Crochet Flower Pens and Other Last Minute Mother's Day Gifts

Hey, everybody. I'm so glad you're here for this live event. Uh My name is Brenda KB Anderson and I usually teach crochet live events, sometimes sewing events as well. Um And I am very excited to be talking to you today about some little ideas I had for Mother's Day. Um Specifically these cute little crochet flower pens, which I'll be showing you how to whip up. They're really quick and they're really fun. Um And they're very addictive to make, they're just, it's a lot of fun. Um But before we do that, I just wanted to kind of do a little bit of show and tell for some of the other ideas that I had that I thought would make really good Mother's Day projects. So they're either craftsy projects or creative crochet corner website projects. Um that I've already done there are tutorials for these things already out there. Um But I just wanted to do, you know, share with you these in case you missed them. Um in case you're interested, if you're looking for like a last minute Mother's Day thing or, you know, birthday gifts, it also works for, you know, other types of gifts as well. Um But they have like a little bit of a spring time feel to them. All right. So the first thing I wanted to mention was a couple of weeks ago, we did a little crafty mini series on Mother's Day. So I did this pouch. It's called the Flora Drawstring Pouch. It's got a B on both sides and it just cinches clothes like this. It's really cute. It makes a really awesome gift bag. But also, I mean, it just makes a really great present in itself. So um this is not the, this is a pretty quick make and if you have never used Tunisian crochet before to create something, um I, and you're interested in it, I definitely recommend this project because it's really fun. You can just use a regular crochet hook, you don't need a special Tunisian hook. Um And I talk you through all that stuff in the live event that I did um on this. Um And that's on the Craft Sea website. Um And there were two other projects that other people did. So there was um a card. I can't remember the name of it, but it was really pretty. It looked like a bunch of women holding hands around like a big kind of flower in the centerpiece of it. So if you're interested in making a card um from other or also there was this really cool wooden vase, it was like a bud vase. Um It was, it was a, a woodworking project which was also very cool. Uh So those are also on the crafty website as well from a couple of weeks ago with, with live tutorials on those uh uh as well too. And then I was thinking back like, um, my friend Jen and I had done a live event around, I can't remember if it was specifically for Mother's Day, but it was kind of around Mother's Day and we made a spa sort of set of items. She knit some things and then she did a uh she did some scrunchies and one of them was like a crochet and knit combined. And I think one of them just a knit scrunchy and then I had a knit, um it's just cord, very, very simple toe spacer, you know, for, if you're giving yourself a pedicure, it's a super easy idea. Um And then also in that same bundle, we did some like a velvet uh head spa headband, it has elastic in it. So it's nice and stretchy. And there's also these little scrubby, these are called the Dalia Face Scrubby. And I kind of updated this into a Mother's Day card because I just had this idea, you know, they of course, always looked like flowers to me. And that's why I named them the Dalia Face scrubby. And then I thought, why not just put them on a card? And then when you gift it to one. They get this kind of fun surprise. It's decorative and it's really pretty and then they can take them off the card and use them. So, um and I did a, a tiktok video on this which should be available soon. It's on the Craft Sea tiktok, the real, it'll be on the real, real craft sea um tiktok. Um So you can see me doing this kind of stuff up, but it's very, very simple. You could just use the pattern from that Diy Spa Day package and make up these little Dalia face scrubby. And then you just draw a little background of leaves, some grass and I'd use two layers of a card and then I just made one very long stitch through each of these so that they can easily see how it comes apart. I didn't want to do anything tricky because I didn't, I wanted to make it clear. Hey, these things can come off of here, you know, I just tied it in bows so you can just eat very easily untie that or cut those and, and then use them. So just a simple little idea. I hope my mother isn't watching right now. Um Because that's not going to be a surprise. Then later this pretty little necklace, this is called the sea spray necklace. And I, I thought this would, this is ok if you're looking for a very quick project, this is extremely quick. Um And the thing I really like about this project is that um people will be like, how did you make that? They won't necessarily recognize it as being crocheted even though it is crocheted. It's crocheted with real wire um, and glass beads. And then there's just a, a little clasp in the back here, hooking it all together. If you are a craftsy premium member or a um creative crochet corner gold member, then you would already have access to this. There is a pa a pattern that goes along with it and also a live tutorial of me working this up and kind of giving some tips and tricks on how to make this this crocheted wire necklace. Um There is also a pattern for this lovely cowl on the Creative Crochet corner website. This I actually made around ST Patrick's Day. Um It's called the Irish Ish Cowl because it's kind of a nod to Irish crochet. Um There are some little Irish crochet pieces in here, some leaves and flower and then this kind of tru this meshy background. But the way that it's constructed is not um this the traditional Irish crochet way. Um But it is definitely, you know, you can see the roots of this project. You can tell that it was definitely heavily influenced by Irish crochet. Um But, you know, this would be so lovely worked up in spring colors um or in a light like just kind of an off white color would be so, so nice. Um, you know, or whatever your mom's favorite color is, but this was just a really easy piece a lot. It might, you might think. Well, that's kind of big, but a lot of this is just air. You guys, it's, it's mesh. So it goes a lot quicker than you think. Ok. So it's, it's kind of a fun little project. Um, and then I did wanna mention another thing back when I was talking about the face scrubby things. I remember that I wanted to talk about the mini Meadow washcloth set. So if you're kind of looking for more like a spa themed kind of gift giving thing for Mother's Day, uh I made this mini mini metal washcloth set. It's I think what it was called, it comes in a little basket. I mean, you make the little basket. It doesn't just come that way. You, you, you, you make it. Um There's a tutorial for the basket and these little flower shaped washcloths that go inside of it. It's super cute. It's really easy. It just takes some kitchen cotton, some dishcloth cotton. Um And you could gift that with like, you know, like some body wash or special soap or something like that. Um to make kind of a nice little spa gift. All right. So let's get back to this pen situation. So these little crochet flower pens are just such a fun way to use up little yarn scraps. Um, it really hardly takes any yarn at all per, per flower. And it's just, they're very quick and really fun and I just, I couldn't stop. I was just, I was planning on making like, two and then look what happened and, and then I kept seeing other colors. I'm like, oh, I wonder how those would look together. Oh, so, so what you're seeing here is, you know, one color for the stem and the sepals here right there and then one color for most of the flower. And then I used a darker version of that or, you know, just a contrasting color for this sort of inside to give it just a little extra dimension. It just helps it read a little bit better. It just, um, I don't know, it just makes it look a little bit more fun. So we've got three colors going on here. You just need a very small amount of each, you know, just like a little plum sized amount, um or less really. And then you'll need a crochet hook. I am using, I'll be using ad hook which is a 3.25 millimeter hook. Um because this is a sport yarn. So this is a number two, this is thinner than, you know, the typical worsted weight yarn that we, we use very often. Um like it, it's just the most prevalent yarn in the United States. Anyway, it's the most prevalent yarn like in the big box stores and that type of thing, this is smaller, quite a bit smaller than that. And the reason I didn't use a worse a weight yarn was because I wanted to get that extra little detail, but also because I didn't want it to feel heavy because when you're writing with a pen, I mean, this is quite light. But if this was made in yarn, that was twice as thick, I would start to feel that it would kind of want to start flapping as I move my hand like that. But this is, you know, this is a good weight. This is a good way to it. So I chose that thinner yarn because of that. All right. Um Let's see. So we've got the hook, we've got the yarn, you'll, you could use a, you know, a stitch marker to help you keep track of where you are in your rounds and then just a tiny amount of fiber fill. Ok. So just in one flower, you probably need about like that amount. It's just a very little bit to kind of keep it looking nice and puffy and, and round. All right. So, oh, and you're also going to need a glue gun, glue gun and some hot glue. So I've got this little mini one here. It doesn't really matter which kind, it doesn't, it just has to be able to glue um fabric to plastic. So that's because that's what we're going to be doing all righty. So let's start out by working up the flower top base. So there are four parts to each flower um or to each pen. Um not including the pen, four crocheted parts I should say. So there's the stem and the sequel, that's one part put together. And then there is a flat circle that is called the flower top base. And what that means is all these little petals right here on the very top of the flower, they get kind of coiled up and stitched onto a flat circle. So that sits on the top of the flower. And then here we have right here. This is the underside of the flower. This I'm calling the outer flower. So that includes all the parts right here underneath the sepals and then this one layer of petals that are on the bottom. So even though it looks like it's just a whole bunch of pedals, we have separate groups of petals. Here is what we're looking at. You'll see more as we work a little further into this project. All righty. So we're gonna start with the flower top base. We're going to begin with a magic loop or adjustable loop. So um to do that, I this is how I make my magic loops, but you can make them however you like, I just make a little um kind of uh cursive e just a loop and then I fold that loop over onto the strand, connect it to the ball and then I place my hook underneath that center strand like this and then I just make a chain. So I yarn over and then I pull through and that anchors what I'm gonna be working on. Then you can either start crocheting around this way or for a little extra stability. I take this piece and I do a half turn. So I'm gonna just twist it like this and that way I'm gonna be working over both strands here. All right. So to start, we're going to make six single crochets into our ring or our adjustable loop. 12, three, four, five and six. And then we're gonna take that beginning yarn tail and pull on that a little bit to cinch it in. So that's gonna close our ring and then we are going to move on to round two. So to find the very first stitch, if you haven't done this before, I usually count backwards. 123456 because sometimes it's a little hard to determine exactly where that first stitch is. Is it here or is it here? So it's right there. We're going to work into that stitch and make two single crochets. So there's the first single crochet and the second single crochet and then we're gonna do that all the way around. So we've got two, three and four. OK. That's, we're doing two in each stitch. We're at stitch count five and six, seven and eight, nine and 10, 11 and 12. Then on the next round, we're gonna do two single crochets into the next stitch and one single crochet into the following stitch. So 12 and then one in the next stitch and I'm gonna go ahead and mark the beginning of my round and we're gonna repeat that around. So two in the next stitch. 12 and one in the following stitch. One, one, two, one, one, two, one, one, two and one. We'll do that one more time. One to and one. All right. And then the next round we're gonna do one single crochet into each of the next two stitches and then two single crochets into the following stitch. So here we have one in the next and one in the next. Remember to mark that first stitch and then two in the following one and 21 in the next one in the neck. Oops one in the next and two into the following one and two. One and the next one and the next and one and two, 11 and two, one one and to one, one and two. All right. There's our itty bitty little circle. So we're gonna fasten off, we're gonna leave a fairly long yarn tail for our ending tail. So I just cut my yarn tail and then I'm going to make a little slip stitch in the next stitch and bring it through and fasten off just like that. If you have a different way of fastening off, that's fine. Two, this is not even really gonna show very much. And then I like to weave in this beginning, yarn tail right away because I don't want to forget to do it later because I don't want it to open up. Um, a lot of times those adjustable loops, they can kind of, you know, no matter how you make them, they can sometimes start to kind of open up a little bit. So even though it may seem silly to some people that I would weave in my yarn tail, my beginning yarn tail, especially since it's on the inside of basically an amateur roomy piece. Um I usually weave them in anyway, just because I want it to be nice and sturdy. Ok. So now we're gonna set that aside and we're gonna make the outer flower. So the outer flower is the same color, whatever the lighter of the two colors you chose for the flower. And we are going to start this in a similar way with an adjustable ring. But this time we're gonna make 18 single crochets instead. So there's my anchoring single crochet. I'm gonna twist it and now I'm going to go ahead and work 18 single crochets. So one to three, 45, six, seven, eight, 9, 10, 1112, 1314, 15, 1617, 18. All right. So then we're gonna pull on this beginning yarn tail a little bit, but we don't want to close this all the way. We just kind of wanna bring our pieces a little closer together. We wanna make sure this is not gonna get so tight that it will not be able to fit on a pen. I forgot to mention the pens. They're just the pens that I use are just these kind of inexpensive um ballpoint pens. Um But you can use whatever kind of pen you want to glue this to really, you could even use a pencil if you wanted. Um So, but you won't be able to sharpen it there. Is that um So you just wanna make sure you can fit it on your pens on your pen like that. So don't tighten it all the way. All right. So now the next two rounds, we're just gonna be working a single crochet into each stitch around. So let's see. I'm gonna count backwards. 123456789, 1011, 1213, 1415, 1617, 18, just making sure I have the right amount and here we go, we're gonna just be working those single crochets. I'm gonna place the stitch marker in here, so they don't forget the beginning of my round is and then I'm gonna work one single crochet into each stitch around. Um I forgot to mention that you, you know, you can go ahead and download the free download today. It is the crochet flower pen. This is what it looks like on the front. Um And uh if you guys have any questions, you want me to go over anything. You know, if I'm not being clear, please let me know uh if you wanna say hi or if you wanna um give me suggestions on things you're interested in learning in the future. I always love that when people put that in the chat as well. Um Because I like to get ideas from everywhere, including you guys. I know you guys have a lot of really good ideas. So, and I wanna know what you guys are interested in learning. So it could be a technique or it could be a project, you know, just let me know if there's something that you're thinking about. All right. So there is our round number two and now we're going to do round number three where we're just placing again, one single crochet into each stitch around. Go ahead and mark that again. 23, OK? 789, 1011. Whoops. 1112, 1314, 1516, 17 and 18. OK. So now we've worked through round three. Round number four, we're gonna make a like three increases in this round. So we're gonna do a single crochet into each of the next five and then two into the following stitch. So one, I'm gonna remark that 23 four five and then two into the following stitch, one and two and then repeat that one to three, four, five, two into the following one and two, one, two, three, four, five and then two into the following stitch. So now on the next round, it's almost exactly the same thing except we're doing six single crochets and then an increase increase just means you're putting two stitches into one stitch. So there's the first one. So this would be round number five. So one, 23, 456 and then two into the next ditch and repeat that two more times, one to 34, 56 and to, and to the next one to 34, 56 and two into the next stitch. All right. So the next round, we are just going to single crochet all the way around, but we're just gonna single crochet into the front loop only. Ok. So normally we work underneath both of those loops that kind of make that V on the top of our stitch. This time, we're only working under the one that's closest to us under the front loop. So we're just doing single crochets into each stitch around. So there's the first one, two should be 24 stitches around here. Three, four, five, six. This is a good time to count your stitches while you're doing this. Round six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 1718, 1920 11, 182, 23 and 24. OK. So, because we worked in that front loop, we left all those back loops free. And so later we're gonna be stitching to those back loops. That's why we did that. But now on the next round, we're gonna be working underneath both loops as we normally would. And this is where we create kind of a round of pedals. So we're gonna work a slip stitch and then a chain to one and two, a double crochet into the next stitch. OK. So we slip stitch chain two, double crochet into the same stitch. All right, then we're gonna do a Treble crochet or Treble crochet cluster in each of the next two stitches. So what that means is we're gonna yarn over twice, one and two and then we're gonna insert our hook into the next stitch. You're an over, pull up a loop, you're an over, pull through two, you're an over, pull through two. Now we're gonna repeat that same thing. So yarn over twice, insert, you're an over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two yarn over, pull through two. Now we have three loops on your hook and we're gonna yarn over and pull through all three. All right, we're going to do that again in the next stitch. So we yarn over twice. 12, insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two yarn over pull through two repeat, yarn over twice, insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. You're an over, pull through two. Now we have three loops on our hook, well, yarn over and pull through all three. So that's the second treble crochet cluster. And now we're going to do a, a double crochet chain to slip stitch in the next stitch. So here's our double crochet and then chain 21 and two and then a slip stitch into that same stitch. OK. So we just made one little pedal right there. So we're gonna do that. Let's see, five more times. OK. So we start working into the next stitch with a slip stitch chain, two double crochet and that same stitch that we just slip stitch into. Now we're gonna do two trouble crochet clusters in a row. So there's the first one and there's a second one. And now we're going to do a double crochet chain to slip stitch to the stitch. And then we were gonna repeat. So now we have, we have two pedals done. So we're gonna do this four more times. Slip stitch chain, two double crochet treble crochet cluster. Another Treble crochet cluster in the next stitch and a double crochet here change to and a slip stitch and the next stitch slip stitch chain two oops, I think I almost out of trouble there. So we're gonna do a double Treble crochet cluster and then another treble crochet cluster here and a double crochet and a slip stitch. OK. There's our fourth pedal. We have two more to do slip chain, two double crochet into the same stitch. Here's a Treble crochet cluster and another Treble crochet cluster and then a double crochet chain two Annie slip stitch in the next stitch. All right, one more time. So by now you guys have this all memorized, right? All right. Here's my treble crochet cluster and I need a second trouble crochet cluster and we end with that double crochet chain two and slip stitch in the same stitch. All right. So now we can fasten off and we are going to go ahead and weave in this ending tail, but we're gonna leave the beginning tail hanging out there. I'm gonna pull it out here a little bit. I guess I could have left that chest a little bit longer, I would say in the future, leave it maybe like six inches or so. It just makes it a little bit easier, but it'll be fine. All righty. So I'm gonna go ahead and weave this in, just get it out of the way. Um Janet is saying hi from Janet in Scotland. UK. Awesome. I went to Scotland once. I was lucky enough to go to Scotland and I had such a good time there. I would love to go back so much. Maybe someday. Um So Jacqueline is asking what I'm making. Maybe you missed the very beginning of our live. But I am making these crochet flower pens. So it is a pen like a regular ball point pen and then we make a covering that we glue onto it. OK? So there's our outer flower and then we're gonna do the flower top, which is the inner petals. So that's what looks like all the extra petals on the um on the top of the flower there. So we're gonna start with a, we're starting with the same color and we're gonna chain 10. So and 10. And then we're gonna start with the second chain from the hook and we're gonna work into the bottom of the chain just because it's easier. You can work into a different part of the chain if you prefer. And I'm going to do a half, double crochet chain to half, double crochet in each chain bump across. OK. Except that we're skipping the very first one. So to do a half, double crochet, we start with a yarn over and just explain the bottom of the chain. That's where all these little horizontal dashes are. It's opposite from where you normally work where all those little vs are kind of stacked up. You just roll it over like that. All right, we're skipping that very first dash. We're gonna work underneath the second one and we're gonna do a half, double crochet and then chain two and then another half, double crochet right there and then we're gonna repeat that. So have double crochet change to and then a half, double crochet. And we're going to continue that across our chain in every chain. So half, double crochet chain, two, half, double crochet. Don't forget to do the second half, double crochet in that same chain that sometimes I forget chain two, half, double crochet. And it, it's gonna start spiraling around cause there's a lot more stitches in this round than there were chains. All right, a couple more to go here, half, double crochet, chain 2.5, double crochet, double crochet chain, two, half, double crochet. And here is the last one. So there should be a total of nine of these nine repeats jean 2.5, double crochet. And if you were, we wanted to count your repeats, you could just look at the little points that it's making and count those that, that would be one little point for each repeat. OK. So that's what our piece looks like right now. And then we are going to work row number two. So we're going to turn our work. So I'm going to chain one and then turn chain one, turn our work. So we're looking at the other side and then we're gonna do a slip stitch chain 14, double crochets, chain one slip stitch into each of these points. Here. Those are the chain two spaces. So let's see right here is our first one. So slip stitch into that chain chain to space, slip stitch chain 14, double crochets, one two, three, four. I'll show you how to do a double crochet on the next one in case um you don't know how to do that. And then we're going to chain one and slip stitch back in the same spot. OK. So we're gonna repeat that again. So there's our next chain two space right here. So we're gonna do a slip stitch there to kind of anchor ourselves there. We're gonna chain one and then we're gonna do four double crochets. So that would be yarn over insert. You aren't over, pull up a loop, you're an over pull through two, you're an over pull through two. That's a double crochet. So we're gonna do three more double crochets. You're an over insert, you're an over pull up, you're an over pull through two, you're an over, pull through two and then two more double crochets left one and two chain, one slip stitch in the same chain. Two space hop over to the next chain two space and we're gonna repeat that slip stitch chain 14, double crochets, 12, three and four. Oh, I just realized I should have switched to the darker color for this flower top. Um This should not be the same color. That's OK. That's all right. Um hm. Do we wanna fix that? Let's see. I think, I think I actually do want to fix that. We'll see how far I get. So I'm gonna kind of whip through this because that way you guys can actually see a little bit better when I add that single crochet border onto that. Ok. So I'm gonna try to go through this quickly here. I'm chaining my tan. Let's see. 123456789, 10. And then we do remember we do those half doubles, chain, two, half doubles in each of those um chains have double chain too. I apologize. You guys. This is um oops, I'm sorry, you have to watch this twice. But in the future, you can kind of fast forward through this part if you want to and then it'll magically be made in a different color, half double chain two. So, you know, it wouldn't really matter if you wanted to do this all in one solid color. That would be fine. It's just that it, it kind of highlights the petals just a little bit more. That's why I like doing the first couple rows of this section in the darker color because it just, I don't know, it just gives it a little bit more three dimensionality, I guess. I don't know. It looks a little prettier. I feel like gives it a little bit more personality. I've done this before in an hombre yarn too, which is really fun with slow color changes. That's a fun way to go to. All right, same spot and one more left. All right. I did these kind of quickly, so I hope that I didn't miss any. All right. So we're going to chain one and turn. And then again, we're doing row number two. In the inner paddles, we're doing a slip stitch chain 14, double crochets one two, three, four and then a chain one, any slip stitch. OK. And then in the next chain two space slip stitch chain 14, double crochets one, two, three, four. Um then a chain one and a slip stitch. And when you're doing that, the chain one and the slip stitch try not to make those too tight. I know we all have a tendency to make slip stitches and chains a little tighter and then it can be kind of hard to work into them later. So we are going to be trying to work into those on the next row, but there is a little bit of a work around. So don't stress out about it. This is not, this is not a project to get stressed out about. This is just a fun one. OK. So once again, I'm just placing um, well, I'll wait till you get to the beginning of a one of these little repeats here, there's a slip stitch. So when I, when we start the repeat in each of these chain two spaces, I'm gonna do a slip stitch, a chain one and then four double crochets. One, two, three, four chain one and a slip stitch. And then we'll go into the next one slip stitch chain, four doubles, one, two, three, four chain and slip stitch. And the next chain to space slip stitch chain, four doubles, one, two, three, four chain slip stitch slip stitch chain, one to three, four chain slip slip chain, four doubles. This is our last one here. One to three and four chain and slip stitch. All right. So we should have nine petals. That's good. OK. So then we're going to go ahead and we can fasten off. Let's see. Yeah, we can fasten off after working row two. So that is a wrong side row, this side, the right side of the puddle is gonna be this sort of rounded side. Um Unless you like how they look the other way because you are in charge and that's fine, you can flip it around. But if you want them to look like the ones in the picture, this is the right side. This is the wrong side. So we're gonna keep the wrong side facing us and we're going to begin again at the same side side we just started from and we're gonna work just a row of single crochet across. So we, we can go ahead and start with a slip knot on our hook. That's usually how lately I've been starting, starting a new strand of yarn. I like to do it that way and you can go ahead and start in that very first slip stitch or, you know what looks like the first slip stitch it. Some of these stitches are kind of tight and if you miss one or two here or there, it's really ok. So we're just gonna do a slip stitch through both loops like normal all the way across right around the edges of these petals. It helps them curl just a little bit more and then it gives them that extra color um which looks pretty, makes them a little bit bigger as well. So when you get to those slip stitches and those chain one spaces try to get your hook in there. But if you have to skip a stitch, like I said here or there, it's not a big deal and maybe you could even put two stitches right next to it if you feel like it's pulling a little too tight or something like that, if you feel like you shouldn't miss the stitch, but you just can't get your hook in there. It's OK. This is not like I said, I don't want this to be stressful. This is like supposed to be a fun project here, but this little extra detail really, I feel like it just really helps, helps make these flowers look a little bit more real And so I, oh, I just wanted to talk about a little bit about the way that I displayed them. I put them in, uh, one of those shorter glass mason jars and then I put those little glass gems inside to hold, to hold them up and to kind of make it look like it was water. Um, but I had, you know, most of you have probably seen when people make flower pens so that people don't steal their pens at businesses and places like that. You may have seen this before and then they use, um, coffee beans to look kind of like dirt that it's growing out of. That would be a great option as well. The coffee beans because it, it's a lot easier to get the pen in and out. This. I, it looks really great in the picture and it does work, but it's, I've just noticed it's not as you can't just sort of lightly put it in there. You kind of have to kind of wiggle the pen to get it to be in the right spot a little bit because those glass, um, pebbles that I put in there, they don't wanna move as easily as coffee beans would. Although maybe it would have been, um, if I had used those like smaller ones, smaller glass gems, I bet it would have worked better. All right. So I'm about more than halfway there. Work in these single crochets. Actually, I'm pretty close to the end here and then it starts to get exciting. So, Diana is saying, 00 my gosh. I just figured out what I was doing wrong when making petals. I was only making one slip stitch per flower. Second one was in the same stitch. Now, I know why I always have extra stitches. Oh, ok. I see. Yeah. I don't know if you were using the pattern that I had but not all, not all of these flower patterns are the same. But I mean, this definitely, this works. So I'm glad you figured it out. Ok. So we here we're making our last stitch into that slip stitch and then I'm going to fasten off here. So remember the side that we just worked is the wrong side according to my pattern. Um So I'm gonna turn it over so I can see the kind of rounded side because I just think that that it just looked a little better when I made these flowers. Um But you might have different opinions about that. So you could definitely, um you know, change, change which way you have it. See, see if you have it this way, they kind of curl upward, but I thought that it looked a little bit more like um pedals when it was crocheted, facing downward. So all you need to do really is you just kind of take this section right here and you coil it up and you want to make sure there's at least two layers of petals. What I mean by that is, here's one and two, there's a little thr three over here. So this should, this should all work. So I'm gonna take one of the yarn ends right here from that piece on the top and I'm gonna use that to stitch it into this little circle here. So I'm gonna place this on to my circle and I'm gonna run this right through the middle here through this kind of stack of everything. Whoops like that to kind of get that to curl in a little bit just like this. All right. So now I'm just kind of sewing up through, like I'm kind of just basically sewing these puddles in place, taking little stitches, making sure you're not going down through the exact same like space between your stitches because that won't actually make a stitch. Um But this way, kind of getting these stitches to or getting these puddles to be arranged, how we want them to be. Yeah. And also we can kind of oops, there we go. We can kind of just sort of move them around till it looks how we want them to look. Ok. And then once you're happy with the placement of everything and you have stitched all around, like you wanna probably just check and make sure nothing is gonna come uncoiled or anything like that. I'll make another little stitch here, then you can weave in all of the ends. Um Except you wanna leave one end from this little, the little flat circle. You wanna leave one end because we're gonna use that to sew the flower together. OK? So let's see. Where is that end? This is the one we wanna leave, see how that's attached to our little circle on the bottom, all of this stuff we can get rid of though. So I'm going to push all of it. I think all of it together through you. You can do these separately and be a little bit more, a little more careful about it. Oops, this one does not belong in it that's coming from way over here. But these two can come down here together to the bottom side of the circle. I just want my ends to be in on the wrong side of the circle because this is going to be hidden inside the flower here and I can just kind of weave these back and forth because I don't want it to undo inside the flower. All right on this one. I'm gonna get rid of this one and then I'll be able to kind of put my flower together. OK. So the next thing we're gonna work on is the stem covering the stem covering is basically just a green rectangle that we make in single crochet, worked back and forth and turned rows and then we're gonna add those sepals. So I prepped a little piece ahead of time because I think most of you already know how to work. Single crochet back and forth in turn rows. We're just working seven rows. If you're working with a thicker pen than a regular pen, you can always do extra rows if you need to, to cover your pen. Um, but this seems to work for most standard pens just gonna work some stitches back and forth in turn rows. I'll let you know how many stitches that is, but everything is in your pattern. Download. Let's see. Um, 20 stitches worked back and forth and turned rows for seven rows. OK. So that this is what it looks like when you're done. And then we're gonna add those Sequels. So we are going to keep the same side facing that we just finished. So we just worked across this row. We didn't turn it and we're gonna rotate at 90 degrees. So we can work across the shorter edge right here. So we are going to chain one that doesn't count as anything. And we're gonna do six single crochets across. So 123, four, five and six. Yeah. And then we're gonna chain one and turn. So now we already have those six evenly spaced stitches and that's gonna make this part a little bit easier. So we're gonna slip stitch in the next stitch. So that's that very first stitch, slip stitch and then chain five, 1234 and five. Then we're gonna start with the second chain from the hook, working into that bottom bump right there. And we are going to do, let's see, slip stitch in this first chain. We're gonna make a little slip stitch and then we're gonna do a single crochet into the next and then a half, double crochet into each of the next two chains. So here's a half, double crochet. So remember the half, double crochet you yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three and then we're gonna slip stitch into the next stitch that we had worked in the previous row. So there's our next stitch and now we repeat that again. So chain 512345, skip the first one and work a slip stitch and the next chain we're gonna work a single crochet and then each of the next two chains, we're going to do half, double crochets, one and then two slip stitch into the next stitch chain. 51234 and five slip stitch, single crochet and then two have double crochets, one and two. And we're gonna repeat slip stitch 12345. So we should have a total of six of these little sepel that go around the base of our flower when we're done working across this row here or maybe it's five actually, five, five Sequels. Sorry. There we go. So we've got four. And now we do the last 11234 and five chains slip stitch, single crochet and then two, half, double crochets, one and two. And then we just slip stitch into the very last stitch that we have and then we'll fasten off just like that. So there we have all those little steeples and they wanna cur curl this way, they want to curl in. So you can decide if on your flower, you want them curling away from the flower or into the flower. I placed all of mine so that they're kind of grabbing around the base of the flower. So they curl at the flower. Um But you need to determine that before you glue this to your pen. So I'm gonna just move this over here. Let's see. Oh That's good. All right. So in order to glue this to our pen, let me just grab pen. Here. We are going to be gluing the shape that comes down in one long strand here, just one line right down the middle and then oops, I'm gonna turn it this way. So it looks like my instructions right down the middle and then along this edge, we're gonna do a line of glue as well. So right now, these are kind of all curling upward. That's the way that I want it to be if I want it to curl around the base of my flower and just know when you put your pen on here, your pen should reach up into the sepel a little bit, but you're stopping your glue here. You're not gonna, there's, your pen is just gonna be free for like an inch or three quarters of an inch from this point up. I'll show you what I mean. So if you feel like your strand is a little too narrow, you can kind of wiggle your glue back and forth like I'm doing here, but maybe you'll have a thicker amount of glue. You don't need that much glue. Um And then you're gonna place your pen right on there and see how my pen it's going to be free from about this point up with no glue on it. And then this needs to get wrapped around your pen and you just need to hold that there for a minute while that cools. Yeah. And then we are gonna go ahead and stitch this closed and we are getting pretty close to finishing our, a little flower. Ok? So if you fasten off and you start with long tails, um, I'm gonna switch these up. If you have a long tail to begin with and a long tail. When you fasten off, then you won't have to add any extra yarn for doing all your seaming at the very end. Ok? That's pretty cool. I should, I probably should wait just a little longer, but I'm not going to, um, I'm just gonna be very gentle about this. So I'm just gonna be doing whip stitches across this edge here to close this around my pen. All right. So if you, um I just wanted this just a special note to those of you, if anybody's watching who does not know how to read a crochet pattern and you'd like to work this up. But um you know, of course, this video will help and you can use that in combination with the pattern, the pa the free pattern download. But there is a link in the pattern also for a live event that I did where I um just kind of went through systematically through a pattern to try and explain away all the confusing parts of patterns because I know that there are lots of confusing things when you're first learning to read from patterns, they're not as straightforward as one might think. All right. So I've made it all the way to the bottom and then I can go ahead and just kind of weave in my end as best as I can trying to stay out of the glue. There we go one more direction. Here we go. OK. All right. And then the next part, we're going to be adding this little friend here. Remember this, we didn't cinch this all the way because we are going to add it to our pen. So we place it on here and cinch this in as tight as we can around the pen. I'm just gonna hold my finger on top of the pen so it can't fall off. And I'm pulling on that beginning yarn tail. You don't need it so tight that you can barely get it on. You know, you just, you need it to be just barely snug. So that when we put stuffing in here, it can't sneak out. All right. And then at that point, you can go ahead and take it off for a second because it just makes it easier and then we can weave in this yarn tail. So when you do that, make sure that you are not pulling it in tight, like make sure that you're not additionally cinching that in more or it's gonna be a sad day because you won't be able to put it on your, on your pen and we're so close to being done, but make sure that you do weave this back and forth in a couple of directions because you really want this to be secure because this is what's holding the bottom of your flower, you know, keeping that opening from getting larger and having it. Um having the stuffing escape. We don't want that. All right. So I'm gonna trim that off or you could leave it if it doesn't bother you to be in the way and we're gonna put that right back on here and then we're going to stitch our pieces together. Um I have just, I wanted to show you, I do have step by step pictures here as well in the, in the pattern just in case like, you know, you just don't wanna come all the way back through the video to watch the video again. But um in case you just couldn't quite remember what order everything happens in. And so here we're going to take the other yarn tail from the stem sepals and we're going to be sewing our sepel to uh the bottom of our flower. So to do that, you're just gonna take like little stitches into the stem and a little stitch into the sepel. You don't need to stitch way up here, but maybe somewhere along each side and I did not do whip stitches around the edges. I just did kind of little stitches along, you know, from one to the next like this, just sewing it right into that pink color there. And do you know, do a nice job at this because this is what's gonna keep the flour on your pen. You know, if it's just barely tacked on in a couple of places it'll stay. But this is, this is, you know, you want it to be nice and solid. You don't want the pen to be kind of wiggling all or the flour to be kind of wiggling all over the place. So I, I would ideally go around twice all the way around the whole thing. But I'm, I'm not gonna do that just for the sake of time. There we go. Couple more stitches here. All right. And then you can kind of weave in your ends, back and forth so they won't come out and trim that in here. All righty. And now we're going to add the teensiest bit of stuffing inside here. So here's what we have. Let me just pull this down other way. So your pen should be sticking up into the flour at least a little ways. But it should be pretty securely attached at this point because it's attached to this and this is glued and stitched closed around your pen. So that's pretty secure. So then we're just gonna take a little tiny bit of the stuffing to keep our flour nice and round. That might even be too much. We'll find out in a minute. And what we're doing is we're gonna be stitching the edge of this flat little circle to these unused loops on the inside of that outer flower. All right. So you just place them together like this kind of pull the, the top of the, those pedals out of the way and then start stitching into those unused loops. And it's nice because there's the same amount of stitches or yeah, the same amount of stitches in each layer. So you don't need to pin anything. You can just start with one stitch and as long as you're going through each stitch only once, then that should be totally fine. It'll all match up. And I would say once you're about, I don't know, maybe halfway or three quarters of the way around. Just kind of take a look at it and see if you needed any extra stuffing or any less stuffing. You would know if you needed. If there was too much stuffing, it's gonna make it very puffy and it, you're gonna feel like it's kind of distorting your flour a lot. This amount of gap is OK between the top and the bottom because we're gonna take some stitches through here to kind of squish that together a little bit. Um, that's just sort of inevitable. And if there's not, if there's too little stuffing, then your, your flower might be kind of leaning off to the side or you might be able to see the structure of the pen underneath. So I first started thinking about making these crochet flower pens because I was doing a little research for our Galentine's Day event that we did. We did, I did a live event with Emily Stefan, which was super fun. And I was like, you know what, I don't even really know what Galentine's Day is at first when I started researching this and I was like, I gotta find out where this ca this idea came from. I mean, I kind of knew about it, but so then I found out that it was from, um, an episode of Parks and rec and Amy Poehler who plays the, one of the main characters, she celebrates Galentine's Day and she makes all these things for her friends. And one of the things that she made for her friends to celebrate this day of female friendship, it was a bouquet of crocheted flower pens. And I watched that episode a bunch of times in that one spot to see what her crocheted flower pens looked like. But I couldn't even tell. And I thought to myself, all right. Well, I'm just gonna make up my own because I have to do that. I just have to do it. All right. So we are almost done here. I am gonna go, I'm gonna use this same yarn. Although I might wanna switch to the darker I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with, I'm gonna stick with the lighter pink and go up through maybe the top of the second layer and down through that very bottom layer. And what we're doing here is I'm just kind of bringing them a little closer to each other and I'm gonna move over to the next set of petals and I'm not going in the middle here. I'm going kind of where the edges of the, the scallops kind of dip in. But I'm going like underneath that, if that makes sense, I'm just trying to kind of squish the flower down, height wise just a little bit here to kind of bring those layers a little bit closer to each other. It just helps add a little extra, I don't know, sha helpful shaping to this flower, I think. All right. I think we've made it to the last section. Oh, no, one more. Here we go. See how it kind of brought those pedals a little closer to each other. And now I can go ahead and weave in my ends and I would caution you against just sticking the needle through and cutting it off because there is a little bit of tension on this. So you're gonna want to weave it back and forth a couple of times just to make sure that it's not going to loosen itself up and we'll cut it off. So that's what it looks like, isn't it? Lovely? Super fun. You guys, these pens are really, really fun to make, you're gonna wanna make a whole bouquet once you start, it's just really hard to stop and they make such an awesome gift for people. You can save them up for Valentine's Day or you can use them for, you know, a spring gift or a birthday gift, a wedding shower or Mother's Day. So I hope if you are celebrating Mother's Day that you have a wonderful day um, on that day or, and I just hope you guys have a really great spring and I will see you in my next live. Thank you guys so much for joining me. I really appreciate you being here. Bye.