow along and you won't get confused and do the information for a different size. So let's talk about yarn. You'll need to choose a yarn that is a CYCA number four, that's right here, that's also known as a worsted weight yarn. And I would look for something that's acrylic, or wool, or some kind of acrylic wool blend because that will be easy to work with, and try to find something that is smooth and preferably not a lot of color contrast going on, so you can see what you're doing and see your stitches. So let's begin working our hat. I'm gonna pull out the center here, and your hat begins with working in a magic ring or magic loop, adjustable loop, all the different names for that. Here, let's look at our stitch diagram really quickly. This is the magic ring here, and then we're gonna be working six single crochets into that magic ring. And this hat is made without joining, so we won't be doing any joints in between our rounds. So we're gonna make that magic loop or magic ring, so make your yarn into a circle and then you will take that and flip it over so it's laying across the strand of yarn that's connected to your ball of yarn, and you're gonna pick that up with your hook. And then we're gonna do one little chain to anchor our stitches, and then we're gonna do six single crochets into that loop. So one, two, three, four, five, six. And unlike most patterns, you actually don't need to do your gauge swatch before you start on this hat, because we're gonna be using the beginning of our hat to check our gauge. So we've got six and then we go on to round two where we do two single crochets into each single crochet round so we're doing an increase each time. So one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. And one more. We should have 12 stitches at this point, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. So this would be a good point after we do the next stitch to put a stitch marker in so that we can keep track of where the beginning of our rounds are so we don't have to worry about that. So on the next round, we're gonna be working in increase and then just one stitch into the following stitch. So we'll do our increase, one, two, and we'll put a stitch marker in that first stitch. And then one stitch into the following, and then we're gonna repeat that. So an increase, and then a single crochet. An increase, and then a single crochet. Increase, and a single crochet. So this probably looks familiar to you since you watched the video about working in the round, and this is starting out exactly the same way as the sample that we made. All right, so we've worked the first three rounds and we're gonna continue increasing in every increase, and then working single crochets into the other stitches. So it will look just like the stitch diagram, we're gonna be doing an increase into the first stitch of the increase from the following round each time you get to one of those increases. So we'll do that all the way up through round six. So we've reached the end of round six here, and as you can see, I added a bunch of stitch markers in, I put one in the beginning of each increase, that first stitch of each increase. It actually prompts you to do this in the pattern. You don't have to do that if you don't have an, if you have an easy time seeing where your increases are when you're looking around, or when you're working around your piece, for example, like here's an increase, you can see that both stitches go into the same space. If you have an easy time spotting those, you don't need to use all of these stitch markers, you can just look for your increases, and then put your increase in the first stitch of each increase as you're working around. But if you don't wanna think about it too much, maybe you're watching a really good movie and you don't wanna be bothered to be paying attention to that, then put stitch markers in the first stitch of each increase and that way you'll know where to make the increases on the next rounds. So here we are after finishing round six and that's when you need to check your gauge. So in this pattern, you're gonna be checking your gauge by just putting your ruler or tape measure right through the center of like the diameter of the circle and you're gonna measure that, this is 3.75 inches, and that is what it should be. So if your circle is bigger than that, then go back to the beginning and use a smaller hook and check your gauge that way until you find out the right hook that works for you. If your circle is too small, then go back to the beginning, you can just pull out all your stitches and then you're going to work the same six rounds with a bigger hook in order to make your sample bigger. You'll wanna match the gauge that I have because otherwise, as you follow the pattern, your hat is not gonna turn out the correct size. So after you've worked around six and you've gotten the correct gauge, then you will be, we're continuing to do increases until you are at either round eight, nine, 10, or 11 just depending on the size that you're doing. So if you're doing the smallest size, you'll increase to round eight, you'll this in the pattern. And your piece will look like this. It's a flat circle but it kinda has these a little bit of points, it's a little bit of a hexagon, but as we continue in the hat that kinda hexagon shape will go away. So this is what your piece should look like after working seven, eight, nine, or 10, depending on your size. And then after that, you are going to be increasing only every other round. So that means the next round, after we stopped after the last sample you will work one round even. And when you work a round even that just means you're putting one single crochet into each single crochet around. So you just continue. And then the following round you'll increase. So you'll do that a couple of times until you end up finishing up all of your increase rounds, and this is what it'll look like. So it wants to lay flat up to the point where you started going every other round increasing, and then it wants to cup just a little bit because it's not quite enough increases to allow this to lay flat into a circle. After that, the pattern instructs you to work even for 11, 12, 14, or 16 more rounds, and working even, that just means you're gonna put one single crochet into each single crochet all the way around. So your pattern instead of spreading out and being a circle is starting to make more of a cylinder shape and come down and look more like a hat. So after working all those rounds even, this is what your piece should look like. And you can see, I put a stitch marker into my very first stitch that I did when I started working even. So that way, I could use that stitch marker to help me keep track of all the rounds. If I was watching a movie or something, I wouldn't be counting my rounds, even if I'm not watching a movie and trying to concentrate, I don't think I can count that many rounds as I stitch around. So leaving that stitch marker in there, it allows you to count the rounds. So you can count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 rounds. So you know that you've worked the required amount of rounds before you can change to the edging. So working the edging, it's just for a little bit of added contrast interest and to practice our back loop only skills. We will just start single crocheting around working only through that back loop. So, you'll just insert your hook, yarn over, pull up the loop, yarn over, pull through two. After working the back loop only stitch around and around, you'll work at three times or four times around depending on the size that you're making, your hat will look like this, have this nice edging here. And you may actually, you may notice that this time because we're working through the back loop only but we're working in the round, it looks different than that sample that we did when we worked in turn rows and we worked in the back loop only and created that ribbing. That's another interesting thing about crochet. You know if you're working in turned rows it looks different than if you're in the round. Your fabric characteristics will be different too. So all you have left to do on this hat is you just need to weave in your ends. You'll weave in the end from finishing the hat and you'll weave in the beginning yarn tail also on the inside, near where you did your magic ring. And after that, all you have left is blocking. So for blocking, I would just use a little bit of steam. And if you can put something inside your hat like if you happen to have a pressing ham, or if you put a little rolled up towel, or you can even put your hat over the edge of the ironing board and just shoot it with a little bit of steam, it'll help relax those fibers and your hat will have lots of drape. So I hope you enjoyed working on these projects with me, and you have learned so many things in this series. We've talked about yarn, and tools, and how to read patterns, we talked about stitch diagrams, and we worked on two projects, we worked on this hat project and we made a cowl together. That is so many things, and you have so many new skills now. The possibilities are endless, you can make so many new projects. So I hope you've enjoyed this video and I hope you learned a lot, and I wish you well on your crochet journey.