I am Toni Lipe with Toni's Design Studio. We are talking about how to crochet today. Now, we are going to talk about some different stitch variations, these are used to increase or decrease in your crocheting. They are also used as decorative edges or just to add texture to your crochet. First, we are going to talk about groups and clusters or groups and shells. Right now, I am working on a double crochet piece of fabric. So I need to chain three and then what I am going to do to create this shell, is to work a double crochet into one stitch. So I am going to put five double crochets into one stitch. So what I do is go down through the chain. First I yarn over, go down through the chain, yarn over again, pull through two loops, pull through and then I just keep repeating this in the same stitch five times. Yarn over, under the chain, yarn over, pull through two loops, pull through two loops, yarn over. I enjoyed combining my crocheting with my knitting. Crocheting makes beautiful borders for knitted garments and it keeps them from rolling as well. Now, I have one, two, three, four, five double crochets in one stitch and I am going to do that again and show you how it looks group together. Yarn over, I am going to skip one chain and go into the next chain and your crochet pattern will tell you how many stitches to put into each chain, how many stitches to skip, but it's very easy to do. You are just doing the same thing in the same chain over and over. Do one more time. One, two, three, four, five and you can see the beginning of a lovely shell border. We have our straight work and then we have what's going to start looking like scallops going across the fabric. We have just learned how to work a shell or a group of crochet stitches. Now, let's talk about clusters. Clusters are stitches worked in, let's say, three consecutive chains and then group together at the top of the chain. So, what we will do is yarn over and do our double crochet and what we are going to do is to leave the last loop on the crochet hook. I'll yarn over again and do the next stitch. Now, I have two stitches on my hook that I am going to leave there. Yarn over one more time, go through the chain, do our double crochet and now, I have three stitches on my hook and I will yarn over and pull the yarn through all three stitches; so that's taken three stitches and combine them into one, thereby decreasing the area that the crochet work is in.
Now, we are going to do a bobble. A bobble is a combination of those two stitches and it makes a nice little bubble on the top of your work. What I am going to do is work five double crochets into one chain, leaving the last loop on the nick of my hook. So double crochet, one, two; double crochet number two, leaving that loop on my crochet hook. Double crochet number three; now, I have three loops on my hook. Double crochet number four, I have four loops on my hook and double crochet number five, I have five loops on my hook.
What I will do now is I will yarn over and draw my crochet hook and my yarn through all five stitches. Sometimes, to hold those stitches in place another chain stitch is made right there to hold them in place. Now, I am going to do it one more time yarn over, double crochet, yarn over, double crochet into the same chain, four, five, I have five loops on my hook, yarn over and draw it through all five and do one more chain stitch and there we have a bobble and those are very cute distributed through the fabric here and there and it gives a nice texture and a nice shape to your garment.
Next, we will talk about popcorns. Popcorn stitches are another variation of crochet stitches. They are completed stitches that are folded or close to create another look. What we will do is make five double crochets into one chain. Yarn over, make one double crochet, the second double crochet in the same chain and we are completing the stitches this time; we are not holding them on our crochet hook; third double crochet, four and the fifth double crochet. Now, the fun part to make our popcorn, I am going to make this loop a little bit larger. We have to go back into the first stitch of this group and pull the yarn all the way through to make one chain stitch and it creates just a little bump in your fabric and is called the popcorn and that's how to crochet.