 Hi everyone, welcome to Start of School Crochet. This is Tasha. Today's tutorial is going to be how to crochet these plaid Potholders. This is a gingham plaid in black, gray, and white, and then also in a rose with a dusty rose, pastel pink, and a white. What you'll need for today's project is a five millimeter crochet hook, some darting needles, scissors, and I picked up some of these wooden rings off of Amazon, and I'll link the link for that below. So let's get started. And if you're new to my channel, welcome. Thanks for being here. If you like my content, please hit the little bell button, hit the subscribe button, so you can get notified of all my future video tutorials. Let's get started on this cute project. I think you're going to love it, and it goes by really quick. So in this tutorial, you'll be learning how to change colors. You'll be learning how to work a gingham plaid, little tips and tricks on how to work a gingham plaid, and also carrying your colors, because carrying your colors is super important with this kind of project. Here I'm going to show you what I've started doing. We're going to start off with a chain of 29, and then you're going to work back through that chain and do a single crochet row. So I'm just going to move all this stuff aside. The best way to get a gingham plaid is to use a white plus two colors that are the same, one darker than the other, like a dark pink and a mauve like I'm using here, or a gray and a black. You will also need your colors. So I have pastel pink here, a dusty rose, and a white. These are all Capri Eco Cotton, and you can get these at Michaels. I'll put that link down below as well. And also this is a free pattern, and it's on my blog for free. You can also get the PDF version. If you prefer a printout, and it has charts and diagrams and everything. Okay, so we're going to start out with a slipknot and do a chain of 29. You can do a foundation chain, or if you want, or a foundation single crochet, but I just recommend chaining. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. So here I have 29. I'm going to work a single crochet into the second chain from the hook, and in each chain across. So go ahead and pause the video if you need to, and work that chain. And we have one more chain left right here. Before we finish out the last stitch of that single crochet, we're going to bring up our dusty rose color because that's going to be the first color we're going to use in our pattern right here. So we're going to work our first row in dusty rose and then a light rose pink, and we're going to work that across until we have four of the dusty rose and one, two, three of the light pink. So I'm going to grab this yarn, and I'm going to show you how to add colors. So you just grab, and you want to leave kind of a long tail right here, because when you do, we're going to work that color back through so you can hide the tail, and that's a little trick. So you add your yarn, bring it through that last stitch, and finish out the last stitch with your new yarn, and then pull them all tight. I'm going to chain one with the yarn coming off the ball, and we're going to turn. I'm going to grab the yarn that's the tail. So I'm going to actually work the first few stitches of this pattern with the tail, and it's kind of a little awkward at first because you have this one hanging out. So just pull up and finish out your single crochet, and then pull that one tight a little bit, and we're going to continue working with the tail for the first three stitches, and that's going to weave your tail in as you're going, and which makes a really great trick. So now I've done three stitches. I'm going to drop that tail, bring back up my main color, and finish out that stitch with my main color, and then once again, I'm going to pull it a little bit tight, and then I'm going to weave that tail in to that last stitch again, and work around it like that. Now it's time to switch colors again. So I'm going to bring in my pink eco cotton color, which is a really light pink. And again, we're going to leave a long tail so that we can actually weave it in as we go. And this part is going to have a few extra tails you're going to have in there, so I'm going to add my color, pull it through those last two stitches, and then pull that tight. Now I'm going to drop the one that's coming off the ball and pick up the tail. And then I'm going to grab all of those, and I'm going to work those into the next stitch. So I'm going to go into my next stitch and work around all of those tails for the first two. I'm going to do the first three stitches using the tail. And then I'm going to switch to the main one coming off of my ball, which is right here. And then I'm going to pull that tight. And here again, we're going to weave in all of these as we go. And the trick, one of the tricks to keeping your yarn untangled while you're doing tapestry crochet is you keep one off to one side, and you keep one off to the other side. We can go ahead and cut this white because we're not going to be using it again right away. So we're going to cut that one and just get it out of the way. So I'm going to leave my dusty rose over here. I'm going to leave my light pink over here. That's going to give me an easy way to not let them get tangled up. So here we have three already, and I'm going to do one last stitch in the pink. Make sure you pull these tight. So there's my last stitch. We're doing four stitches in each color. So we're going to do four of the dusty rows and then four pink. So then I'm going to drop that. I'm going to pick up my dusty rows coming from over here. I'm going to close out the last stitch with that dusty rose color. And then I'm going to pull these tight again because you can see they get a little bit loose. And I'm going to wrap all those up, and I'm going to actually do a crochet, single crochets around them. And since we're not switching colors again for another three rows, you can go ahead and just relax and enjoy the crochet. So we did four, and now we're going to drop this. And we're going to grab this from where it's coming from over here and just pull it on up. It's okay if this is on top of that because it works itself out. And then close out your last stitch and then pull all of those tight. And now we're going to work four in the light pink. We're going to wrap all those colors inside of our stitches. So there we've done four. We're going to stop there and we're going to drop that. We're just going to grab this one from over here, bring it on up. With the tails in there, you're welcome to cut those off at any point you feel you want to. But you ought to remember that this is going to be a potholder. So you're probably going to throw it in the washing machine quite a bit. So I recommend leaving those tails in and weaving them in for as long as you possibly can. So just lay that down here when we change colors again. You're going to bring up your other color. And I believe these are probably at a good spot where we can cut them. So I'm just going to pull them tight right here. And I'm just going to snip both of those tails off, right? Like that. Throw this away into the tail pile that I have going on. So we have one more light pink and we're going to drop your light pink to the direction where the ball is and then close out with your next color. And remember to bring this up and we're going to work that in. And now we're going to do four more of the Dusty Rose. One, two, four. And again, we're going to drop this one and we're going to pull this up from behind. Even if this is on top of there, it doesn't matter because it works itself out. That's the best way to keep your yarn untangled. Trust me on this one. So we're going to drop that, pull this one up, now bring it back, pull it tight and then finish out the last four stitches with your Dusty Rose color. And this pattern works in multiples of eight plus five. So if you want to change it up or make it bigger, you can do any multiple of eight and then add five. And that will give you an even working colors. And I'll explain that in a second. So here's what we have so far. So doing multiples of eight, you'll have, this is four in eight. So you'll have eight, then you'll add the five plus one turning chain. And then that will give you this block. So you'll have two of the dark colors on the outside if that's how you want to keep your pattern. So for row two, we're going to continue the Dusty Rose color. We're going to chain one, turn, and we're going to bring that light pink up with it. So we're going to do four, one, two, three. And then the fourth one, we're going to drop this one, bring the light color up, make sure it's tight, and then work four of the light color. Then we're going to drop the pink, bring up the Dusty Rose. And remember, you're always going to be carrying your colors inside so that you can't see it. Some people like to cut it each row, each color change. That's a lot of tails to weave in. So that's just completely up to you. I think it looks fine without cutting colors. Okay, so here's where you can drop this one, bring it forward, and we'll pick it back up when we come back on row four. Chain one. At the end of each row, you're going to chain one and turn. We're going to work back through one, two, three, four. We're going to drop this one and bring up the pink from where we had it before. Add that back in, and then pull it tight and keep going. Now we've come to a point where we're going to be changing to another color. So we're actually going to bring in the white. Now the next row is going to have pink, white, pink, white, pink, white, pink. So we're going to actually be using this same color pink, but over here. So it's good that we carried that over to the last one because we're going to bring that up and use that at the beginning of this row. And also if you want, it's a good idea to carry this Dusty Rose just down a little bit. We can carry it over to the other side because we're going to be picking it back up again and using it up here when we get up a few rows. So that's just a little trick that'll keep you from having to weave in a bunch of tails. So we're going to bring up the pink here, the light pink, pull that tight. We're going to chain one, turn. We're going to carry that Dusty Rose back behind and do our four pink to start this row off. Two, three, four. And then after this we're going to pick up our white, but I'm going to carry this Dusty Rose throughout this entire row. So I'm going to grab my white yarn and I'm going to add it and do the same thing we did when we first started. So I'm going to leave kind of a long, kind of a long tail. I'm going to add this and it gets a little bit cumbersome working with so many strands at one time, but it's well worth it because it'll save you a lot of time. So I'm going to use my tail in this one to actually work the stitches, the next few stitches. Working the tail to do the stitches is very, very weird at first because the loop gets pulled out. It starts to get a little funky, but don't worry because you can just pull the loop tight. You can pull it all tight once you finish your first stitch. So we're going to do four in the white. Well three, we're going to actually do three stitches in the tail. Then we're going to drop that tail, pick up the main piece coming from your ball, and then we're still going to work all those pieces inside. We're carrying all of these yarns. So now we've done four light pink and we're doing four. So I'm going to leave this white ball over here. My pink is still over on that side. So I want to just grab it from over here, pull it up, and it's going to look like all of those tails are going to be on top of there, but that's fine because it all ends up working out. So we're going to pull the white ends tight too. You want to make sure that the legs of your stitches are the same size. And then we're going to work four pink. I'm enclosing all of these tails so that we have fewer tails to weave in later. And it's not very impeding on the pattern at all. You can't really see them through there. It doesn't really cause any problems at all, which is great. So now I'm going to drop that pink, bring up my white, and we're going to do, just like we did before, working in four single crochet of each color going across. You can pull these tails tight and then loosen them up again. Now we're working on the very last block of this row and we're going to cut those tails, but we're going to leave our dusty rows so that we can pick it back up later because we're going to pick that dusty rows up right after we finish these three rows. So we've got row one here, row two and row three. Each color block has three rows of color. Like I was saying before, you could drop the white back here and leave it on front, which I didn't do, but I'm going to pull that back and we'll do that because that's much easier and it also makes it a little less thick. So after you finish the last block, pull your white forward, drop it to the front, and then continue on. So I'm going to leave this dusty rows here. We're just going to leave the dusty rows. We're not going to pay attention to it and we're just going to work with our light pink and our white. So I'm going to chain one, turn, and do four single crochets. Pull that white up that we had before, finish out the last stitch, and then bring and carry my pink yarn through and work one, two. When you reach the last square, you can bring your white forward and continue with just your pink without carrying any yarn inside. There we go. So we've got that. We're going to chain one, we're going to turn, and this is going to be our last row before we go back to our dusty rows and light pink. So I'm done with the white. I'm going to bring it forward. I'm going to finish out the last four stitches of my pink. So here is what we have so far. So far we have our foundation row, single crochet. We have one, two, three rows of pink and dusty rows, and then we have three rows of pink and white. So this is your repeat pattern. You're going to repeat this row and this row until you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. That's what I did and I made a nice square. I really liked the way that it turned out and then we'll finish doing the border pattern and the border and then we'll attach the little loop. Just a note, you can create gingham plaid with any colors that you'd like. When you're doing a black and white one, you want to choose a darker gray or a medium colored gray and a black and a white. So for this one, I used a color called pewter and it's not actually as dark as I would like it to be but I think it turned out great and some yarn companies don't provide different hues of different color shades of gray but if you find one that does, you can create it in blue. You can create it in all different colors. So after yesterday's debacle, if you want to see the video of what happened while I was recording my tutorial yesterday, I will put the link down below. It was pretty crazy. My entire ceiling fell in in my not entire ceiling but half the ceiling fell in my living room. It was crazy. All right, so let's get on to this. I'm working on the last few rows. I have one more set of blocks after this and then we're going to go ahead and do the border. Okay, so here's the last stitch. The last stitch and this is what we have so far and you can see there's not a lot of tails to weave in which is great. On this side, there's a few more but that tip and trick that I showed you just a few minutes ago would be great to actually work these back in so you might not even have any tails if you did it that way and it doesn't really do much of a hindrance to the design because it is gingham and it's kind of meant to be flowy and the colors go together. I'm going to cut the tail. I'm going to pull it out and we'll weave that in when we do the border. I'm going to cut this tail which is the pink and again we'll weave that in when we do the border so we'll just work that in to the border when we go around. Okay, so now to do the border you can decide which one you want to be the right side and the wrong side. Usually where the little knot is is the back side of a single crochet so this is my front side where I did my rows this way. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it this way and I'm going to attach my yarn right here in this corner. I'm going to use my white yarn and what we're going to do first I'm attaching it here because I want it to kind of be a little bit of a seamless thing so I'm going to go straight into this corner here attach it like that and I'm not going to chain one. I'm going to use my tail like I did before using the tail instead of what's coming off of your yarn. Into this corner I'm going to do a single crochet remember to just pull all those tight single crochet chain one and a single crochet and then I just have a little bit of this tail left so I'm going to work the first part of my next single crochet and we're going to work along the rows and you're just going to work a single crochet into each of those rows. I'm going to drop that one and pick back up this one and then tighten that all up. You're going to weave in this other tail as you go along and working a single crochet into each of the end of the rows and I'm just going into wherever my hook fits the easiest so now we're reaching up to this corner and we're going to work a single crochet chain one and a single crochet into this corner and I'm going to weave all these in as I'm going so it just makes it a lot easier so you have to make sure you hold those really tight as you're working that first single crochet and then chain one and then do a single crochet into that same corner space. That's a little bit better and now you can go ahead and work these one stitch for each of the bottom of the chains. Okay so you want to work around doing a single crochet in each of the stitches in the corner you're going to do a single crochet, chain one, single crochet, then you're going to work your single crochet all the way back to the beginning so let's meet back on the other side. Okay so I'm right here back to this corner and I'm going to go ahead and in this corner space I'm going to work a single crochet and a chain one, a chain one and then I'm going to attach it to the beginning. Okay so now we're going to work a linked half double crochet. We just joined and now we're going to do a chain one, yarn over, insert your hook, yarn over, pull up and then yarn over and pull through all three. So that's our first half double crochet. To do a linked half double crochet you're going to work your hook through this very bottom loop of your half double crochet right here so I'm going to insert my hook into that loop, yarn over and pull up a loop then we're going to insert our hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull up and just like a regular half double crochet you're going to yarn over and pull through all three and you repeat that across so you insert your hook into that bottom loop of your half double crochet, yarn over and pull up a loop, insert your hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull up then yarn over and pull through all three and it might be a little odd at first to not yarn over when you first do a half double crochet but it's a linked half double crochet so you're actually linking them together which creates a little bit of a bump on the bottom which is a really nice effect and you'll see once you start working a lot of them what it ends up looking like. It is windy today. Okay so that is what a linked half double crochet looks like and that's what the back looks like so keep working that across when you reach the corners you're going to do three linked half double crochets in each corner then you're going to work around and do three linked half double crochets in this corner keep working do three linked half double crochets in that corner keep working up and when you get to this corner you're going to work two linked half double crochets and then join it to the beginning so I'm going to pause and then when we get back to this side I'm going to come back and show you how to join and then we'll be finished and then we'll attach our wooden rings so you get this really cute little effect right here and you don't have to do the ring if you don't want to do a ring I'll show you an alternative way to create a little loop so that you can use your pot holder and just hang them on a hook. Now I'm coming up to the beginning and I'm going to do a linked half double crochet in there one more in the corner and then I'm going to join so I'm just going to do two linked half double crochets in the corner and then I'm going to cut it and I'm going to join then I'm going to cut a really long tail if you don't want to use a wooden ring you can always join right here and then do a row of single crochets or a chain and then work a single crochet row back to create your loop but here I'm going to pull it through like that then I'm going to take my pretty big darning needle I'm going to loop that on to my darning needle then I'm going to take this and I'm just going to set it right on top there and this is all I did I would just put it through leave it back through the front into that same space right here in the corner and then when it pulls tight it pulls it out up like that and for this one I'll show you I went through and did it around four times I weaved it through four times so I went back through the back I'm going to go back through the middle bring it back up again and I kind of want to sit it straight on top and I'm just going to go straight back through and that's it bring it back through the middle so that's my third time I'm going to do it one more time this time I'm going to cross over this way a little bit so I can fill in that little hole that I see right there there we go so there is your loop then you're going to go ahead and just weave this tail in you can go over more times if you'd like if you want a thicker loop or something you feel is a little bit stronger but I really found that four worked really well so I'm just going to weave this back through the center of those half double crochet stitches and I'm going to pull it a little bit tight so it makes it secure then I'm going to go back through those same stitches then I'm just going to cut it and we'll be finished that'll be the very last cut and now the only thing you need to do is go through and weave in all these tails and then you'll have your finished potholders and you can go ahead and block these if you want I recommend steam blocking and then yeah weave in all your tails and then you have your cute little potholders and you can do these in any colors that you want so far I've done mine in black and white and gray and then also this pretty dusty rose thanks everybody for watching and if you have any questions please let me know and leave them down in the comment below remember to subscribe to my channel if you like what I do you can hit the like button and hit the little bell so you get notified of all my future video tutorials and also all of these patterns are free on my blog so you can head over to startistgoldcrochet.com and get this written pattern for free I also have the PDF available in my store the infinite yarniverse so you can head over there and grab the PDF they'll be on Etsy and it'll also be on Ravelry so I got your basis covered for whichever kind of crochet, pattern, shop you like to shop from thanks everybody have a great day happy crocheting