14-Day Learn to Crochet—Project: Sampler Cowl Pattern

Hi, welcome back to the 14 Day, "Learn to Crochet series". I'm Brenda KB Anderson. And in this video, we are gonna be working on a project together. This is called the stitch sampler cowl and it's made with a nice chunky yarn. So it will work up very quickly and it'll make your yarn easy to manage. I've got two examples of this cowl here. This solid-colored cowl has a scallop edging on the bottom and the multicolored cow I skipped the edging on it because scallops maybe aren't for everyone. So you could see how it looks without that scalp edging. So to begin, first we wanna talk about the yarn that we use. You're gonna be looking for a CYCA that's the little number sign on your ball yarn. You're gonna be looking for a number six, just like this. It should probably say something like super bulky on it, right there's number six but I'm just gonna warn you when you go to the store or if you're shopping online, number six yarns, there's quite a bit of variety and thickness in them. So I went to a Big Box yarn store and I bought one that was a little bit thinner and one that was a little bit thicker just so that I could test it out and see how this pattern was gonna work. I wanted you to have a successful pattern and if you go get a number six, I just want it to work no matter what kind of number six you have. So whether it's a little thinner or a little thicker it should work just fine. But if you choose a thicker yarn you will probably do less repeats than if you do the thinner. And that's written up in the pattern. It'll be clear once you start working on it what I mean by that. So this cowl is constructed actually back and forth. It worked vertically. So you can see where the color stripes are. These are the rows that have been worked back and forth in this direction. And the way that we get the shaping over here is we use half-double crochets and then some double crochets and then some treble crochets on this row. And then the next row we'll use all single crochets on the way back. So you can see, these are a little taller here and that makes the cowl spread out to give it a little bit of shape to sit around your shoulders nicely. So when we begin, we're gonna start with a foundation chain that goes across here and we'll work back and forth in rows. And what I said before about if you have a thicker yarn you won't work quite as many rows because you'll already have reached the circumference that we're looking for. It should be about 24 inches around the top of the cowl, which is this end. So before you start stitching let's take a look at our pattern here. So when we are in a pattern remember to read through everything so you know what's coming before you start. It's a good idea to actually read the whole pattern. The finished size, this is telling you how big the cowl is so you can look at that and then think about, okay that seems like a good size, or oh, maybe I wanna make my cowl a little narrower. Then you'll have that information, so you can change that if you need to. So the cowl's gonna measure 24 inches in circumference at the top, and it's gonna be about 12 and a half to 13 and a half inches tall. So the reason that I put that variance in there 12 and a half to 13 and a half, is because if you use a thicker yarn it's gonna be a little bit wider because we're using the same amount of stitches and in a thicker yarn. It's just gonna make the fabric a little bigger. You will need about 172 yards of a super bulky weight wool or wool acrylic or blended wool acrylic. And you want to make sure that it has a little bit of drape to it. So when you're choosing your yarn just make sure that it can hit, you know, when you hold it like this that there's a little... It can hang over and has a little bit of drape. It's not super stiff. But probably any number six yarn that you find at a Big Box store would work. Most number six yards in general should work just fine. And then in the pattern, I'll tell you exactly what types of yarn that I used in case you need to know that. And then for the hook size, I started with a hook size N but this is gonna depend on your gauge swatch. So if you haven't ordered a hook yet you can go ahead and order a size N and then do a gauge swatch with that. And then either go up a hook size if your gauge swatch that you make is too small, or you can go down a hook size if the gate's swatch that you make is too big. And there are directions in the pattern right here. How to make a gauge swatch in the half-double crochet, single crochet stitch pattern. So I've already made the gauge swatches one in each color. So you can see how the different yarns are affecting the stitch size. I began and with a foundation chain, of course where you chain 10, and then you begin with the third chain from the hook and you single crochet all the way across. Then you will turn your work. And then you'll work a row of single crochet back in the opposite direction. Chain one for the beginning of the single crochet rows and chain two for the beginnings of the half-double crochet rows 'cause those are the turning chain heights that you'll need. So you'll make your gauge swatch and then you'll compare it to the measurements that I have in here. Where I tell you it's six to... About six and a half stitches wide four inches wide, I should say. Six to six and a half inches equals... Six to six and a half stitches is four inches, so. If you layout your measuring tape or your ruler and you count your stitches you should have about six or six and a half. So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and half of that stitch. So that is a gauge that would work for this pattern, or for this yarn. This was just a little bit thicker, this yarn. So there's only six stitches, I think, yep. So this one has six stitches 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 stitches across. And I should show you this too actually. It might be easier for you to measure your gauge swatch by looking at the wrong side of your fabric, which is the side with these horizontal bars of half-double crochet sticking out 'cause you can very clearly see where your stitches are there. Each little horizontal bar is a stitch. So that should be easy for you to figure out where the stitches are. So there's your half-double crochet horizontal bars there. So once you have figured out a gauge what hook to use with the yarn in order to get to the correct gauge then you can start working on the pattern. So the pattern begins with a foundation chain. And let me show you the stitch pattern actually first. So you can see where we're going with this. So you'll do a foundation chain, you'll have your 20 stitches and then you're gonna add two for your turning chain. Then you're going to work 12 half-double crochet stitches here. Those are the Ts. And then you're gonna work four double crochet stitches here. The double crochet stitches are a little bit of a taller T and it has one line through the middle. And then you're gonna work four treble crochet stitches. Those have two little lines in the middle and they're a little taller than the double crochet. So you'll work that stitch pattern across then you'll chain one for your turning chain. And then when you're working your way back to the start you're going to just be working single crochets all the way across. So let's start that. So we're gonna chain 20 and then we're gonna add those two turning chains. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, okay. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 20 and then two more chains for the turning chain one and two and in this pattern the turning chains do not count as a stitch. So we're gonna use those two as our turning chain and we're gonna work into the back bump of your chain and we're gonna work 12 half-double crochet stitches. So as you remember from the half-double crochet video you're going to wrap the yarn around the hook, insert your hook into that space, grab the yarn, pull it up yarn over and pull through three. Show you that again, yarn over, insert hook pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three. So that was two and we're gonna do a total of 12. So we have to do 10 more. All right, so we should have a total of 12. So if you want to count your stitches if you look at the top, you look for all the little Vs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and then we're going to do four double crochets and then four treble crochets. So yarn over, insert yarn over pull up a loop, yarn over pull through two yarn over, pull through two. And I'll repeat that three more times. Pull through two, pull through two. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, pull through two, pull through two. So here we have our last half-double crochet was there and we have 1, 2, 3, 4 double crochets and we should have four stitches left 1, 2, 3, 4. So we'll do a treble crochet here. So yarn over twice, insert your hook, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two pull through two, oops. Accidentally pulled through three, there we go and pull through two. We'll do that again, yarn over twice, insert your hook. Yarn over, pull up a loop, pull through two, pull through two, pull through two. Yarn over twice, insert your hook, pull up a loop pull through two, pull through two, pull through two, one more. Pull through two, pull through two, pull through two. Now we're ready to turn and work in the opposite direction. So I like to do my turning chains first before I turn. You could do it after if you prefer. I'm gonna just yarn over and chain one because we're doing, the next row is single crochet, so we only need one turning chain. So we just chain one and turn, and now we're gonna work single crochet all the way across. All right, we'll finish working our 20 single crochets to the end. And I should say too that if you use stitch markers in the last and the first, first and last stitches of your rows that you won't miss any so that is also good advice. To just put a stitch marker in the first that you do and put a stitch marker in the last that you do, then when you turn around and work the other way you'll know where to begin and where to end. So we've worked our single crochet stitches in that direction. So the next row we're gonna do is a repeat of this first row. So we're going to chain two because that's our turning chain for half-double crochet. So one and two, turn your work. We're back the opposite way. And we're gonna do again, those 12 half-double crochets, four double crochets and four treble crochet. All right, so that was our 12 half-double crochets and we're gonna do four double crochets. 1, 2, 3, 4 and our treble crochets, wrap the yarn twice and 1, 2, 3 for the treble. Wrap it twice 1, 2, 3. 1,2,3. 1 2, whoops, 2,3. Okay, so that is your stitch pattern. And you're gonna continue working that back and forth and back and forth until you have worked enough so that the top of your cowl measures 24 inches in this direction. So you're gonna measure like this until you get to 24 inches and you need to end. You'll be ending with a single crochet row. So a repeat of row number two. So what happens at some point, you're gonna have to add a ball of yarn. So let's back up a little bit and I'll show you how to do that. Say you were going along in your cowl and this was the last of this ball of yarn here. And you needed to add a new ball of yarn. Here, we'll just cut this, okay. That's where your yarn ended and you need to add a new ball of yarn. So how do you do that? So I'm gonna remove this one stitch. So we have enough leftover. So we're gonna begin our stitch. You just have to notice when you're getting close to the end. So you'll yarn over, we're doing half-double crochet here and you're gonna insert your hook and then you'll yarn over. At some point in the stitch you're gonna do one of the yarn overs with the new ball of yarn. So I like to pull up a loop there from the old ball yarn and then grab the new ball of yarn and you just laying across your hook and you're gonna pull through all three, just like that. And you're gonna just hang on to those strands for right now so that they don't pull out. 'Cause if you we're really hard on this, you'll pull your yarn out right out because it's not actually attached to anything, it's just... Here, I'll show you if you do that, whoops it came through your stitch. So you're gonna, again, you can yarn over insert your hook and then you can pull up a loop here. And then you will yarn over with your new yarn. Here's my end, yarn over with your new yarn and just pull through all three, just like that. You can do this in the middle... You can do this in the middle of any kind of stitch. You just wait until you have a yarn over layer new yarn on top of it. And you don't really need to worry so much about what side your ends are hanging too. If you think of it, try to have your yarn ends hang to the back of your work, the wrong side of your work. The wrong side of your work is the one where you can see those half-double crochet bars on. But actually, I liked both sides of this cowl the both sides of the fabric that this created. And I had a hard time deciding what should be the right side of my cowl. So maybe you'll look at your cowl later and decide, no I really liked those nice vertical lines. And then you can seam it together in the opposite direction. So it doesn't really matter that much, what side of your fabric these hang to. You can just, if you know which side is gonna be your wrong side, have them hang to that side. But if you forget, it's not a big deal. I'll show you when we're weaving in the ends later how you can make it work anyway, it doesn't matter. So then you would just continue working. And if you want to, you can crochet over your yarn end a little bit and what that does, so if you're doing a half-double crochet we'll yarn over insert our hook and we'll leave that yarn and just sort of trailing right on top of your stitches. Pull up a loop and then see how we're trapping this yarn in there because it was sitting on the top edge. Oops, I was supposed to pull through all of them because it's a half-double crochet. That can kind of anchor your yarn a little bit. If you think of it you can do that for a couple of stitches. If you don't think of it, it doesn't matter as long as you don't pull that out right away. As long as you don't pull on your hook when you make that first stitch of the yarn ball change. And then you just kind of, you just keep working. And when you come back across it it's not a problem you just, here we'll just turn around here, 1, 2, 3, so we can see what it looks like. Here's your yarn ends coming out they're not even interfering with where you're gonna be stitching. So no problem there so you'll work back and forth as though you didn't even change your yarn ball there. So you'll have a couple of pieces just hanging out of your work but that's fine because we're gonna weave them in later and you won't even notice them. So you work back and forth and back and forth as the pattern directs until your piece ends up being 25 inches along this top edge. And you're gonna make sure that you ended with a single crochet row repeat of row number two, and your piece will look like this. So you can see here actually, I was crocheting along and there was a knot in my yarn and I did not want that to be in my piece. So I just pulled this loop out and then you could even cut it off and then join this part of it as a new ball of yarn just how we just joined it. Which is what this is, I just didn't bother to cut it. So here I am working on the very last row of single crochet stitches here. And then my piece will measure 24 inches at the top edge. So we're just doing single crochets up to the top. And then it's the last stitch there. And when we fasten off, we are gonna give ourselves a long length of yarn. I would say let's make it three times as long as this seam that we're gonna be sewing. We're gonna be sewing a seam in the cowl to turn it into a circle. So it should be three times the length of this just to make sure, absolutely sure we have enough. So that would be two lengths and three and we'll cut it here. And then you can just yarn over and fasten off. pull that right through there. So now you've got a long yarn tail. We're gonna use that for seeming, but before we seam, I'm gonna show you how to weave in these ends. So here we are looking at what I determined as the wrong side of my cowl because that was those horizontal lines that the half-double crochets make. This is the point where you should look at your cowl fabric and decide which side you want to be the out the outside and which side you want to be the inside. So I wanted this to be the inside. So here are my yarn tails and we're just gonna cut off the end here, so I can thread that easier. And we're just gonna weave these in. So with yarn this fat I would not weave in both ends at the same time through your needle. I mean, you might have a hard time getting it through the eye of a needle with both of them anyway but you don't want to create a big thick Ridge where both of the yarns are together. So here we're just sending the needle through these stitches and your yarn tail will stay best. It will stay put best if you actually split these yarns a little bit, if you go through part of it. It creates a little bit more resistance and it won't slip out so much. So we went in one direction that way and then I always like to weave in my ends in at least two directions to confuse the yarn so it doesn't know how to get out. So there we go. You don't wanna pull on it too tight 'cause that is gonna make a funny spot in your fabric where it gets squished. We'll cut that off. And you would continue weaving in this end. And yep, we have two more ends. This was from where the knot was in my yarn. So I'm gonna cut that right here next to the knot. And these are on the other side of my fabric and I am going to tuck them through to weave them into the backside. So this is what I was saying earlier about if you leave it hanging on the front or the back, it doesn't really matter. So you just thread your needle and send it through to the back. Just like that and then you can weave it in. On the wrong side again. And another thing about weaving in ends, if you're making something that's very stretchy, this cowl is pretty stretchy in this direction and it's gonna be getting pulled over your head. Pay attention to which way your fabric is gonna stretch when it's being worn. If it's gonna stretch a lot this way, then it's best if you are able to weave in your ends going in this direction, because you can see that stretch is not gonna move this yarn. It's not gonna pull on that yarn at all, because it's going vertically. All right, now we're just going the opposite direction with that. And we'll cut that off. This loop right here that I don't know if you notice this elongated loop here that was sticking out. That is part of this other yarn and this is where I cut the knot apart. So we'll just send that back through to the back. And then you would weave in this end and weave in this end in the same way. So you get all those ends we've done woven in and then we can start seaming up your cowl. So in order to do that you're going to take a look at your cowl from the right side so that you have right sides facing you. And you're gonna butt up these edges like this. And I'm right-handed so I wanna have my yarn tail on my right for sewing. But, you know, position the cowl however it's comfortable for you. So I threaded my yarn needle and then we are going to do a whip stitch to join these two edges together. So we're gonna start right here right in the corner of that side. And we're going to go right underneath that first stitch, like that. And when you do this, the tendency I think for people is to pull it really tight. But if you do that, you're going to, you're not gonna allow this to have the same stretch in this direction as the rest of your cowl does. So it won't really show, but it might kind of squish in and stretch out. I don't know, it just would be a little bit more uniform if you only loosely whip stitch this. So you're gonna go over the top. You're gonna go through this side from the top to bottom, and then you're gonna go from the bottom to top through the matching stitch that's right across the seam. So we're matching up one stitch per one stitch. So you just pull on this until your edges a butt each other. So we're gonna do that again. So from the top to bottom through that stitch and from the bottom to top through the next stitch. And you should have the same amount of stitches on each side. So you don't even need to pin this. You know, a lot of times when you're seeming things together you should pin it first so that it's gonna work out evenly as you stitch along. But this, you know you've got a one-to-one ratio of stitches. So you can just, as long as you're being careful about working in the stitch only once, then it should be fine. So whenever I get close to the end when I'm seaming things together where there was like a one-to-one ratio, I will count my stitches to make sure I have the same amount so 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, and then I've got this extra one here. That's because when I started, I was off by one. So we'll just continue till we have one stitch left and then we'll go through the same stitch twice right here to make it match up. And the next stitch right here, and we're gonna go through that a second time. Maybe through that knot there and there's your seam. And then you just weave in your ends. So if you choose not to do the scalped edging, all you have left is the top edging. So I'm gonna show you that next and then we'll do the scallops at the bottom. So, because we seamed that so carefully it's hard to even see where that seam is. It's right here and if you can't find it after you've seemed it up, then good for you. Then you can join your yarn anywhere. If you can see it then you can join your yarn where your seam is so that it's all in the back. So when I stitch around the top edge of this cowl, I'm just adding a little edging of single crochet, just like we did around the edges of our dishcloth. If you have a slightly smaller hook than the one you were using, you may find it easier to work into these stitches. You can use the same hook that you were using and that's fine. It's gonna make a slightly bigger single crochet just that matches up with the same size you've already done. And so you'll just have fewer single crochets if you use a slightly larger hook, you know the hook that we've been using. I'm switching to the smaller hook because just to show you that it's maybe a little easier to slide your hook into all these bumps and odd places. We're used to going back and forth and rows and you know exactly where to put your hook. But when you're going around working into the row ends like this, it's kind of bumpy and some areas are sort of tight to get your hook into. So you can certainly use a smaller hook, that's not a problem. So, we will just insert our hook near that seam if you can find it, if you can't just anywhere at the top edge will do. You lay the yarn across and you're just gonna pull up a loop and we'll just do one chain right here just to kind of anchor our stitches there. And now we're just gonna work single crochet around that edge. So this is just like doing the edging around the dishcloth to make it look a little tidier. So there isn't a certain amount of stitches you just have to be looking at this to see if it's pulling it in, you don't have enough stitches per inch. If it's making it kind of wave back and forth that means you're putting too many stitches in the edge. So just kinda eyeball it as you go and make sure that top edge is looking nice. Okay, so we have worked all the way around the top edge of our cowl with single crochet stitches just working into those row ends. Here, we'll do one more stitch right here. And then when you get to the first one, not that chain, but that first single crochet, then we're gonna do a slip stitch to join it, just like that. And we will cut our yarn. You just need enough yarn so that you can weave in your ends. And then you're just gonna pull it through and tighten that down. And then you can go ahead and weave in that end. And next, I'm gonna show you how to do the scallops at the bottom of the cowl. So, like I said before, that is totally optional. You can just block it, weave in your ends and then block it if you don't wanna do the scallops. But I wanted to add the scallops to this one. So we're gonna pull up a loop at the bottom. So once again, I found that area where we did our seam, and we will insert our hook and pull up a loop right there. And we are gonna be working into these like around the post of these treble crochet stitches. The post is just the long part of the stitch. It's not the top of the stitch where we normally work into of course, because we are gonna be working you know, into the row ends. We're gonna be working around that post. So we're gonna insert our hook into the hole between that treble crochet and the next treble crochet. So we just insert our hook and then we pull up a loop and then we're gonna pull it through the loop on the hook. That's just a slip stitch. So we're just gonna do a slip stitch there to anchor it. And then we're gonna do three half-double crochets. So yarn over, insert your hook into that hole again, yarn over pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three and we do that two more times. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop yarn over, pull through three. Continue that, yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three so we have our three half-double crochets right here. 1, 2, 3 and then we're gonna slip stitch into that same space. So you just yarn over and pull a loop through there and pull it through the loop on your hook all at once. And see how that makes that little arch there, that's our scallop. So we're gonna skip this stuff right here and then work into the next treble crochet space. The next opening between these two treble crochets again. So I'll show you that little combination right there again. So insert your hook, pull up a loop, pull it through the loop on the hook. That's your slip stitch. Then you're gonna do a three half-double crochets. Yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up, yarn over, pull through three. Yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up yarn over, pull through three. Yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up yarn over, pull through three and a slip stitch. So you just reach in, grab your yarn over, pull it up and pull through that loop, to make another little scallop just right there. See how they kind of bump. So you're gonna do that all the way around the whole bottom of the cowl until you end here, and then working your last set into this last around the post of this last treble crochet right here. And then you will just insert your yarn for a slip stitch right here into the stitch and tighten it off. And then you can cut your yarn at about six or seven inches so that you can weave in and weave in those ends. And what you will end up with is this cowl finished. Well, actually almost finished, because let's talk about blocking for a second. As I mentioned earlier, blocking is one of those things and a lot of people tend to wanna skip. And that's okay, there's no shame in that. There were many years that I didn't block a single thing and it was all fine. But once I started blocking, I realized how nice and finished and polished my items looked. And so I never looked back after that. So I would recommend for blocking this cowl that you can just slide this onto your ironing board. If you made this cowl in an acrylic or acrylic wool blend, you can steam block this, so. Actually you can steam block it even if you made it out of wool too, or you can wet block that. But if you made it out of acrylic wool blend you're just gonna slip it onto an ironing board. Or if you don't have an ironing board you can roll up a towel. So that way you're only blocking one side at once and you can kind of lay this flat, let it spread out a little bit here. And then you're gonna hold that iron up above, hold it up above your piece, you don't wanna touch it, do not touch your yarn with the iron, hold it up above and shoot it with a bunch of steam until it kind of relaxes. And you can even use your hand to sort of... I used my hand to pat these little scallops into place. I steamed it until it was hot and I could tell that there was moisture in it. And then I just sort of pushed these onto the ironing board like that. And then they looked so much more crisp than when you first crocheted them up. So I would highly recommend blocking it. But either way, you have yourself a beautiful finished cowl, aren't you excited? I'm so proud you've learned all these stitches and you put them all to use in this gorgeous piece. So next up, we are going to talk about working in the round, so please join me for that video.