Beginners Guide to Mosaic Crochet - Lesson 1 The Basics

Hi everyone, I'm Tina and I'm so excited because today I have the first

lesson

of my beginner's

guide

to patchwork

crochet

ready for you and I'm so excited because well, I'm just the reason I'm excited. I'm excited to show them to you because the best thing about

crochet

patchwork is that it actually looks pretty complicated, but it's as easy as I'm going to make it. I'm going to show you today, so just to give you an example of what you can do, this is here. my havana shell and this is made with the crochet patchwork technique and it's really so simple it's crazy so what we're going to do today is and I'm just going to show you how to make this little sample. here and in fact, just by showing you how to do this, I show you everything you need to know to do a big project like, for example, my result in Havana, which I'll show you here if I can because it's absolutely huge, so this is an example of the amazing things you can do in crochet patchwork and it is very simple and very fun and the best part is that everyone thinks that you are a crochet wizard and that you can be, just let yourself know that you are at the highest level of crochet skills and it really is so simple that you only need to know three basic stitches, the most basic of all crochet stitches, which is the chain. sew the single crochet stitch and the double crochet stitch and I will show you this also in the tutorial because this is a beginner tutorial so you should be able to follow this with very basic knowledge of crochet and before I start I was just going to tell you what do you know, yeah, here's the sample and the thing about patchwork crochet is that everything is worked from the front, so the back just has stripes, but this will leave us with all these tails and ends, and that's it.

You know, people will. just go, I can't do that, that's crazy and I would never suggest that you knit all your ants two ends per row, so I have two solutions for this that I will show you, not today, but in other videos, what I will do with my blankets it's just to make a double border this is the baby casablanca and as you can see here the border is double so all the ants are just inside the border so there's no need to be inside all the extremes, so I just want to show you this before we start, just so you know preemptively not to scare them and another thing, I also have a tutorial on that to show another option: this is my Corey scarf and another one.

The option is to put your ants to good use and make the twisted bangs like you see here which is just a lovely finish to a scarf and blanket so there are actually lots of options, very fun and again this is so easy and a really versatile and fun technique to know. I started patchwork crocheting about five years ago and I haven't stopped since, I mean, and my mind is exploding with all the patterns and possibilities I have. I want to explore so I'll really warn you before you start crochet patchwork, it's extremely addictive so keep in mind before you start that you probably won't be able to stop and I say this with experience but today I'm just going.

To show you the

basics

you only need to know three stitches and we are going to make a small sample of Apache tears, which is the pattern where I learned to do

mosaic

crochet. It's a really beautiful, simple, old pattern from the 70s. so I'll show you how to make a small sample and then you can continue making all kinds of masterpieces. Alright? You are with me? Let's do this. Okay, so let's get to it. Like I said, I learned

mosaic

for the first time. crochet uh when I found the Apache tear blanket and it's been around since the '70s so I wanted to show you how to do that stitch because that's really the basic stitch of patchwork crochet and that way you can learn the technique and then go from there . you can go and do all kinds of brilliant things so I want to invite you here today to do just a little sample like this to learn the technique and it's always good to start with something very small to master it.

Yes, and what you will need to knit with me are two balls of wool, they don't have to be complete balls, like these you only use, you won't need much. I recommend using light colors so you can see your stitches. Well, and you need at least two colors, you can use more colors. if you want, but for the sample I recommend only using two and what you have to keep in mind is that there is a good contrast between the two colors, so that only means that there is a big difference between the two colors because then you will see the pattern better and You will need two balls of yarn.

I'm using iron weight here because just use something you're comfortable with and a hook to go with it. and if you're a complete beginner, you can always check the label like here it says uh, it's always needles, knitting wheels, needles, but it says four to five millimeters, so I'm using a 4.5 millimeter hook with this yarn here , of any type. of yarn that you like, you need two colors with good contrast and a hook to go with it and then some scissors and before starting I'm just going to tell you the

basics

here, that we are always mosaic crochet, we always work from the front side, so You always work from right to left, if you are left-handed, do it from left to right and imagine that I say left when I say right and right when I say left, it is exactly the same technique and I know it.

That, before you start, you say, oh my God, all these extremes, but don't worry, I have them in my patterns. I usually work a double edge to hide all these ends like I showed you in the intro and if not, you can also do the twisted bangs and you know there are ways to deal with the ends so don't worry it's really okay worth it, so let's get started, so for the Apache levels you're going to need a rep of six, okay? So the pattern is six stitches, so you can do uh, I'm going to do here three times six, that's 18, you could do 18, you can do 24, you could do 30. but like I said, it's good to practice with something small, like this which now We are going to do just three repeats of the pattern and then you will always need three additional stitches so we will start by chaining 21 stitches and the best part about patchwork crochet is how incredibly easy it is and you only need to know three. stitches, the chain, the single crochet and the double crochet and this is the terminology that I am using here and I will also show you how to do all the stitches.

I'm going to zoom in a little bit here so you can see my My hands are better, so we start with 21 chain stitches and you always have to do the slip knots first, so put it on the hook. Oh yeah, so I'll try. You know I was forgetting something. I'm going to try to do this. Today I'm here very slowly because this is a tutorial for

beginners

and they asked me to do it very slowly. If you think I'm going too fast, you can always go to the top right corner of your screen on YouTube. You can see three small dots, click on them and there you can slow down.

You can choose the speed. Okay, but I'm really going to make an effort to slow it down. So this first slipknot that is on the hook here is not there. it doesn't count as a stitch so we start with a slip knot and then we make 21 chains and when you make a chain you just make the yarn over like this and you pull the yarn through that's how you start every crochet project actually so you just yarn over and pull through here I have four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twenty and 21 and again the one on your hook doesn't count as state, so if you want to count your stitches, ignore the last one, this one here and just start here from the beginning and count, You see, they're like a little v, I, the letter b, I say it right, yeah, so 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 and 21 okay and now we move on to the first row, so we have three times six, that's 18 and then we have three extra points and I'm going to tell you why we have these three extra points, so one of the extra points This is here because when you start you can't really see that the yarn comes out of this stitch here, so you can't work on that one, so you always have to do this extra stitch when you're. you're chaining to make single crochets, yeah, so now we're going to do the first row which is just single crochets and we're not going to go into this first one, here we're going to go into the second one. loop from the hook and to make a single crochet, insert the hook this way, pull the yarn this way so you have two loops on the hook and then re-knit the yarn and pull those two through now we have a single crochet. and now you see here that this stitch is a little bit open, see, and that means you've already knit that stitch.

If you're in doubt about which stitch you should use, you can always pull the hook a little bit and You see, this one is all open and inviting, well, it's not the one you're supposed to go into, it's the next one here, yeah, so just pull it up and then across both of them, this is the single crochet and so in this row one for In this little sample we're going to do 20 single crochets because we can't work on the first one, remember, so just in each stitch a single crochet, okay, I've made 19 and then there's the last stitch here and you see these knots. here at the end don't go into that this here is the last stitch so this is the last stitch here come into your loop pull the yarn up you have two loops on your hook yarn pull it through those two okay and So, like I said, we're always cutting at the end of each row, so now I just cut here, it's good to leave maybe five centimeters, which is two inches of tail and when you finish the round here, the row I feel it here and in each row, so finished. with a chain that's just a loop and pull it up and pull it up, so okay and don't do it, this is just to secure the last stitch, so we're never going to work on this last chain here.

This is something of an extra, so a good trick is to adjust it a lot and then you won't even want to work on it. It's a good way to remember, so this is the first row of the Apache level that we have. Here there are 20 single crochets in the second row, so in crochet patchwork you are always working in stripes, so it's good to see it from the back. You can see that it's always just one row and that's what really attracted me to this technique. is that you only use one color per row and you're always, but you can still get all these kinds of fun patterns, so it's a row with color a, which is white here or off-white and then one with color b and just continuous like this always alternating each row so row two will be with color b and just like when we finished just take about five centimeters here at the beginning and leave a little bit of tail because now we are going to start. again from the right side again if you're left handed that fits you so we're working everything from the front to row two and yeah one more thing now so we have the 18 stitches the multiplication of six for the pattern and then we have two additional points now and those are the edge points at the beginning of the row and the end of the row and that's just to make the edges a little bit cleaner.

You see, I have to tighten this up a little. So this is always the first stitch here and the last stitch, they're not actually part of the pattern and I have them as an extra and that's why we have the eighteen stitches of the pattern plus two for the edge stitch at the beginning of the row. and you're going to always work this the same way from here on out, so now you want to work in both loops, this is the first stitch here and you insert the hook under both loops of this first stitch, you pick up the yarn and you work a chain . and then a single crochet in the same point that you see, so that's the edge stitch at the beginning of the round of the row, it's a chain and a single crochet in the same point and now we start working the patchwork pattern and in this row everything is just the single crochets and in mosaic crochet you always work all your single crochets in the back loop of a stitch, so if you are a beginner, I will just show you here the anatomy of the stitch so you can see here each loop has the Each stitch has the front loop and the back loop that you see and normally in crochet you would be working both loops, but in patchwork crochet you are always working all the single crochets in the back loop you just see and now we're going to work 18 single crochets every time. in the back loop, just one stitch in each single crochet in each stitch, always in the back loop and remember what I said before if you are in doubt about where to go to the next. pull it out and you'll see this one opens up and then it's not this one, it's the next one, so the second row is just single crochets 17 and 18.

So now I've done 18 single crochets in the back loop and then the last stitch. It is the quarter stitch at the end of the row and you always work the same way in all the following rows and then you work under both loops and only make one single crochet under both loops. This is what you want to do in both loops here. at the end just to have cleaner edges, a single crochet and then you cut the yarn leaving just a little bit of tail and then you make a chain and pull it all the way up and tighten it so you're not tempted to work. okay so that was row two and then row three and now it gets a little interesting because now we're going to introduce our double crochet stitches and the way the patchwork technique works, which is actually incredibly simple.

Okay, again, just leave a little bit of tail here at the beginning and again we startfrom the right side, always from the right. to the left and like before we did the edge stitch at the beginning of the row, you're not going to work on the chain here at the beginning, you see, this here is the chain we don't want to work on that because that's just not nice, it's because That's why I make a chain and a single crochet so I don't have to work on the chain because it's unpleasant, so insert the hook under both loops of the edge stitch, pick up a chain and a single crochet in the same stitch which is the edge stitch of the beginning of the row and now start the crochet patchwork with the double crochets, so the reason we are always working our single crochets into the back loop is to leave the front loop that you see here, now we have these forwards. loops here to work our double crochets and that's how we create the common side crochet patterns, so now you'll find this.

We're going to start with a double crochet here now so you can find the loop in the next stitch. from the last round, the last row that you would normally work on, that's this one here, yeah, and we're going to go down one row, so follow that point that you would normally work on and follow it down, so that's this one here . We're going to work on what you see, so we're double crocheting, so we have to yarn over to find the stitch that you would normally use on this one here, follow it down and go down a row and go up and down, like that, okay. and now here you just work a normal double crochet yarn over, yarn over one, yarn over two and yarn over and yarn over one, okay and now when we continue, be careful, if you look here at the back, we have to leave this stitch. here what we would have worked on if we were working on the last row, not the next to last because otherwise we would be increasing, we don't want to increase, we don't want to have the same number of stitches in all the rows, so take care not to go in on that one and just go to the next one here and now we are going to work five single crochets, so we did one double crochet in a row and the next one is five single crochets and remember that all the single crochets always go only to the back loop, not to both because then we don't have any place to work our double crochets, so just to the back loop three, four and five and this is the apache levels repeat, it's one double crochet, five single crochets, so Now we've done a repeat and then we do it again with a double crochet and just to show you again, when you yarn over, you find the stitch that you would normally use in the next stitch here on the last row, but we're going to go. one row down, wait until here and continue with this front loop that we left for our double crochets, yarn over one yarn over, yarn over two, yarn over and yarn over two again, just like that and again. be careful to leave this stitch back here because we don't want to have the same number of stitches and that was a double crochet and then there are five single crochets always in the back loop three.

Am I going too fast, am I not comfortable? four and five, okay, now we've done two repetitions and we're going to do one more because we have three repetitions of the pattern in this little spot that we're doing, so yarn over now again there's a double crochet, find the next stitch, follow it . down go up and under this one here the yarn over goes through one then you have three loops in your point on your hook yarn through two and yarn over and two okay, that was a double crochet and now we do five single crochets again always in the back loop three four five and now we've done three repeats of the pattern here and then we finish with the edge stitch at the end of the row and then we go under both loops and work a single crochet, cut the thread and chain one and shout it up and secure it so we're not tempted to work on the last one yeah okay this is row three and as you can see the magic will start to happen now okay move on to row four and now actually once Once you've done these first three rows, you'll have learned all the technique you need for most side crochets, then it's just a matter of how you arrange the stitches to make different patterns, yes, but that's really all it is. just all the single crochets go into the back loop and all the double crochets go down one row and into the front loop, so I'm going to show you going ahead and I'm going to show you the first ten rows of the Apache level pattern so you can maybe do something nice with it, yeah, okay, so again we always start the same way, going to both loops of the edge stitch at the beginning of the row, pick up the thread, chain and single crochet in the same stitch in both loops here and then we start with the pattern and now it's irregular levels, it's very simple but effective, so what happens in the pattern is that this double crochet here is always moved forward one stitch, so here we have a double crochet and then Solo we're going to work a single crochet in that one, always in the back loop, remember, and then in the next few sticks we'll do a double crochet and then we knit the yarn over and we find the point where we would normally enter the neck in the last round and we continue that row down one row before and we go up and down here, like this, pass the yarn through the yarn over and go through two and pass the yarn over and go from two to two, so now the double crochet here is one more stitch and then we do it. five single crochets and the single crochets always go in the back loop when working in patchwork crochet because otherwise we would have nowhere to put our double crochets so that is very important and here is the fifth see a double crochet one two three four five single crochet and then the next double crochet lands here in the next stitch after the last double crochet and another good trick to remember is that when you work with only two colors, your double crochet stitches always go to the same color stitches. since you have it up on your hook, now we have blue, so I know I'm going to go to a blue stitch, so I yarn over and go down a row to a blue stitch and work a double crochet there like this and always being careful to Let this stitch here behind the double crochet because we don't want to increase and move on to the next one and now we make five single crochets again and the fifth should always fall on its double crochet and then one double crochet down in a row.

Here and now we end up with only four single crochets because we did one here at the beginning, so one, two, three and four, all single crochets in the back loop and then we do the quarter stitch at the end of the round of the row to Do it and we enter both loops of the stitch and remember that we are not going to work on this, the chain here only in the last single crochet of the round of the row and we make a single crochet, there we cut the thread and the chain. one and pull it all the way and hold it like this, okay, just because I'm always mixing this row and back, so in Icelandic we only have one word for both, so this always gets me, I'm always mixing between row and back , but the row is when you work flat and rounded when you work in the round, obviously, but I'm sorry, okay, so here we go, row four, all done until row five and the last time, the last row was blue, so now I'm going to go with white again, okay, it certainly got very sunny here and then it went away again, that's Iceland for you, so now we start as always we pour the point at the beginning of the row under both loops of the first stitch of row one. chain a single crochet in the same stitch and in row five we start with two single crochets always in the back loop, the second one here lands in the dc, as you see, and then we make a dc and five single crochets and now I have white on top. my hook, so I know I'm going to go to a white stitch, so I yarn over, go down a row down here and make a double crochet there so that one double crochet, five single crochets, go down one row to the front loop and All the single crochets go into the back loop of the last row, so the fifth one here lands on the double crochet and then you yarn over and make another double crochet, so in the Apache level pattern you are always moving your stitch high one more point. in each row from the last one, okay, this is the fifth single crochet and then I make a double crochet down and now I have left here one, two, three single crochets and then there is the quarter stitch, so one and two and three and then there's the edge stitch and remember we're not going to work in the chain just below both loops of the last single crochet of the row, cutting the yarn one chain up, okay, so from row five to row six, now we color. b again all rows of even numbers are colored b all rows of odd numbers or colored a we start with the edge stitch at the beginning of the row a chain and a single crochet in both loops and now we start the row with three stitches single crochet one two and the third lands in the dc of the last round of the last row and then we do a double crochet in the blue stitch since I have blue on my hook from time to time five single crochets two three four and five the fifth lens in the dc and then knit the yarn over and lower with the double crochet a double crochet and then five single crochets that is always the repetition, it only varies at the beginning of the end of the row because the dc always move one stitch forward and the fifth and then We do a double crochet down here in the blue and then we have one and two stitches here for single crochets and then the edge stitch, so one and two always in the back loop and then the edge stitch at the end of the row where we go to both loops because we are not working the patchwork just to get a firmer edge, we cut the thread and that was row six and we go to row seven which is an odd number row so we use the color a again, which is Here the white edge stitch at the beginning of the row is always a chain, a single crochet and now we have one, two, three, four single crochets always in the back loop and the last and the fourth here land on the p.c. of the last row and then we knit the yarn over. and we do one double crochet and you'll see that they always slide to the last one, always only moving one to four with the double crochets and then we do five single crochets and the fifth lens here in the double crochet is fine and then we knit one double crochet and five single crochet the fifth lens in the dc here and now we do a double crochet and I have white on my hook so I enter the white loop here and then just a single crochet and then there is the edge stitch where you enter both loops to get a cleaner edge and you chain one and pull it all the way up and you remember to tighten it so you don't forget and you try to work it right so that's row seven followed by the row. eight now again with color b and we start this always both loops here from the edge stitch lift the thread up chain a single crochet in both loops this is the edge stitch at the beginning of the row and now we are going to work five single crochets always in the back loop guys and then the last one, the fifth lens in the high crochet of the last row and then we'll go down one here and do a high crochet here in the blue like this and then again five. single crochet, the fifth lands in the dc, as always, crochet a double crochet one row down and then five single crochets always in the back loop, so we will have those front lips for our double crochet stitches, the fifth one was here in the high point. of the last row and yarn over and this round of this row ends with a double crochet here and then the edge stitch at the end of the row cut the thread and the chain and pull it all the way to the top, that's row eight and here you can see it's uh you're seeing the pattern coming now it's like steps now we go ahead and do row nine and as you can see it's a very simple repeat of this pattern so you wouldn't know. to show you 10 the first 10 rows, but this is what you should be looking at, as I have shown you, I showed you um, the double crochet stitch always goes one forward and, if it were to continue this way, then at the end, everyone would fall, you know, because we can't do it in this one.

We had the last stitch that was a double crochet, so if we continued this way, all of the double crochet stitches would just fall off the blanket or the piece that you're doing now, as you can see here at the beginning, if we do the edge stitch here and then we have one, two, three, four, five, six stitches before the next double crochet, so this row here on row nine, then we have to add one. double crochet here at the beginning so the pattern is continuous and we don't end up with no double crochets, okay that's just me, but I'm just thinking about all the little double crochet stitches, it's like falling off the end. the blanket is fine, focus on the thinnest row nine, okay, we start with the edge stitch at the beginning of the row as usual, a chain and a single crochet in both loops of the first stitch of the row, yes, and now in this row nine we start with a double crochet, so just yarn over, find the next stitch here that you're supposed to come in and go down and go to the same color that you have on the hook.

Yes, there you can see it and make a high point there and now. We actually come back to this, it's the same repeat as for row three here, so we did one double crochet and then five single crochets, the fifth look at the double crochet of the last row and then we yarn over and do the next double crochet here and then five single crochets is always the same repetition one double crochet five single crochets and repeat and the only thing thatyou have to be careful is to add in every sixth row six rows then you have to add one here at the beginning and it's quite easy remember because you just remember that if the last row that you made ended with a double crochet, then you know that this row here, so the row eight ended with a double crochet, here the last stitch of the pattern was a double crochet and then just the edge. stitch and then you remember you have to take this double crochet here and move it to the beginning of the row on the other side, yeah, so double crochet five single crochets five double crochets five one double crochet five single crochets and then the edge stitch to the end of the row as usual cut the thread and make a chain at the end and fasten it to be row nine okay I think you've already done that but I decided to make 10 rows to show you so I'm going to make this last row here, so we have a sample of 10 rows and then for row 10, row 10 is exactly like row four, so now we're repeating ourselves here, so we do the edge stitch at the beginning of the row . a single crochet in the double crochet and then we start a double crochet and then five single crochets a double crochet always moving just one point to the left if you are left-handed then it will always go one point to the right and then the five single crochets, the fifth always land on the double crochet of the last row, go down one with your double crochet and then this ends with four double crochets, so it was actually like row four and then you finish with the edge stitch at the end of the row, work a single crochet into both loops of the last stitch of the round of the row and then just chain and that's it, so if you've been doing this with me now you really know everything you need to know. about patchwork crochet this is this and that's the fun part, I really mean, let's not tell everyone, but it's still very easy to do.

Only this one has a few more rows here, as you can see, you always continue and now. for example here, oh yeah, and it's a nice trick, so if you want to count the rows, it can't be a bit strange to count from the front, so if you want to count the rows, it's always much easier to do it from the back, so here I can just go 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 here I go to row 15 15 and there again we add another one here at the beginning because you see here now I have the edge point and then I have one two three four five six, I don't want six single crochets in a row, it's always just one double crochet and five single crochets, so if you have the chance to do six here, now you're supposed to do one stitch on the edge, one double crochet here and then five and one and five and one and this is really all there is to it and it's like that, I mean, I've been doing this for like five years, I think and uh, I mean, it's like that, it still never ceases to amaze me, I mean, the possibilities are really It's endless and it's such a beautifully simple technique and you can really, you know, go ahead and show everyone your beautiful mosaic pieces and they'll be, oh my gosh, that's so complicated and you're like, yeah, I'm a genius, please.

Don't tell everyone how simple it is now, I'm joking, so yeah, that's it. Let me take one thing I want to show you and that's my little bag here, so this is the same point here, uh, the Apache teardrop point really just. five single crochets on one double crochet I just want to show you what it looks like if you do it with all kinds of colors and that's really fun too, isn't it? And this is perfect for scraps guys, I mean you could make like a big blanket of this just with different types of scraps or you can use all your colors, it's really a great pattern and if you're a beginner again I would recommend not going too far with your first project, maybe You know, try making a baby blanket or a cushion cover or you know, you know, you know, a hot plate or whatever, something small because it's always such a good feeling. to finish something and, like I said, I'm going to do, this is the first one.

lesson

of at least three that I'm going to do in this beginner patchwork crochet class, so this was the basic one, this is what I learned for the first time, so I wanted to teach you this and now you really know everything you need to know. just all the single crochets go into the back loop and all the double crochets go down one row and yeah, it's very simple and simple and fun and then you can do all kinds of beautiful things like this.

It is a very fun technique to play. and you know it's great to start with apache tears, but stay tuned for my next lessons because I'm going to show you everything you need and want to know about patchwork crochet and how incredibly fun it is and there's a disclaimer. alert here now, this is wildly addictive, so once you start crochet patchwork, just keep in mind that you probably won't be able to stop, it's so much fun guys, that's all for today. Thank you very much, I really hope it helped me, what else? Yes, please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

I'm really open to your feedback and I know what you'd like me to change or show you next or what you think ciao hmm uh.