 Hey guys, how are you? All right, we're here for a video. I promised a really long time ago, but then life got in the way. So we're talking about the Red Heart all-in-one granny square yarn and there are mixed opinions about the yarn. It's not perfect, but I have to admit I do really like the yarn. It's convenient and I use all of my art, but especially crocheting and that type of thing to deal with anxiety and stuff, especially when I'm doing uncomfortable things like going to the doctor because I have white coat syndrome, among other things. And so I will bring a ball of yarn and a crochet hook with me and just sit while I'm waiting, working off some nervous energy, making granny squares. When we're traveling, we're in the car, we're on a plane, all of those things. I use my downtime to draw and paint and crochet. So I wanted to go over with you today how I go about making the Red Heart granny square. There are instructions on the inside of the skein label, but I also wanted to show you how I do a rectangle. Now I found when I planned out my two sweaters that I made, that if I did squares all the way across, that it was going to be too way too big for me. And that the easiest thing for me to do was to figure out how to do a smaller shape that would allow me to get the width I needed, even if it ended up to be a little longer, which this did, and I had to add rows to the bottom of the squares. But that gave me extra length I needed. It worked out to be perfect. I do have diagrams and notes about how I did this in my Patreon, how I made the sweaters. So if you want to have some of that, go about joining my Patreon. It's only a couple bucks a month. But anyway, this is some leftover of the same color, and it is, what color is it? Frigid? Maybe? Yeah. Yeah. So you start with this green color, and you're supposed to start about four inches from the end. I never pay a lot of attention about that. Let's zoom in just a little bit. There we go. So I'm going to just make a slip knot, and then I'm going to chain four, and then I'm going to go back to that first chain and slip stitch to form a loop. Chain one. I'm going to go in and I'm going to do three double crochet, chain three, and repeat that until you have four. Well, I'll just show you. It's easier. Okay, so we're going to do that again. Whoops. So three double crochet, chain three. So you have two chain three spaces, three more double crochet, chain three. Now we're starting to get where the color changes. So this is where with this yarn, you want to be very mindful of your tension and everything. If you want it to be perfect, it's never perfect. But you may find that with this yarn, you're fiddling with how many chains that you do or how tight or loose you're holding the yarn. For me personally, 99% of the time I found I went down a hook size. So this is a four and a half instead of a five and a half millimeter. And that most of the time just worked for me. So here we would have three chain three spaces, but we need four. So we're going to do three more double crochet. And see, this is where you're going to, I'm running out of yarn. Now if I really bugged me, what I would do is go back just a few stitches, I probably wouldn't go back all of them, hold the yarn a little bit tighter. Whoops, that's four double crochet. That's too many. Okay, so chain three. Okay, I always find that if I get it to that point, that works for me. So we're going to chain three. Then we're going to go into the top of the first double crochet and slip stitch. Then I'm going to go back into that space and do another slip and a chain one. That's how I do them. And when I do that, you cannot tell where the join is mostly, except for right here where there's the yarns not quite perfect. So then I keep doing that now all the way around now for this one. So now we have four chain three spaces. If you keep doing this and we'll chain, we chained, oops, we already chained one. Okay, so we'll do three double crochet. Oops, it's because I'm on camera. Okay, three double crochet. Chain one. And then in each of the chain three spaces, do three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet, chain one, and repeat. And do it again. Three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet, chain one. Now we're back to that starting point. So three double crochet. Keep an eye on the color changes coming up. There we go. It's coming through chain three. So there is a little bit extra this time. If you're concerned about it, again, go back and do a few stitches, loosen up your gauge, and do it again. I am not too concerned. But if you want it to be perfect, then you have to either add extra chains or loosen up your tension, loosen up your gauge. Is that what I said? Loosen up your tension a bit. But I found using the smaller hook and having the extra yarn causes me less problems than using the bigger hook because then I always have not enough yarn. So I'll go back a few stitches and I'll loosen up my tension here. Go a little looser. I also have found that most of the time where I really have to be mindful of holding the tension very tightly is on the last row of color. In this particular skein, the white color, most of the time doesn't seem to be enough yarn. Let's try that again. I swear I've had on my coffee this morning. Okay, chain one. I brought us a little bit closer. Yep, that worked. So you just loosen up your gauge, your tension a bit, and then you end up right where you're supposed to be. And if you just keep doing that all the way around until you get to the white, which is the end color, you'll end up with a square. So let me do that real quick and I'll be back. Okay, we're on that last row of color and this is the part where I always find, I have to really tighten up my tension. Here's the thread end or the color change for the next granny square. So this is the part, the last color is always where I find I have to tighten my tension. I tend to be a loose tension crocheter. So how it works for you is going to depend on how you crochet. You did see me a few times have a color change happen over here in some double crochet, which I don't like. I don't mind if it happens in the chains when I'm ending that row. I find that that's fine. It doesn't even show. But if it's right here, it's going to show. So then I just frog back a few stitches and tighten up my tension and do it again. Usually I don't have to frog back a whole bunch of stitches, usually just to the first corner, sometimes not even there. But you'll have to play with it and see what works for you. I have seen some crocheters eliminate the chain one in between and then that works for them for the color change. So you'll have to play with it. But we're here to the last corner. I'm going to chain one. I am going to hold my yarn fairly tight. I'm going to go in the space between the two clusters, whether you've chained one or not. Maybe you didn't chain one because that works for you, but you want to go into that space between the two clusters. Do three double crochet and then chain one and repeat that and one more time. And so you just it's through it's all the rows after the first one are the same. So in the corners, you have three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet on either side of that, you'll have a chain one, then three double crochet, chain one, three double crochet, chain one all the way around until you get to that last color. And then it looks like we'll have just enough. So we're to the last corner. We're going to do three double crochet and that's my security system. There's somebody in the driveway, so sorry. So one, two, three and then chain three and then slip stitch into that first one. I am going to do two chains and then I'm going to cut my thread. I had plenty, so yay. How am I starting a crocheting video without scissors? How's that possible? Okay. I'm going to cut it right here where the change is. There we go. And then so those two chains, put your fingernail there and just pull it tight and then it creates two knots and it will flatten out when you block it. Now I block, I do block them and I get to them to be about six and a half inches square and that works perfect. So now let me show you quick how to do a rectangle. To get different shapes is really just fiddling with the shape. It's all about the shape of that very first row. Okay, so to do the rectangle you start a little bit differently. So I am going to take a little bit like that and I ain't four inches or so up and do a slip knot. Then I'm going to chain five. Again, this is what works for me. Then I'm going to refer to my notes because yes I made notes and the patrons and supporters do have copies of the notes. So if you would like copies of them to know how to do this, you can join my patron, Patreon, Jesus. Okay, hold on. We have different shapes including half hexes, triangles, pentagons, octagons, hexagons, circles. Make myself notes because otherwise I forget and this is my crochet notebook at the moment. It's a little bit messy because I've been traveling a little bit but I always keep a notebook with me with a pen and some washi tape and stuff here in this pocket on the cover. All right, so we want to do two double crochet in the third chain from the hook. Chain one. My notes say two but I think that's a typo. So let's do three. Chain one. Go to that last chain, the starting chain and do three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet. Okay, then do chain one. Then go back to where you started up here and do three double crochet and we might have too much yarn. I might have to loosen up my tension. Yeah, a little bit so let's go back and loosen up a little bit. Still a little off but that's okay. Sometimes I find with these other shapes leaving a longer tail helps you with the color change. Okay, we're going to slip stitch back just like we do. I do all my changes the same way, chain one. So on the rectangle you'll notice we have this sort of like round egg shape um after the first row. Here let me do this there. We have this sort of funny shape like this. Once you do the second row it starts to look like a rectangle. You're just going to have to trust me on that one. It helps if I slip stitch into the right place, which would be up here. There we go. So you'll end up with something like that. Slip stitch back, chain one, do three double crochet, go to that chain one space, chain one, three double crochet, chain one. Here's the chain three space. So three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet, chain three, three more double crochet all in that same space. Go to the chain one space, chain one, three double crochet, chain one. Go up here to this starting space, three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet, chain three. And you just keep doing that around and I swear it does work and you're going to end up with a rectangle. So you can see here we've got our three double crochets with chain threes in between at the either end and you just keep doing the pattern around. When you get to this third row in the chain three corners you do the corners the way we did on the square. Three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet and then you go chain one and then you go over to the other corner. It'll start to give you a rectangle. I missed a double crochet so hang on. Maybe I had too much coffee this morning. Okay go to that first double crochet, slip stitch. Our color change is going to be off probably on all of them because it was off here and I didn't bother to go back and fix it. But if you go back and fix it the first time it's usually pretty good for the rest of it. Is it perfect? No. Do I need it to be? No. Okay chain one, three double crochet, chain one, three double crochet, chain one, repeat that around. When we get to the corner we're going to do the corners the way we were doing them. Three double crochet, chain three, three double crochet, chain one in between the two corners. Once you get to there you're like oh yeah wait that is a rectangle. You just keep going and then you'll end up with this. So I hope it gives you some ideas and that you play with the yarn. I do love the Red Heart Granny Square all-in-one because there's no color changes and when I am traveling, yes I'm tempted to travel with a whole bunch of yarn balls but I don't need to because it's all-in-one and there's one loose end to weave in at the beginning and one at the end and that's it. That's enough for me. I hate weaving in ends. So this really works well for me. I like it. Once you wash it it softens up a lot and flattens up a lot and I really am a big fan. For patrons and supporters we are going to have a bonus to this video which I'm going to film next which includes some tips and hints. We're going to talk through doing octagons, pentagons, hexagons, circles and I also have notes for triangles and a couple of other things. But for the rest of you get some of this yarn and give it a try. Now granny squares are just a lot of fun even if you just don't do the all-in-one granny square. If you just get a variegated yarn or a multicolored yarn I wanted to see what would happen if you use the Premier Bloom yarn which is intended to do a particular color pattern in certain rows like when you're knitting but it's just multicolored yarn and you know what it makes a cute granny thing. And this one and this one that's from the same ball of yarn. So I like the multicolored yarns because they don't have to bring like five million balls I can just bring the one. And these are easy to make and for me at least they're very therapeutic plus they can be made into blankets and sweaters and cardigans and all kinds of stuff. Anyway give it a try. Yeah give it a try. It's very calming. This is a very calming pastime and it's easy and if you don't know how to crochet and you want to learn there's a lot of really great YouTube channels out there. I will try to remember to link a couple in the video description but if you guys have one you recommend you won't be able to put a link but put the name of the channel in the comments down below and let's share. All right that's it for today. Go out, have some fun, practice making some granny shapes and squares, rectangles, whatever. Share what you do and don't forget to tag me in the post that way I can see it and comment and go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.