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Not Your Grandma's Granny Squares! Embroider Your Crochet With Flair
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May 17, 2024
More info https://www.jspcreate.com/embroider-on-crochet-for-a-unique-flair/ Add some beautiful extra detail to your Crocheted Granny Squares after the fact with this quick and easy backstitch technique Summer Side Hexagon: https://youtu.be/gAk6bINPQ0o Summer Side Hexagon Bag: Coming Soon contains affiliate links at no cost to you Find more Classes from me over on Skillshare https://www.skillshare.com/en/r/user/jspcreate?gr_tch_ref=on Website https://www.jspcreate.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/jspcreate.crochets Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jspcreate.crochets/
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey gang, Jane here and today I'll be sharing a crochet technique that you can use to add
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a little extra detail into your granny squares. We're going to be working on an embroidered backstitch
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I'll be working this today using the Somerside Hexagon Granny and as always you can find
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the details on that square in the description below. Sometimes it's fun to jazz up your granny squares with a little extra stitch work and
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get effects that you can't necessarily achieve with regular crochet. This technique will work with any project
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It does add a little extra texture and bulk to your square so you'll see the stitching
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on the back of your work. I'm always inspired from crazy quilt ideas and used to love doing that extra stitch work
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on top to add detail to my work. So today I'll be showing you the simple backstitch
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We'll be using the same weight of yarn I made the square itself in, which is a worsted weight
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but extra detailed embroidery could be done in any weight of yarn
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Since it's done on top, it depends on what look you're trying to achieve. So you could use a lighter weight or you could use a heavier weight
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So for this embroidery project I'm going to use the Somerside Hexagon Square and I just
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need a pair of scissors and a nice darning needle. I like my darning needle to have a large eye in the center and that makes it easier to
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get the yarn through. And a nice dull point. You see the dull point here
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I prefer that so I don't jab myself and I also don't split the yarn when I'm sewing
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I'm going to need two colors and for this one in particular I'm going to use white for
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the embroidery around the center. So I just need about a 20 inch length I'm using
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I want to be able to give myself extra. And then on the outer ring that I'm also going to show you how, I'm going to use blue
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So it's really personal preference but that's what I'm going to do and you'll get to see
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how nice it looks. It just gives it that extra touch. So to start with I'm going to use the white and I'm going to put it onto my darning needle
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And we don't need to put a knot or anything on it because the ends will be darned in at
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the end. And we're going to start with our square or hexagon, whatever you want to call it
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And then I'm going to work around this part of the ring. So this embroidery works best on a solid stitch but it doesn't have to be
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It just hides it nice and the nice thing with a solid stitch is like it gives you like a
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little grid as if you're working on cross stitch. So let's zoom in and see if we can do this
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So you're going to want to come from the back to the front with your first one
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So I just kind of go and I can kind of see my needle and you're going to want to come
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up through one of these little spaces and it's in between stitches and you're going
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to pull your needle up and then you just want to leave
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I'll flip it over here and show you. You just want to leave a few inches at the back for you to darn in at the end
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So let's flip it back to the front and we have our needle coming through the first space
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So the next thing we want to do is go back down but it's a back stitch so we're actually
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going backwards and many ways to do this but this is how I'm going to do it
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You're going to go down into the next space between the two stitches and you're going
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to pull the yarn all the way through and you're not going to pull it tight
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You're going to leave it nice and floofy sitting on top. If you pull too tight it just disappears into your into your square and you'll you know
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there's no point you won't see it. So now you're you're down one stitch back but what I'm going to do is come up one stitch
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in front so not in the same space that I came out the first time but the next one
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So you're actually leaving a gap and you want to come back up with your needle
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So on the back I've just it doesn't matter where this end hangs at the moment because
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you're going to darn it in at the end. So here's where a back stitch starts
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So you can go the poke method where you go down and then you go back up or you can do
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like a sewing back stitch where you go down where you first came up
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So you want to go back to the last stitch space here
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Put your needle in and angle it and using your thumb to find the next hole you bring
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it back up one hole in advance and you want to pull that through
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That's like a true back stitch and then you pull it not too tight
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Let it sit on top. So we're going to rotate our work a little because we want to keep working around and
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keeping our tension even and you want to take the needle and you're going to go back down
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right where the stitch last came up and then you're going to go and find the next one
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So here's here's a trick at the back. It doesn't necessarily matter what your back looks like in general unless it's going to
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be on show but the best technique is to always bring your needle to one side of the stitching
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and I always like to be on the bottom so it pushes the stitches out
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So you can see here when I come through I don't come through on this side of the stitch
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I come through on this side of the stitch. So then you pull it through and pull it through gently
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So now we've got three three stitches. Now I'm going to come back up and then we'll do our real back stitch again
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See how I leave the gap and I come up a space over
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So if you if you're having trouble getting it to sit on the right side it is good to
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do the poke method where you poke down make sure it's on the right side then you poke
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back up. To do the back stitch method where I go down and then come back up I actually hold the
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yarn with my thumb or not my thumb my finger to the side so that I know the needle is coming
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in underneath it so I can feel that when I put the needle in I can feel that yarn and
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I want it to be on the outside part of the needle
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So I'm going to do this down and back up leaving a gap and it's on the right side of the yarn
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to push it out and pull it through gently. So now we'll try to get a little more flowing here
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You're coming back to finish the gap that's left and you're going ahead one whole space
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holding the yarn to the outside. It's starting to make a little more sense maybe right
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And then don't pull too tight here. So this all comes with practice
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So again down using my finger to pull the yarn away from the needle and back up pulling
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it through and then you start to see how nice the back looks
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If you're always on the same side of the yarn you get this nice woven look if you're not
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it's kind of zigzaggy and not a big deal if you're not going to see it but I like my back
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to look as good as my front. So again we're halfway around now so you're going to go in
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I can feel that yarn so I'm putting the needle kind of slanting it towards the center so
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the yarn sits on the outside of it and then I come back up one full gap away
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Push the needle through and just gently pull that stitch and again we're going to go down
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making sure the needle slants in and the yarn is on the outside of it
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One full stitch and we pull up. Now somewhere in here is where I started and it does get a little bunchy because when you
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join with a slip stitch which I believe I did on that round it actually feels like two stitches
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So you have two options you can either treat each of these strands as one stitch or you
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can have one larger stitch that you pull a little tighter. So again we go down and I think this is where it is so I'm actually this is actually one
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stitch but to me it's going to look like two so I'm going to go through this one
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It doesn't matter how many you do it doesn't have to be the same number of stitches it
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just has to look the way you want it to. And then pull gently and then go in again and this one might be tricky to get it yeah
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it's on the right side and then come back up. So I think I just did two stitches over one actual stitch just don't pull too tight just
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let it sit in there and again come up another one. So this one actually is one stitch so you could do that as one stitch but it would be
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a touch longer than the other one so you either have two that are shorter or one that's longer
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and then you go in again and we're coming up to our final space see how we meet here
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at the beginning my back is nicely woven. And then all I have left to do is go back oops losing my needle all I have left to do
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is go back down and make sure again that I'm on the right side of the yarn at the back
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and pull it through and there we go it's all nicely stitched around there with a back
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stitch and then on the other side oops take my yarn out of the way here you can see how
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it's woven nicely around always in the same direction so it's not zigzaggy and then all
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I have left to do is turn these two ends in. And you might think well I don't have very far to darn them you could knot them together
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that's an option to tie these two in a knot right here nice secure knot and they definitely
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won't come out. The other option is to just leave them like that and weave them in so I would just I'll
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show you how I do that. So just take this end for example and go back and weave it in and under all of these
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and just pull it through and you can go all the way around with that
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You might be like well it might fall out it's not going to fall out because I tell you this back stitch I've actually tried to get these back stitches out when I didn't like the color
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I used and it's almost impossible so trust me once you've stitched these back stitches
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in they're staying. So don't worry too much about the ends coming out but do darn them in enough that they're
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not wagging out and that you know that first one doesn't start to try to loosen itself
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So that's our first round and I have darned the ends in and as I said before trust me
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that's pretty secure because I have tried to unpick a back stitch color that I didn't
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like and it's it's really difficult to get it out so yeah once it's sewn in there it's secure
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So now we're going to do another round out here around this row of single crochet
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So I'm going to take my blue this time and I think I have about honestly probably about
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40 inches of it here it's probably too much 20 worked perfectly for this part and I've
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just doubled that so I'd rather have too much than too little depending on how I pull
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my stitches. So now we're going to do the same thing as we just did with the blue we're going to come
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up somewhere anywhere it doesn't matter and we're going to come into a space in between
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these single crochet stitches of this round. So this is round three on the pattern and I'm coming in between the single crochet stitches
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but underneath the tops of them. So we're going to pull through and you pull all the way through until you have about four
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inches at the back just enough to do some some weaving in at the end and we're going
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to do the same thing as we did before with the back stitch
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So I'm going to go down one stitch back in between the two single crochet stitches and
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then back up one stitch ahead and it might be a little easier to see on this white than
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it was on the brown but let's try zooming in here. So you can see here where I came up the first time then I went down one stitch back and
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I came up two stitches ahead of where I went down which is one stitch ahead of where I
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initially came up and I'm going to pull my needle through and then not too tight you're
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just going to let it sit there nice and kind of puffy and you want it to be even so secure
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but not too tight and again I like to hold my yarn to the left with my thumb I go back
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under and again I can feel it with my finger so I pull the yarn back so the the needle
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comes on the inside of it and then I come back up two stitches ahead so it's a pattern
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of down and then two stitches ahead and then I pull my yarn through and I have the second
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stitch just pull it the same as the first stitch not too tight and then I rotate my
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work so that I'm always working in the same orientation so again I go down I can feel
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the yarn behind so I'm pulling so the needle is on the inside and then I come up two stitches
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ahead and pull it through and I got a lot of yarn here so you can see it's starting
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to take shape here I'll zoom back out and you can watch me finish this so the one thing
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about having a lot of yarn is it gets in the way but I really hate to run out so it's worth
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it so we're gonna go in and then back up so as you get going with this it'll start to
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flow a lot better and you'll find you'll just whip these up pretty quick I'm using my finger
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on the back to make sure that the needle is going to the inside of the back yarn and
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then you come up to a head you just keep working your way around and you can kind of adjust
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because you can see I always love to work from the right side so I can see what my work
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is gonna look like that's why I like going under and then back up so I don't have to
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turn the work over I'm trusting that my finger is doing the job it's supposed to do back
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here see how this is weaving around properly and then just keep working your way around
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it's a very finessy kind of work you just oops fell right off my needle there put it
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back on and I'm gonna pull more of my end through there so I'm not pulling so much
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yarn and keep on going we're about halfway there so I'll just stay quiet here for a minute
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and I'll let you watch me finish stitching this round before I show you how I finish
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and there we are we've done all the way around I poke it back in bring it to the back so you
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can see the front is finished the back I stayed true to bringing the needle to the front so I
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have a nice tidy back going on here and then all I have to do is either knot these and weave them
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in or just weave them in straight depending on your comfort level with that so there we have
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our finished hexagon with the embroidery done I have the other one here to compare it to so this
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was the original square look I haven't darned my ends in on that one so there's the two side by
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side so you can see they're different looks it's really personal preference this has a nice clean
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look but this has a lovely delicate finessy look like it just adds that extra texture and color
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into the work this is what I love about it is that you can do as much or as little of this you can
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mix and match the squares you can do a piece of work where both are used in the project and then
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it gives you a bunch of different textures and looks you can bring in different colors if you're
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using up all your stash it's great for doing the embroidery in completely different colors so many
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ideas you can do with this square and this embroidery so now you know how to work a back
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stitch onto your squares have some fun with that and see what kind of designs you come up with if
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you enjoyed this tutorial please give it a thumbs up and remember to subscribe to my channel so
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you're sure to catch all my tutorials as they come out thanks for joining me today I'll see you in the next tutorial
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