Hey everyone! This is my last blog post for my learning project. Over the past couple of weeks I had the chance to learn a lot about crocheting and different techniques for my future projects. I am going to go through each week and talk a little bit about each one and how it went. 

The first stitch. 

The first week I just started with creating a game plan for the semester. I talked about why I wanted to learn more and where I was already at in my crocheting journey. I also talked about where I would be getting all of my inspiration from which was Pinterest. I was not feeling overwhelmed or anything, I truly thought this was going to be a piece of cake because I already had some experience crocheting. 

The second stitch. 

My second week I dove into making my granny squares. I started with making a Pinterest board and continued adding granny squares to it as the weeks went on. I was having a lot of fun making them and also making the blog posts. I made 3 basic granny squares this week to get back in the swing of things.

The third stitch. 

For week three I learned how to do a solid granny square. I hate doing this square. The youtube video I was learning from was not very helpful. Nor could I fully remember what stitch I was on and my tension was off. Every square turned out mediocre but I was just glad they were over with. 

The fourth stitch. 

For week four I learned how to do a starburst granny square. I got to learn a couple different stitches for this one besides a basic double crochet. This square was fun to learn. The website I used was super helpful and I really enjoyed using it because everything was already there. I had no clue what a puff stitch, partial cluster or a cluster stitch was and the website told me. 

The fifth stitch. 

The fifth week made me want to crash out a little bit. 

Up to this point I was also using youtube videos and websites as my main form of tutorials. However this week I branched out and used an app I found. I actually really liked the app especially because of the AI chat it had. My only issue was the pattern itself felt a little far out of my skill set. I am still glad I tried it but I might wait a few more projects before I try it again. 

The sixth stitch. 

For week six, I made another flower looking granny square. This one was a little different because it was not an actual flower but it looks like a flower when you use certain colours. This week I also learned that your yarn size matters. My first square I made for this week I noticed I could see some of the fourth row yarn peaking through. This was because my fourth row was a half size bigger than all of my other yarn. I fixed this with my second square by using the same sized yarn for my fifth row. 

My top threes 

1. Youtube and Tik Tok are the best way for me to learn because I can see what they are doing as I am doing the same thing. I am such a huge visual learner so I need to do something as I am also watching someone else do it. 
2. Learning new skills is fun! While it can seem hard to start something new or intimidating you should just start! Even though I already knew how to crochet, I only knew one stitch and I only knew how to do about 2 things. Now I know different stitches and how to make different squares which is motivating me to create other projects. 
3. Having an online presence is important. Especially through this class and my learning project, I have learned that having an online presence is important and will be helpful for you in the future. This way you are also able to showcase what you want representing you. EDTC 300 is a great class that I have learned so much from and I am glad it is something I get to use as something to showcase who I am not only as a future educator but also as a learner. 

Overall, EDTC 300 was a fantastic class and I would recommend it to anyone. I feel like I learned so much about not only using technology in the classroom but also the internet in general. I had no clue that there were multiple different forms of AI, other than Chat GPT, or that  you could “make your own code.” I also never realized how easy it is to teach yourself through the internet as long as you make a plan for yourself and put your mind to it. 

As I was scrolling on my Pinterest board for ideas this week I came across this post: 

I then found this Youtube video to give me a tutorial which is shown below. 

Starting this granny square felt fairly standard. I had to do 15 double crochets in a magic loop. However, I did learn something new right after I made these stitches. When I had to change the colour of yarn I learned that you could start with a double crochet instead of chaining 3 onto the work piece. My mind was blown…literally. I can’t believe nobody does this/it isn’t that popular. I think that my squares look so much better and the stitches look more cohesive. 

These are the two squares I made this week: 

I thought I was going to struggle with this square a little bit but I actually didn’t. The Youtube video was a great learning piece for me because it taught me with a visual. I learn best by doing things alongside someone (or alongside a video) because I can use it as a reference to what I am working on and what is in front of me. 

I made the one on the left first. I did notice towards the end on the boarder that you could still see a little bit of the green stitches from the row before. So with the second square I did I used the same yarn size which seemed to help that issue. The reason it happened in the first square is because when I bought the yarn for this project I thought I bought only 4mm yarn but turns out the green and blue yarn were both 4.5mm. It doesn’t make that huge of a difference so I just stuck with it.

Another thing I noticed was that the square was going to be too big if I added another row which the video did call for. So instead I stopped on the second last row so it would still fit around my steering wheel with not a ton of extra slack.

The Youtube video also went step by step, stitch by stitch. I know this would be super helpful for me if I was a complete beginner. I was getting a little annoyed because she was going through each stitch but that’s because I like to count in my head and move at my own pace as much as I possibly can. 

Something that I seen a couple weeks ago was something called blocking. This basically stretches your granny square into a more perfect square so everything just looks neater. I simply followed what this website said and I did this with all of the squares I made over the past few weeks so we will see how they turn out next week!

Overall I would recommend this video to someone learning how to crochet. It was easy to follow along and you only need to know how to do one stitch. 

For this week I decided to try something a little bit harder and do a flower granny square like the one shown below. WARNING, this pattern tested my patients a little bit. 

I was scrolling on my Pinterest board that I made for this class looking for inspiration for what to accomplish this week. I found this flower and decided this was what I was going for. 

I wanted to try something different this time for my media piece. I did not want to use a different Youtube video or a blog from someone. So I decided to see if the app store had anything to offer me; and sure enough, it did! 

The app is called YarnPal. It assists with not only crocheting but knitting as well. The app was super easy to navigate and use, I was quite impressed with it. When you first open the app, it gives you a survey to fill out. The questions ask things like what level are you at, what are your interests and then the survey goes into what you know about crocheting/knitting. Not by asking you “how many projects have you made” but by asking if you can understand certain patterns and instructions which I thought was extremely helpful. 

It then “creates a personal crochet plan” for you and gives your projects based off of your answers. I found this blanket that I thought looked really cool. Now I was not going to make the entire blanket but I wanted to make just one of the squares which is what I did. Jeez, was it difficult. 

It tells you all the info you need like the type of yarn, hook sizes and colours of the pattern. 

It also has an AI Chat as well. This was probably my favourite feature this app has. You can ask it any question about stitches, or language being used and it explains it further. 

The instructions are also step by step. When you complete a step, you press next, if you need help, ask the AI! Super easy!! 

I also only made one of these squares because I was kind of struggling. Now that could have been because I was trying to make the square in the back of a truck on my way to a rodeo but I did not want to take any chances and be angry again. Overall I think the square turned out quite well for it being my first and only attempt. 

I have been pretty sick the past few days so I haven’t been able to be online much but here is my post for last week.

For this week I decided to make this starburst granny square.

I found the original post on pinterest and convenient enough it was a link to a website. So I clicked on the link and started to follow the instructions. 

I found this website extremely helpful for beginners. The instructions were not only very clear and simple to read but there were also pictures as well which made it easier to follow along. My other favourite part about the instructions was the fact that there were two separate sets of instructions. The first set was the basic word for word instructions which at first I was following. I did get lost on the second round when I had to do a puff stitch so I used that special stitches section to help me out. After that I used the step by step instruction that included pictures and a little more explanation. 

These are the granny squares I made this week using the website. The one with the green looks a little off simply because the size of yarn is slightly larger than all of the other yarn I used. I did see something on Tik Tok however of someone blocking their squares which I think I am going to look into so my squares can be more like squares.

I also really appreciated that they made a separate section for special stitches (like a puff stitch, Partial cluster, and a cluster stitch). Another piece of this website I just loved was the “skip to sections” piece. You could go to any part of the website without having to scroll though trying to find your place. 

This week I decided to learn how to make this solid granny square. You should note those little holes that go from all corners to the center of the granny square. 

I used this Youtube video at first. It went horribly wrong. I am not sure what exactly I did wrong at the beginning but the square did not turn out right at all as you can see below. 

I tried making another square with the same video and it still did not look right at all. It looked fine, but it did not look like how it was supposed to. At least this time it was an actual square though. 

I did try to do this square a third time using just what I could remember and it turned out completely wrong. I am honestly not even sure when I realized that this was going haywire but at some point I noticed it was not actually supposed to look like this. I then just started to do my own thing. I was already using the colour yellow, and what goes with flowers like peanut butter and jam? THE SUN! I somehow did this, I hope no one likes it enough to want to make it because I could not tell you how I did it. I also crocheted a basic granny square the attach to the back of it shown on the top right. The bottom left is how I attached them and the bottom right is the final square.  

However I did learn what a magic circle is which I will be using for my future granny square. A magic circle is basically a slip knot that is adjustable so when you finish a granny square you can pull the tail and it will cinch in the center of the granny square. This leaves a small circle in the middle giving it a more clean look. The images below show this. The image on the left below shows the granny square before being cinched and the one on the right shows it being cinched. 

I ended up using this pinterest post to learn how to do the solid granny square properly. I was completely guessing how to do the pattern because I had no idea what any of those lines and circles meant. I made some educated guesses and it ended up working out pretty decent. 

The video I would rate a 6/10. I can see where it could be helpful for others but it just did not work for me. I did learn a couple abbreviations from this video and of course the magic circle which was helpful but I do not think I will use this video again. 

As for the Pinterest image, I’d rate it an 8/10. At first glance my head was spinning looking at it. But once I took a second to actually look at it and use what I already know about crocheting, it was not so bad.