Little Ghostie Amigurumi

Hi everybody. Welcome to our live event. My name is Brenda Kay Anderson, and I am a crochet designer, knit designer. I also do some sewing tutorials from time to time, and I'm very excited to be showing you guys today how to make this little ghosty Amigurumi. It's so cute, so precious.

It's also very small, and doesn't take a lot of materials. It's really quick to make, and it's super fun. All right, so look at this little guy, he's so cute. Um, yes, Amigurumi is one of my absolute favorite things to make, to design, and to teach, because it's just like magic to me, how you can take a ball of yarn. And do some stitching, and then all of a sudden you want to hug this project when you're done.

It's just, to me, it's just magic. So, um, I'm very excited you guys are here, um, if you guys have questions about things, definitely put them in the chat. I see that there are a couple of questions in there already, so I'll be getting to those. Um, and I, yeah, I always appreciate when you guys say hi, tell me when you're where you're crocheting from, um, or if you guys have suggestions on future topics or future projects you'd like to see, um, let me know too, put those in the chat. So today there is a link for the free download in the description.

It's for the little ghosty Amigurumi. So this has the complete directions in it, everything you need to know in order to make this little ghost, and I will be showing you basically from start to finish how to make this ghost as well. So you can go ahead and download that, follow along. You can download it later. You'll be able to watch this again later after this is complete.

It takes a little bit of time, but then there will be a video available so you can rewatch any part of it later too, so. All right. I'm glad you guys are here. All right, so, um, first we have a question about, OK, so we've got a question from Cindy. Let's see.

Oh, we'll get to that one second. Where is the other question? Here we go. Um, we have a question about the bonita bag. Wow, I have to go back quite a bit here.

Um, let's see. See if I can find that question. There was a question in here. Oh, here we go. Ara C.

Um, when you get a chance, would you please explain how you would add interfacing to the bonita or crossbody bag to give it more structure and in which lining, the black or the interior one. Thank you. OK, so if you're working on the bonita bag, that's a little granny square bag that I made with a little zipper top, and you would like to add more structure to that, I would put in the lining. There is a tutorial for the lining that I did in the live event. Also, there are instructions in the pattern download on how to make the lining.

And if you'd like it to be stiffer, then that, you can use a fusible interfacing and you can fuse it to the wrong side of the fabric before you even cut it out, or you can, you know, cut it out and then trace it out on a piece of interfacing and fuse those together as well. If you don't like fusible interfacing, you can use sew-on interfacing and just cut like a double piece. Also, I found that when I just chose a really stiff lining like a canvas or a drill or some kind of thicker, like a denim lining, that I didn't even need interfacing, and there was plenty, to me, plenty of structure in it just as it was. Without using actual interfacing, so I hope that was helpful. If I did not answer your question, you can pop back in here.

All right, so let's get back into our little ghostie. I just wanted to kind of take care of that before we started. Um, so this project, like I said, is very quick to make. It's inexpensive. You can get one skating; you already get quite a few ghosts out of it, so it's a fun project to make for yourself or for friends or for a special trick-or-treater who might be coming over.

And it's a great introduction to making Amigurumi if you've never done that before; then, welcome. All right, so what you're going to be needing is a small amount of yarn. You'll probably need about a ball that's about this big. Maybe like the size of an apple ball of yarn, and I am using a worsted weight. Uh, a 100% acrylic yarn.

That's what I used in this, uh, the samples here that are pictured, the white, the white yarn. I think this gray yarn that I'm going to be stitching with, this is 100% acrylic as well, I'm pretty sure. Um, but you can make it out of wool, you can make it out of a blend between acrylic and wool. Um, you could make it out of cotton. Sometimes cotton is harder to crochet with, and since you're going to be crocheting at a very dense gauge.

You know, think about if, if you're the type of person when you're stitching, if you have to stretch your hands a lot or if they ache a lot, I would maybe shy away from using cotton on this, especially if this is like your first Ami or Ruby project, um, just because we're gonna be stitching things up so tightly, just, you know, to add structure but also so we don't see the stuffing in between, um, in between our stitches, so. So look for something that's a #4 weight, that's the worst of weight, a medium weight, um, something that's got a little bit of loft to it, acrylic is great, wool is great, a combination of the two of them, that would work just well, just as well. Um, I'm gonna be stitching this up in gray because I thought it might be easier for you guys to see the stitches if it was in this lighter gray color as opposed to the white. Um, but of course, you know, if you want a white ghost, make a white ghost. But also maybe your ghost could be a really cute shade of pastel pink or light blue or light purple.

It would be really cute to have a rainbow. Of ghosts, um, so you know, definitely, you know, be creative with this. You can go find something in your stash if you don't, you know, if you don't wanna go to the store, you probably have some, some acrylic yarn waiting around just hoping to be loved, um, so you just need a small amount of the yarn. You're gonna need some fiber fill, so I've got this. This is um.

Uh, it's called dry, dry polyester packing, and it is a little bit extra sticky, um, and I'll talk maybe a little bit more about that later. I talked about this a little bit in my last live event, which was, you know, about an hour and a half or about an hour ago. 1 hour and a half ago it started, um, where I made this little pumpkin garland you can see behind me, um. I did talk about this stuffing in that a little bit. It's a little bit, it works really well.

You can stuff it and it'll stay in little areas, um, but the drawback to this is it's a little bit hard to get your needle to go through if you're doing some kind of stitching. Through it. Luckily in this project though, there's almost no stitching, so we won't have to worry about that. So any kind of polyester fiber fill, stuffing, um, little bits of chopped up yarn in a similar color, that would work fine too, um. And then you're gonna need a small amount of embroidery floss, really only need about, you know, half a yard or just even probably 10 inches.

That's probably all you'd really need. Just a small amount of, uh, black embroidery floss, and that is what we're going to be using for the little mouth here. And then you're going to need two safety eyes. Um, the safety eyes that I used in this project, let's see, did I, there is a link written in your, uh, pattern download where I got those kind of special eyes. These are like specially painted, um, little polka dot eyes.

Like these or little glitter eyes like, like these are kind of specialty, but you can certainly use whatever kind of safety eyes you've got. Um, I'm gonna be in this tutorial. I'm gonna be using these kind of gold ones. These were from Glass Eyes Online; that is one of my go-to places to get safety eyes from, um. If you guys are interested in learning a little bit more about safety eyes, I did a whole, whole like live event on safety eyes because I've been just discovering all these other places to get them.

Um, and I listed, you know, I talk about my favorite places to get safety eyes and I show some examples and different types of safety eyes, the snapper eyes that go down below the surface of the crochet, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should watch that video because it's very, um, it's very interesting to me to find all these different types of safety eyes. So if you're interested in that, um, that is available for you on the Creative Crochet Corner website. So just look for, um. Yeah, the live events all about safety eyes. Um, so these are, let's see, 15 or 16 millimeters, I would say, um, and you know, measured in diameter across from here.

That's the size I'm using, but you can absolutely use a different size if that's what you've got. If you have the little black safety eyes, that would be super cute too, um, you know, totally up to you. All right, and of course you're gonna need their little backings, their washers that come with them as well. And you're gonna need a tapestry needle or some way to weave in your ends and kind of finish up, do a little bit of the last, uh, finishing up steps on your, on your little ghosty guy. All right, so let's get started.

Um, making, we're gonna be making the bottom of this ghost, and the reason that I start with that. Um, it's because, uh, I wanted you to be able to feel the fabric that you're making. If you guys have watched my tutorials before, you know that I'm always trying to like wiggle my way out of not doing a gauge swatch because I just, I just, I, I'm with a lot of you making a gauge swatch is somehow just like, I don't know why it's so frustrating. It shouldn't be that frustrating. It's crochet and we all love crochet, so I, I don't really know what my problem is, but I like to wiggle my way out of it if I can.

So I will oftentimes in my patterns have you make a little. Section of the pattern and then you can check your gauge with that. And that way if your gauge is not working out or if the fabric's not working out, then you can start over, um, but if it does work out, then you're, you know, you're that much further into your project. Um, so we're going to be starting with the bottom of our ghost and we're just gonna be making a flat circle. Oh, I forgot to mention, I'm using a G hook, which is a 4 millimeter hook, um, with this worsted weight yarn.

Jeff, you know, if you know you like to stitch normally, you know, if you're making a garment or something with like an H or an I, definitely go down. If this seems small to you, it's because we're going to be crocheting up at a tight enough gauge. If a G hook, if you're thinking, well, that doesn't seem like it's going to make a very. Tight fabric. Brenda, usually when I stitch with, I can see the stitches or the air between my stitches, the holes between my stitches.

So then you can go ahead and go down a hook size or two. You know, this is just a starting point so that you have somewhere to begin when you're making it so you can check and see if your fabric is turning out like a firm enough gauge. And if you don't know what I mean by that, I'll kind of show you as we start making our little piece here. OK, so we're going to start by making an adjustable loop. So the way that I like to teach that is, here's my strand of yarn, here's the end, and I like to just draw a little loop on the table like that, and then I take this loop and flip it over onto the strand that's connected to the ball like that, and then I put my hook underneath that.

Just underneath that center loop or the center, you know, just that little strand of yarn, and then I'm going to rest my finger here where everything crosses over and kind of bring that, you know, I'm pulling on the, you can pull on, you know, either one of these yarn tails. This one makes the circle get smaller. This one keeps your loop from getting too much bigger, and you don't want to cinch it in all the way, OK? And then at this point, you're just going to make a chain, so you're going to wrap it from back to the front and pull through. And then you can start working in that little circle, but I like to do one additional little step.

I take this circle and I just twist it a half a turn like this, just like that, and then I'll start working into it. That way, I'm working over two strands instead of just one. Now, if you have another way that you like to make your adjustable loop, some people call it a magic ring or magic loop; there's like a million names for that. Basically, the way to start out amigurumi and be able to pull it tighter later, you can do absolutely whatever method you like. All right, so we're going to make six single crochets into our adjustable loop, so we're going to insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, and pull through two.

That's our first single crochet, and we're going to do that five more times. Insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. OK, so we've got two. Insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through 2. Now we've got 3.

Let's do that a little quicker. 45, and 6. And now when you get your 6, you can go ahead and pull on your beginning yarn tail, and that is going to cinch up that little hole in the middle until it becomes nothing. And then we're gonna go ahead and stitch. I actually like to leave that on the outside of my work.

And then you're going to go ahead and make two single crochets into each stitch around. So we're starting on round number 2 here. So just in case you're following along in your pattern, we've got the instructions for the bottom. We did round number 1 and now we're doing round number 2. So we're making two single crochets into each stitch around.

So we're going to insert our, our hook right here into the first stitch. And if you're having problems figuring out where your first stitch is, if you're wondering, is it here, is it here? I can't tell. Um, and the easy way to figure that out is to count backwards from your loop. So that would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, right there.

OK. So we're going to do two single crochets into that very first stitch. So insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through 2. And then we're going to do another one to that same space, and I'm going to use a stitch marker. I forgot to mention a stitch marker is very helpful for marking the beginnings of your round, especially if you're working up something that goes around and around and around and you're not joining.

Um, if you don't have a stitch marker, you can use a safety pin, a bobby pin, a little strand of yarn. You can use something else, but it's really great to have that marked, uh, just so that you know when you're at the beginning of your round and when to kind of switch up to the next round. So we've got 2 stitches here. We're gonna do 2 more in each of the next 5 stitches. So 1 and 2.

1 and 2. 1 and 2. 1 and 2. 1 and 2. All right, now we are about to work round number 3.

And we're going to do 2 single crochets into the first stitch, and then 1 single crochet into the following stitch. And so, if you worked in the round before, you may know that sometimes you do a little join at the end of your round where you make a slip stitch. We're not doing that in this project at all. No, nowhere in this. Nowhere in this project are we going to be joining, um, joining meaning making a slip stitch and then chaining one and then starting to go around it again.

I feel like for beginner crocheters this is, it's much easier to not join because once you do that join, it gets confusing if that slip stitch becomes a stitch. Sometimes people accidentally work into it, um, and so that's just a whole another thing that I thought we don't need to deal with. So we're gonna be just working in the round, basically making a spiral, um, for both of these pieces that we're working on here. So, we're going to make 2 single crochets into the next stitch, so 1 and 2. And then we'll place that stitch marker back into our first stitch.

And then we're gonna do one single crochet into the next stitch. And then we're gonna repeat that. So 1 and 2. And then one in the next stitch. Two in the next, so 1 and 2, and then 1 in the next.

Two in the next, and one in the next. Two in the next, and one in the next. Two in the next. And one in the next. All right.

So now we are going to remove our stitch marker, and we're going to do round number 4. Round number 4 is we single crochet into each of the next 2 stitches, and then we do 2 single crochets into the following stitch. So here's the first stitch, and we're going to replace our stitch marker in there. And then we've got 2 single crochets in the next stitch. And then we're gonna, oops, wait, I think I skipped my second stitch.

Yes, I did. OK, so we did our first stitch and I placed the marker, then we're supposed to do another stitch here without increasing. And now we do our increase. An increase just means you're putting two stitches into one stitch. So 1 and 2.

All right, and we're gonna, we're gonna repeat that series of stitches. So we're gonna do 2 single crochets here, 1 and And one into each of—Oops, hold on a second. Let me back that up. OK. 1 in the next 2 stitches and 2 into the following.

Sorry, I got mixed up there. So 1 into the stitch, 1 into the stitch, and 2 into the following. Sorry about that, guys. We're just repeating that exact same thing. 1 into the next, 1 into the next, and 2 into the next.

One into the next, one into the next. Two into the next. 1 into the next, 1 into the next, 2 into the next. One into the next. 1 into the next, and 2 into the next.

All right, so that completes the bottom of our little ghostie. Um, I did, I did want to mention that I saw. I saw Laurie, your question, and I'm gonna answer that in a little bit when I get to the part where I'm just kind of stitching around, and we'll talk about that in just a little bit. Um, let's see. Oh, we have a question here.

Oh yeah, so Cindy, um, I said Cindy says I had to tune in late to your knitted pumpkin class a few minutes ago, so apologize, apologies if you answered we'll answer this, but for both of these classes, can you use leftover bits of yarn instead of the fiber fill? That is a great idea, Cindy, and I did see that, um, at the end of your last, I—sorry, I didn't get the ques—I didn't see the question. Um, after my live event had ended. I'm glad that you're here though. So, hi Cindy.

um, yes, so you can absolutely use yarn for stuffing, but since this is white, if you're gonna make a white ghost, I would recommend using lighter colored yarn because I feel like or even white would be the best, um, if you have leftovers of the white because I think you might be able to see a little bit of that color. Coming through between your stitches. Also, another tip would be to chop it up really small before you stuff it in there because um Especially for that pumpkin, if you're using the pumpkin, you don't need to use white for the pumpkin. Sorry, these pumpkins back here, this is my last tutorial. Um, if you use just sort of a similar shade, you know, like our multicolor is fine as long as, um, uh, you chop it up really small then, because when you're stitching through those pumpkins, you might accidentally snag a piece of the yarn and accidentally pull it out through the holes as you're stitching those little, that little detail stitching, um, to create the lobes in the pumpkin.

I hope that makes sense. It probably matters a little less if you're chopping it up for this ghost, but I think that it would help it be more uniform if you chop it up into little small pieces first. All righty. OK, so, um, we're going to go ahead and fasten this off, and you can fasten off however you normally do. You can do a slip stitch and just pull it through.

I'm going to show you how to do an invisible fastening off, because um, or it's called an invisible joint at the end of your round. Um, because I think it'll help us a little bit more on the next step. So I'm going to just take this stitch marker out of here, and we just completed that last single crochet, and I'm going to bring this through. And now to make the invisible join at the end of the round, what we're going to do is thread the tail onto our needle, and we're going to skip the stitch right here. This would be our next stitch that we were going to work into, and we're going to go underneath the following stitch, OK, underneath both loops.

And I'm just going to slide my needle through there, and I'm going to pull on this until this strand right here is about the same distance as this strand right here. What we're trying to do is we're making a fake stitch right on top of this stitch right here. And it's going to take the place of that. So I'm just going to pull it in just a little bit like that. Then I'm going to put my needle through where that piece came from, OK, through the top of the very last single crochet we made, and I'm going to go down through.

a little bit of the thickness. See how there's this, this loop here, but then there's also a little strand behind it. I'm just gonna push my needle down through there. And pull on that until this looks like a normal stitch. So about like that, and you can see that blends right in with the edge, and you can't see where the end of it is.

Now this isn't super important to fasten off this way, really it isn't important at all, but I feel like it makes it a little bit easier on the next step when we're, um, attaching we're gonna be stitching. The body to this little bottom piece with crochet, we're not actually sewing it, we're gonna be stitching through it, and I feel like it makes it a little less confusing about what is a stitch and what is a slip stitch and what is the, you know, it just makes it a little bit easier to see what you're doing. And you might be wondering, like, why in the world is she bothering to weave in her end? That seems very silly when you're not even gonna see that, but I, on amigurumi, always weave in my ends because I feel like there's much less chance of things getting, um, starting to come loose if you actually weave it in, especially this beginning yarn tail, even though it stays pretty well. Um, closed, once you get that stuffing in there, or, you know, if you're, if you're making something that's gonna be used or, you know, hugged a bunch, then, um, and we all hope that all of our crochet projects are, both of those things, that, uh, you know, you're gonna, it's gonna get a little bit of wear, and we just don't want that end to start coming loose and opening up.

That would be a bummer. It really just takes, like, you know, 30 seconds to do that, you might as well do it. OK, so we're gonna set that aside. That's the bottom of our little ghostie, and we'll come back to that later. Um, and now we're going to start working on his little head, and you'll see that we're going to be doing exactly the same steps for rounds 1 through 4.

So I'm gonna, let me just back up. So we're going to, we'll do it a little quicker though because we've already done it, and you can always go back and review if you need it to be slowed down a little bit, or of course you can slow me down and watch it at a slower speed if that helps as well. So we're going to make our slipknot. Well, kind of a slipknot. We're gonna make an adjustable knot or adjustable loop here.

Turning it like that. And now we're gonna do 6 single crochets into that loop. So 1. To 3, 4, 5, 6, and we're gonna pull on that beginning yarn tail and cinch that up. And then we're going to do the first round, which is going to be 2 single crochets into each stitch around.

This is just exactly the same as we did for the bottom. So, there's our first 2 stitches. I'm gonna place that stitch marker back in. That first stitch should be made of the round, so we can keep track of that. And we're doing 2 stitches in each stitch around.

This is round number 2 of the head and body. Just like that. Now, we can remove our stitch marker and start round number 3. And round number 3, we do 2 single crochets in the first stitch. I'm gonna place that stitch marker back in the first of those, and then one single crochet into the next stitch.

2 in the next stitch. One in the next stitch. 2 in the next stitch. And one in the next stitch. Oh, I should have mentioned to you, once you get to round number 4 here on the bottom, you're gonna want to really take a minute to just look at your fabric and see if this seems like a good, like it's nice and stable, it's not super you can't see like a bunch of holes between your stitches.

You know, it's big enough so that you're not being frustrated by trying to work into it, but it's nice and tight so that way it's going to help keep its shape and you're not gonna get a bunch of, you know, the fiber fill kind of peeking through between your stitches. So this basically is your gauge swatch and also the bottom of your ghost. OK, back to this. So we've got 2 here, 1 there, 2 here. One in the next stitch.

To here. One in the next stitch. To here. One in the next stitch. And now we're at the end of our round.

So on round number 4, we're gonna do 1 in each of the next 2 stitches. So there's the first one. Replace the marker. Here's the second one, and then, you know, one of each of the first two stitches, and then two into the following stitches one and two. One into each of the next two, so one there, one there, and now two into this stitch.

One, one to one, one and two. One, one, and two. One, one. And two. All right, so now, this is basically like the same thing as we did at the bottom, but we're not going to fasten off.

Now, let me pull this up so you guys can see where we're at in the instructions. Hm. So under the head and body, we've worked all the way through round number four, and we're about to do rounds five through seven. Okay, let me pop back into the comments here. Let's see.

Thank you for the compliments, you guys. Sandy, the cutest ghost, not too scary to look at, hopefully, the making is similar. Uh, excuse me. Yes, I hope the making is fun. But I know how it can be when you're trying something out, especially if you've never done it before.

But just know in crochet, you can always pull out your stitches, you know, it's not like you're wasting the yarn or the, it's not like when you're sewing, you know, sometimes when you cut something or trim something, it's hard to undo it. I mean, there are workarounds for lots of things, but in crochet, you can always undo your stitches and then do that part again. I know sometimes it's kind of heartbreaking, especially if you stitched a lot, but this is just a little tiny guy. So, if you're having trouble, just know you can always pull out your stitches and go back and start it again and just consider it like ghosty practice. All right.

Um, let's see. If I'm missing any more. Oh, we've got a hi, hi Jennifer in Ohio. Thank you for joining us and good afternoon to you, Sandra. I'm guessing your name is Sandra?

Um, in Florida. Good afternoon. And Molly says, hey, hey, Molly. Uh, let's see. Oh, OK.

I got my answer for the interfacing question. OK, which interfacing would work best to specifically for the bottom of the bag to hold the weight and to prevent it from sagging? Also, special requests, please do more tutorials on granny squares, like granny pants and cardigans. OK, I've been getting a lot of requests for granny cardigans, so I'm cooking up a plan, you guys. If you like, if you're interested in a granny cardigan.

Then let me know in the comments because I, I have gotten quite a few of these, so I'm, I'm, I'm having some thoughts about that. Um, as far as keeping the bag from sagging, OK, like if you're putting heavy stuff in there and you don't want it to kind of curve and sag, what I would actually recommend is using plastic canvas. So plastic canvas is like the stuff you can find in the needlepoint or needle, I guess it's called plastic. I'm not even really sure what it's called, but it's like. It looks like a grid of holes and it's plastic.

You can find it in your craft store. Um. I use that all the time, and I sew that because there's all these holes in it plus it's plastic, so you know if you get it wet or you have to wash it, nothing bad is going to happen, and I would actually whipstitch that to the inside of the crochet section, like the bottom footprint of your bag. Just whipstitch it around, you know, turn your bag inside out, so you have access to the inside of your crochet piece and then lay the plastic canvas down, and then do a little whipstitch. Around the edge, and then you can pop that back in and then put the lining in on top of that.

That's what to do if you don't want it to sag at the bottom, you want it to be nice and stiff. You can even use two layers of it, and some of the plastic canvas is stiffer than others, so you, you know, kind of look into that, um, but I use that a lot of times if I need extra structure in something, um, and I really don't, yeah, it's like if interfacing isn't enough, then a lot of times I'll use plastic canvas. OK, so back to this little guy here. Now we're in rounds 5 through 7, and we're just going to make a single crochet into each stitch around. So while I'm doing that, I'm going to be checking, um, kind of going through some more questions that we have coming in here.

So let's see. So we're just by by one stitch into one stitch. Around, that just means we're not increasing, we're not decreasing, we're just placing one single crochet into each stitch around and we're going to do that for these 3 rounds. So round number 5, number 6, and number 7. OK, so here is round number 5.

Um, Mary Ellen says you're a fast crocheter. Well, I hope I'm not going too quickly. I guess I'll just be watching and doing the little ghostie after the life is over. I'm a relative newbie, but I have made Amigurumi before. OK, I will try and slow down a little bit.

Thank you for that comment, Mary. I appreciate that. I, I was stitching pretty quickly on this little piece because we just did it right here, but maybe this was also kind of fast, so I will keep that in mind. Thank you. I appreciate your comment.

See, this is why I love having these live events cause you could be like, hey, hold on. I, I, you need to redo that or you need to slow down or, or I didn't quite understand this. I appreciate that. Um, oh, Jennifer says, please do more tutorials on Amigurumi. OK, we got another Amigurumi fan out there.

All right, awesome. Oh, and hi hi in Seattle Cindy, you're welcome for the answer on your stuffing. Yeah, it's good to use what you have. I always, I always like, you know, I always like it when people ask questions like that because about whether you can use, you know, yarn for the stuffing or other things like that because sometimes I forget to mention all those types of things and I really like to be able to craft with things that you already have on hand and not feel like you have to go to the store for every project you want to make, um, and oftentimes you have things that you can. That you can use instead of other things, right?

Substitute. I do that all the time when I'm cooking and I do it all the time when I'm crocheting or knitting. And Jeannette says hello from Leavittsburg, Ohio. I made some of the ghosties best I could with your instructions. My kids and grandkids love them.

Oh, awesome. Great. I'm sure they love them. That's so sweet. I love that.

Yeah, my kids, um, I've been eyeing these ghosties too. We have a lot of stuffed animals at my house though, because this is a lot of the, uh, you know, this is the world that I spend a lot of time in is making stuffies, so we do have a lot of stuffies at my house, so I have to be like, do you really like, how much do you really love it? Because maybe there's another kid out there I should give these stuffies to. That sounds mean, but we just have so many stuffies. But I can't stop making them, you guys, they're so fun.

I really, really love designing them and creating them and, yeah. Um, let's see. Oh yes, we have a couple comments about them being quick to, quick to make. Yes, they're definitely quick. Oh, we have a Jennifer saying definitely want granny cardigan.

OK, granny cardigan, yes please. OK, yes. All right, this is OK. I'm glad you guys are weighing in here because this does actually really help me. I, you know, I, I always want to make projects that you guys are gonna be excited to do, um, and it does really help me when you guys have suggestions or weigh in on stuff like this.

I do appreciate it. OK. Oh, awesome, Mary Ellen. I'm glad that you are excited to make this ghost. Oh, Molly's wondering if anyone's used the Red Heart granny square yarn and whether it works.

I've seen lots of people. doing sort of like reviews of it on YouTube and other places, and it seems like it might be really frustrating if you are a person who, um, can't adjust your tension very easily, like, and what I mean by adjusting your tension might be more than switching out to a different hook. It might be like fine tuning it. That's kind of what it is, the gist of it, but I've never used it and I'm very curious about it. Yeah, I've been meaning to try that out because it's so interesting to me, and how amazing would that be to not have to weave in all those ends.

But the thing I really love about granny squares though is that I can use scraps and combine different colors together, which I absolutely love, um, so I mean I'm still gonna always be doing. Even if I was able to use that yarn, that would be really, especially if you're making a blanket or something larger scale, not to have to weave in all those ends. Maybe before I do a tutorial on the granny square sweater, maybe I should look into this Red Heart yarn and see what happens. OK. Um, oh, we have a question about a request for maybe next Halloween showing us how to make a spider web with a spider.

Oh, that would be fun. Oh no, we've got a request for granny pants too. OK. We're going granny square crazy, you guys. I love granny squares though.

I have no problems with that. OK, so I think I've done all my rounds. Let me just count them here. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. OK.

I'm already up to round number 7, so. Here in round number 8, this is where we start doing little increases to create the little arms. So we're gonna be adding some extra stitches on each side of the little ghostie, and that's what kind of forms these arms here. So we're, because we're not actually making arms separately and sewing them on, we're just kind of crocheting them. So we're going to do a single crochet into each of the next 5 stitches.

So here's the first one. I'm gonna mark that. And so there's a 1st, 2nd, third, 4th and 5th, and then we have a single crochet and a half double crochet in the next stitch. OK. So 2 stitches in there, so we're going to do a single crochet first.

So insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through 2. That's what we've been doing this whole time so far. And now we're going to do a half double crochet. So a half double crochet is a yarn over, and we're going to insert in that same spot that we just made that last stitch, yarn over, pull up a loop. Now, there's 3 loops on our hook, and we're going to yarn over and pull through all 3.

OK, and then our next stitch, we're going to make a half double crochet and then a single crochet. So it's the opposite. So we're going to do another half double crochet. So we yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop. There's 3 loops on your hook, yarn over and pull through 3.

And then we're going to do a single crochet right there. Just like that, and then we're going to single crochet into each of the next five stitches, so one. two, three, four, and five. And now we're gonna repeat that entire sequence, okay, starting with five single crochets. So really, there's ten in a row there.

So one, two, three. Four, five, and then we do a single crochet and a half double crochet. Into the next stitch, and then we do a half double crochet. And a single crochet into the next stitch. And now we have five more single crochets.

One. two, three, four, and five. All right, so it's starting to flare out just a little bit on each side, and those are gonna become the arms. So now we're gonna do round number nine. So we're going to make, it's pretty much the same thing except we're doing more, single crochets.

So, we're gonna start with six this time, so one, two. Three, four, five, and six. And that leads us all the way up to this half double crochet, and you can eventually start to be able to recognize the difference between your stitches, you know, if you're newer to crochet, it can be hard to just look at a stitch and know what type of stitch that was without being able to unravel it and see. But the reason I know this is a half double crochet right here between my thumbs is we have these two little vertical lines. Let me point with this.

We've got these two little vertical lines, one there and one there, and then we have this sort of diagonal, sort of horizontal line right here at the top, just below the very top of the stitch, okay? Whereas if you're looking at a single crochet, and here is just a regular single crochet. You have the top of the stitch here and then just two shorter little vertical lines there. There's no extra sort of horizontal diagonal line just below the top of the stitch. So the reason I'm telling you this, all this is to, you know, slow down, take a look at your stitches, and you can see when you when you get to that part where there's that little stitch, that is the stitch where you're going to make the increase in.

The increase means you're putting two stitches into one stitch. And in this case, in this pattern, it is a single crochet. And a half double crochet. OK. And then the next stitch is a half double crochet, because we do them right next to each other every time.

Here's our next half double crochet, and you can see the top of the stitch is slightly offset, like here's the post of the stitch, and the top of the stitch is slightly offset to the right. If you're crocheting left-handed, um, by the way, if you're a left-handed crocheter, crocheting left handed, flip your screen horizontally or watch it in the mirror so you can see a mirror version, a mirrored version of me stitching and it'll look like I am a left-handed crocheter. OK, so this next stitch here, we're going to do a half double crochet to start. And then a single crochet right there. And then we're gonna do 6 single crochets, 1.

to 3 or 5 6, and then we repeat that whole sequence, OK? So starting with the 6 single crochets, so one. 2 3. 4 5 and 6. And then the next stitch, we're going to do a single crochet, and then a half double crochet.

And the following stitch, we're going to do a half-double crochet and a single crochet. So, those half-double crochets are always back to back right next to each other there. And then we're gonna finish with 6 single crochets here. 2 3. 4 5 and 6.

OK, so you can see them kind of winging out a little bit there. Now, let's do another round. So, round number 10, it's very similar, but we're gonna start out with 7 single crochets. So there's the 1st 7. 2 3 4 5 6 and 7, and then we're going to do a single crochet and then a half double crochet.

Those are made into a half double crochet there. And now here's the next half double crochet. We're going to do a half double crochet and a single crochet into that second half double crochet in a row, OK? So every time we kind of get to those spots where they wing out, Just kind of look and see, keep your eye out for these little horizontal bars that will be telling you that's where you're placing your increases. Also, you can just count, you know, you can just count those 7 stitches, do your increase, which we just did, do your next increase, and then do 7 more stitches here, okay?

And then you're gonna repeat that once again. So, let me see how many stitches we have. 123456, and 7, and we're gonna repeat that again. So, 1, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6.

7. Then we're gonna do a single crochet. And a half double crochet. And then a half double crochet and a single crochet. And then we're gonna go to the end of the round with these single crochets.

There should be 7 more. 2, 3. 4, 5, 6. And 7. Okay, so that was round number 10.

Round number 11, this is where we're gonna separate the arms from the body. So, we're gonna do, we're gonna single crochet into each of the next 6 stitches. So here's the first one. We're going to place that stitch marker back in there. So that was 1.

2, 3, 4. 5 and 6. And now we're going to skip 6 stitches. So let's count up 6 stitches here. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

We're skipping all of those stitches and we're going to work into this stitch. So when we do that, we're just going to bring this right up next to where we did that last stitch and see, it makes a little pucker in our work. That's going to create the arm. So we're going to make that single crochet right there. Okay, we do that nice and tight so there isn't a big long strand.

You know, if you don't, if you don't bring that to you, if you just kind of try to make a single crochet over here, you might end up with something that looks like this, you know, just kind of like a big loose area, which you can stitch up later, but it looks a little tidier, a little bit better if you can just bring this right next to where you just did your last work or where you just did your last stitch, and then keep it nice and tight. As you do that stitch, okay? Do you know, this is a pretty forgiving project because it's still going to look adorable no matter what, and you can, you know, use some little yarn tails to kind of stitch up a little hole if you end up with one. But if you do that nice and tight, you'll have less finishing to do. so after you do that, after you skip those 6 stitches, then you're going to be working, let's see, 6 more stitches.

um, and then, so we, what, what do we have here? 12345, here's 6, and then you're gonna repeat that same thing, okay? So, you'll do 6 stitches, 1, these are all single crochets, by the way. 2. 3 4 5 and 6, then we skip 6 stitches.

So 123456. Every time you're skipping a stitch, you're just looking at those little Vs, those little, you know, 22 little loops. That's a stitch. 12345, and 6, and here is where we're going to work. Okay, so we're just gonna bring that right on over.

Slide it up right next to the last stitch we did. And complete your single crochet. and then you're gonna do 5 more single crochets. so 1. 23.

4 and 5. all right, so see what's happening. We are getting a little ghost with some little arms sticking out, so cute. and then we're going to do 3 more rounds where we just work 1 single crochet into each stitch around. So here's our first stitch.

And we're, we're gonna be skipping those arm stitches because we already kind of set those aside. We're not working those anymore. So, we're just working into all the same stitches we made in the last round. So that should be a total of 24 stitches around. so when we get to this arm, we're just, you know, if you're, if you're getting a little confused, just look at that top ridge, all, all of those little stitches at the top, that's where you're working.

You're not gonna work into the arm anymore. it's like that, okay. So this is round number 12 that I'm doing here, and then we're gonna have two more rounds of working even. So I had a question earlier, actually before we even started, I wanted to get to now, um. Let's see if I can find that.

OK, Laurie in Ohio. Hi, Laurie. Laurie says, Brenda, I'm curious about how you sit and crochet at home. I tend to sit at my computer chair since I often watch your tutorials as I go. I have my project in my lap and my yarn down low, but my shoulders and my back end up hunching over and for some reason I clench my toes.

You look so at ease crocheting at the table in the videos. How do you do it when you're not on camera? That's a good question. So usually when I'm at home, when I'm designing a project or, you know, making stuff for work, I am usually sitting on my couch. I'm usually not even sitting at a table.

Um, but this, this is the kind of thing that's going to be, you know, I don't want to give you advice to sit on the couch because I feel like that is probably not helpful to you, um, although my advice would be to just try different positions, um, maybe you can get some sort of a pillow to set on your lap so you're raising your arms up higher and you don't feel like you have to bend over because I'm just wondering if the reason you're hunching is because you're looking down into your lap. And you're trying to look closer and it's like not close enough to you. So maybe you could try putting a pillow on your lap, um, like a large, larger kind of a firm pillow on your lap, or they have those little like I don't know, desk sort of, it's like a pillow with a flat tabley thing on it. I don't know what they're called, but um maybe something like that. I'm not sure how far away your, your screen is or your computer is or if you have, you know, I'm guessing you have that on the table and then you're working in front of it, right, and you don't have a table to work onto.

Um, or you could try like if you have a table, like a dining room table or something like that. I don't, although I don't know if you have a laptop or if your computer is just stationary, so that might create a problem if you can't move that, Um, but maybe try sitting up higher or lower, just depending on, you know. Where your screen is. I don't know if that would also help you, but maybe just try raising up your working space, you know, if you're putting, if you're working in your lap, maybe just try raising it up with something so that you're, um, you're not hunching over quite so much. So the way that I usually crochet at home is usually I'm sitting on my couch; that's my workstation, and I have an end table that is embarrassingly full of lots of crochet stuff.

Um, and I am usually working from, like, sometimes I have my laptop out if I'm writing down my pattern right away as I'm working on it; sometimes I'm writing things down on my phone, um. But usually I'm sitting on my couch when I'm crocheting, and I oftentimes will sit cross-legged because that's comfortable to me, um. Just sitting there on the couch. And yeah, I don't have like a proper workspace slash separate studio or anything like that. It's literally in my living room, you guys.

Um, so I don't, I guess I'm not, I feel like I'm not the best example, but here working here in the studio when we do these live events, um, having this table at this height is nice for me. It feels comfortable to me, so I don't know if there's a way that you could adjust somehow where you're how close or far your workspace is from, from where your shoulders are. I do know too, for me, I have instead of hunching over, I have a problem sometimes where if I'm concentrating really hard, my shoulders start creeping up like this, and I have to do some shoulder rolls and do some stretches. It's always good to stop if you're finding yourself clenching things like your toes. It's always good to stop and move around and do some stretches as soon as you start feeling like, as soon as you realize you're doing that, start doing your stretches right then because um, that's probably your body telling you you need to do something to change something.

Cause otherwise it's just gonna be uncomfortable and get worse. Um, I hope that was helpful. Let's see, let me pop back in here. Oh, Araxi's asking what yarn do you suggest for grannies? I'm assuming you're talking about making granny squares.

You can use really anything. I, I use, um, acrylics and wools. Um, I usually find something that's kind of lofty. Something that isn't, you know, it depends on what you want to make, but usually oftentimes with granny squares I'm using scraps. So I, a lot of times I have a lot of worst weight scraps.

I have a lot of acrylic, a lot of wool, um, and I just kind of throw things together, um, yeah. Oh, we have a, we have a suggestion for a cow, OK. Um, where do I get my yarn? I, I don't know if you're asking about the yarn that I'm using specifically right here. I, I think I actually, I don't, I don't remember what yarn this is.

This has just been something in my stash, but I get my yarn all over the place. Um, oftentimes for work I try to buy my yarn at a place where people could order it, you know, no matter where you're at. I try to find either international shipping or at least throughout the United States that's easy and accessible to get. Now that we don't have Joanne's we don't have that option anymore either over here so, um, but I also, I like to get, I mean I like to use a variety of different types of yarns sometimes I will use yarn from yarn stores or specialty dyed things; oftentimes I'm looking for a lower budget, um, projects, you know, just so that people realize you can make all kinds of amazing things without spending a ton of money on your yarn, um. I don't know if that was helpful, but, uh, I've, OK, so I've gotten to, I've got one more round to do here, and then we're gonna put the eyes in and assemble our little ghostie.

So, I've got one more round. Uh, this is, this would be round number 14 that I'm working up right here. And then we're gonna put those eyes in. Oh, we have someone, um, cutlet 123 saying I crocheted a puppet in a bag and also a chicken. Awesome.

You sound like fun. Just from the projects that you made, I appreciate that. Um, I actually used to make puppets as part of my day job, uh, before COVID that was part of my actual job is making puppets. I work for a costume company, so puppets are very near and dear to my heart. OK, Christy's asking for a beginner cardigan sometime.

I think that the granny square cardigan that I'm cooking up in my mind could definitely be a beginner cardigan. Um, I know that you weren't specifically asking about that, but I think that that could work. Also, on Craftsy we do have quite a few, um, let's see, I'm trying to think of which ones are out now. There will be a different type of granny square sweater class coming out soon, and I did do a beginner Raglan, like a top down Raglan. I know it's not a cardigan, but the beginner top down Raglan is very, um, super beginner friendly.

I mean, it's made, um, to be like the most simple sweater. Uh, in my mind anyway that I could teach in case you're interested in checking that out too. Case you're interested in checking that out too. All right. OK, so I have finished round up through round number 14, and now we're going to just put uh, our stitch marker in this loop while we place our safety eyes into our head just so we don't lose our place.

So this, consider this the back of your ghost here, not that it matters too much, but we might have a little bit of a jog right there. So, we're gonna consider this the front of our ghost, and we're gonna place our eyes, let's see, between rounds 6 and 7, with about 4 stitches between them. So if we're counting down from the top, each little bump here is around. So we would count 1 2 3 4 5. Here's round number 6, and here's round number So we're going to put it somewhere in this little line right here like that.

And so I'm going to place one right here, just partially in there. And we're gonna have 7 stitches, or sorry, 4 stitches between. 1 2 3, and 4, and then we can put the other eye in here. I'm gonna push them in and then we're gonna look at them. To me, when I look at this, when I kind of fold this flat, it looks like the eyes are shifted this way a little bit, so I'm gonna bump them over both by one stitch.

So I'm gonna move this one over and move this one over. And that looks pretty good. I mean, it looks like it's shifted just the tiniest, tiniest bit here, but I feel like it looks better here than one shifted over that way. So that's where I'm going to place them. Also, if you're newer to this, just know the placement of your eyes really affects the look of your Amigurumi a lot, surprisingly.

The size of your eyes, the placement of your eyes, that can have a huge effect on your Amigurumi. So, um, if you're trying to get it to look just like mine, then definitely do, you know, count down your rows and look for the stitches in between and place your eyes and look at it, OK? But just know that this is a place where you can customize your little ghostie. You can make it look different, you can have tiny little eyes and have them both looking off to the side, or you can, you know, put them up higher, down, lower; you can move them around. You don't have to do what I'm doing here.

I'm just trying to give you the directions on how to get it to look just like my sample so that at least you have a starting point and you can decide if you don't, you know, if you want different placement or different types of eyes, or whatever, um, you can definitely do your own thing. OK, so now we're going to place the backings on. So to do that, I'm going to put the flatter part of the backing so that's right here — this is the flat part. This part has some little kind of little prongs that stick up. I'm going to put the flat part next to the fabric.

It should be face down on the fabric, and I'm going to push this together, and you should be able to hear it click. Like that, um, and it should be fairly close to the fabric. I might be able to click it in one more. We'll see. Yeah, it did go one more.

Um, if this is something you have trouble with, because I know some backings are very stiff and they're hard to push on. Um, they do make little things like this that are useful for pushing, pushing your eyes into place. You can push this in. That gives you like the heel of your hand to really push it on, or you can use this. You just find sort of the appropriate size here so that you can push on the flat part around the outside.

And push that in like that. So this just does help, you know, you can put the heel of your hand on it. You can also place this down on the table and push your eye in that way to make it click. Um, there are lots of different ways you can use this tool. If you're interested in learning more, there are other tools like that.

Um, I did include those in my safety eyes video if you guys are curious about that, um, if you want to see how those work, and then a couple other kinds, um, of those, uh, safety eye shutters, basically, safety eye tools. OK, so we've got our little eyeballs in there now. And now we are ready to add the bottom on. So we're gonna, we're going to place this on and we're going to stuff. We can stuff our piece right now, um, or we can stuff this after we start connecting the bottom.

Lately I've been feeling like it's easier, especially to teach a beginner, to start connecting this piece first and then stuff it and then finish connecting it. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be stitching through not only the layer in front, which is where we normally would be stitching, but we're also going to be stitching through a stitch from behind where this little bottom is. OK, so this, this we consider the right side of our work. This is normally considered the wrong side of our work, um, when we're working in single crochet in the round, but whatever side looks better to you should be facing out, OK, towards the bottom of your piece so that you would see it if you picked up your ghost. OK.

So to do this, we're gonna do like a, a PIO stitch. Um, this is not a standard thing, but it, there are directions for it written in your pattern, um, download in case you forget. So we're gonna do. We're going to go through the next stitch here and through any stitch from behind, OK? So this is why I did that invisible join.

Because that invisible join looks just like any other stitch and it'll just be easy to know that you're sliding your hook underneath a stitch from the back. And then let me just double check. That's special, yeah, single crochet, chain two, and then a kind of a weird half double crochet. OK, so this is what we're going to do. We're going to insert our hook through this layer and the layer behind.

We're going to yarn over and bring up our loop just like we're doing a single crochet. OK? And then we're going to complete that single crochet with a yarn over pull through two. Then we're going to chain twenty-one and two. And now we're going to make a half double crochet into the space before the single crochet we just made.

Now, here's the single crochet that we just made. We're going to be making a half double crochet, so that would be starting with the yarn over, and we're going to go in this space right here before that single crochet. So, there's the two little legs of a single crochet. We're just putting our hook in the space before it, next to the post, coming out behind, and we're gonna finish up that half double crochet. And I'll show you that a bunch of times.

All right, so then we're going to do a slip stitch into the next stitch, which would be, let's see. Yeah, we already stitched through here, so we're going to do a slip stitch right here where we just insert our hook into both layers, grab that yarn, pull through both layers, and pull through the loop on your hook like that. Now we're going to do a PYO stitch in the next stitch. So we're going to insert our hook through both layers. So there's through the front layer through the back layer, and we're going to do a single crochet.

So this single crochet chain two, weird half double crochet, that is called the picot stitch in my pattern. OK, so we're doing a single crochet, then we're going to do two chains, one, and two, and then we're going to do a half double crochet in the space before the single crochet. So there's a single crochet, there's the space before it. So it's not in the same stitch. It's not in the stitch before.

It's like in the space. What I mean by the space before is like, here's the post of the single crochet. We're just going in that little hole right there. So we're gonna do a half double crochet right there. And then we're gonna do a slip stitch.

Into the next stitch or the next set of stitches. So just insert your hook, grab that, pull it through. See that pico stitch is creating all these little bumpy edges. Bumpy edges there. OK, so now we're going to do a pico stitch, so that, that pico stitch combination is a single crochet.

Then you do a half double crochet right there next, like in front of your single crochet, like right before you get to that single crochet, if that makes sense. Like that. And if you're having trouble figuring out where that goes, don't stress out about it too much. There's my next slip stitch because when you're here, I'm gonna do that single crochet for the beginning of this pico, single crochet, chain 2, and then the half double crochet. If you, if you are like, I don't understand where you're putting that, that doesn't make any sense to me.

If you put your half double crochet in the same stitch as you did your single crochet, you're still going to end up with a little bit of a wavy pointiness, and that's going to be fine. The reason that we have you kind of go backwards and put that half double crochet before your single crochet stitch. OK, so in between my thumbs. Those are the two little vertical lines that make your single crochet. It's just going in that little hole right there next to it.

The reason that I'm doing that is because it kind of angles. It makes more of a triangle. It angles your half double crochet, and it kind of comes back down so that you can work your slip stitch in the next stitch right here. Like that. OK, so that's what it looks like, but don't sweat it if like, you know, this part here could be a little bit tricky if you're a beginner, crocheter, just slow it down and see if you can see where that little hole is and do a little experimenting, see if it looks like this little, you know, zigzaggy kind of edge here.

And if you need to put your half double crochet into that same stitch, because it's just easier, that's totally OK. All right, so now we've stitched a little bit. I'm going to stuff this little guy, just adding a little bit of fiber fill in there. And wiggling my fingers to make sure it's really up into the top of his little head. Like that, and I'm going to do a pico stitch.

So going through both layers, single crochet, chain two. Half double crochet right before that single crochet post. You know, we don't normally think of single crochets as having a post because they're so short, but it's there. There's my slip stitch, and now we're gonna go back to the pico. So basically, we're alternating here between a pico, which is just a combination of a single crochet, chain two.

That kind of weird half double crochet in the space before the single crochet. So that's our pico, and then here's our slip stitch. We're just going pico, slip stitch, pico, slip stitch, all the way around here. Here's a single crochet chain two. And half double crochet in the space before that single crochet.

And there's her slip stitch. I'm gonna add a little more stuffing in here. Maybe I'll wait. I'll do a couple more stitches here first. OK, so here's our pico, single crochet chain two.

Half double crochet. And then a slip stitch in the next stitch. All right, I'm gonna add a little more stuffing in there. All right. You don't want it stuffed so tightly that the bottom begins to stick out though.

OK, so that's how you know. Like if you still want the bottom to be able to be flat, we can actually use our yarn tail to kind of anchor the bottom up, and if we stitch through the head, we can kind of hook those together, but I prefer to just barely have enough stuffing in the bottom of him because then it doesn't want to it just doesn't want to bow out like that. There we go. That's a little better. All right, here's my single crochet chain two half double crochet, half double crochet, that's what I'll call it.

That was the pico. Here's this slip stitch. And we have that single crochet, chain two. But diagonal half double crochet. And then a slip stitch in the next stitch.

Single crochet. Chain to crooked single half double crochet. And a slip stitch. Almost all the way around here. Single crochet.

Chain 2, half double crochet. And then we'll end with a slip stitch right here. And we can go ahead and cut that. And pull that through. So those are his little, little wavy bottom of their little ghost.

He's so cute. OK. And sometimes you have to sort of like shape it with your hands a little bit when you're done to make it into the shape you want it to be in. All right, now we're going to finish up these little arms. So the very first stitch that we skipped, if you hold him upside down, you can see that there are these little little U shapes of stitches that kind of stick out.

You're going to put your hook underneath the first one that got skipped right there, and we're going to pull up a strand of the same yarn here. Like that. We're gonna chain one, that's not gonna count as anything, and then we're gonna do a single crochet into each stitch around. So there's one. So we skipped 6 stitches.

There should be 6 stitches here. There's 2. 3 for 5 and 6, just like that. And then we're going to. Make a slip stitch here.

And then we're gonna fasten off, OK? So we'll just cut that. Gonna pull that through. And actually, I'm gonna leave this yarn tail on the outside. This was the beginning yarn tail.

I meant to leave that on the outside, and I did not. There we go. Um, just so that we can weave that in a little bit easier. All right, so now to finish off this little arm, we're just going to use our yarn needle, and we're going to run. This needle through the front loop of each stitch.

You could run it through both, both loops of each stitch if you really wanted to, but I feel like this is easier to pull it into a very tight place. So we're just picking up that front loop of each of those six stitches. Here's the last one. and then we can pull that tight to close our little arm up just like that. And then we end up having just this little itty bitty hole here that we're going to sew up.

So this is really this, and then the embroidery for the mouth. That's really the only sewing that we need to do on this little guy, so it makes them nice and quick to finish. but I'm just going to do like a little whip stitch here. With this yarn tail, and I don't really care that I'm sort of stitching this other yarn tail in a way that doesn't matter to me. there we go.

We're just gonna weave that in anyway. So there's this little little arm. that, and now I can go ahead and weave in my tail. And, um, just in the interest of time, I will skip doing his second arm because it's exactly the same as this. I mean, I'll show you where you would start off, um, pulling up your loop.

I'm just gonna cut this here. Whoops. hey, little guy. ok, so on this side, you would do the same thing, just look at it upside down and see the first skip that you would stitch, but the first stitch that you would have skipped, which is right here, ok? If you crochet from right to left, it'll be all the way on the right.

If you crochet from left to right, it would be the first one that you get to on the left, ok? This is a natural place for you to start stitching. And you would pull up a loop there in just the same way and stitch into one, you know, each of those, do a little joint at the end of your round and then you can close the top of your arm like we did here, and then use that same yarn tail to close the little gap in the underarm area. Ok. Um, and then the last little bit is we're going to do a little bit of embroidery here.

so I've got embroidery floss on a needle. I'm just using it, you know, one thickness. um, I didn't split my embroidery floss. I don't know if you guys are cross stitches or not, but um I didn't pull it apart or anything. It's the full 6 strands of the embroidery floss, and I'm going to start in the back of my little ghost.

Guy, and I'm going to just sort of put my needle in and come back out. Just taking a stitch, doesn't matter where. What we're doing is we're just kind of anchoring this yarn in place before we get to where the mouth is, OK, so I'm going to pull that until that disc barely disappears. I can actually still kind of see it there, which is fine. And then I'm going to run my needle kind of through the thickness of those stitches.

I'm not just ducking it underneath into the filling. I'm actually using my needle to pierce through the thickness of that yarn. And I'm going back in this direction. I'm gonna pull on that until that little tiny tail is gone. There's a little more resistance there.

And then I'm going to do the same, basically do the same things. Make a little sort of like a stitch. I'm burying my yarn through the thickness of this, sorry, not yarn, my embroidery floss through the thickness of those stitches. I can feel the resistance. I don't know if you guys can hear this.

But it should make a noise like that if it's pulling through the yarn. And once that feels secure, like that is secure in the back, then we're going to take a stitch or we're just going to push our yarn needle out in the front of this little guy. So if you take a look at this, um, this little line here at the center of the eyes, or maybe even tiny but below the center, but right there, that is going to be where the top curves of the smile go. OK, so that's what we're aiming for. So I'm going to push this.

through my ghost face until I get to. I want to come out like in the thickness of this yarn, right here. What I mean by in the thickness, I mean like right in the middle of a strand of the yarn. Right there. Next to the eye.

And I'm gonna pull on that until this loop is kind of disappears. I don't want to pull on it too tight though, because I don't, I don't want to make a tight line from the back to the face, um, and have it be dimpling in the back or something weird happening. OK, so then to make the rest of the little smiley face, we're going to put, I'm gonna turn him upside down just because this is easier for me. I'm gonna put the needle in right here. Just barely below this little crack, you know, between my rounds and really close to the eye.

And I'm gonna come out. About like right in the middle of this row right here. OK. So that my needle is centered between this point and this point, but, but like a row and a half below. Right there.

And then as I pull on that, I want my needle to be above where the strand is. So if I just move that strand over, see how my needle is above it. So that's gonna catch, let me turn them around. That's gonna catch that little piece of embroidery floss and I can tack it down there in that point. To make his little cute little smile.

And the, you know, if you don't pull on it super tight, you'll get sort of a, a looser smile or like a more curved smile. If you pull on it really tight, you'll get more of a V shape like that. So I'm gonna loosen it just a little because I like it when it's slightly rounded. And then the important part is, in order to anchor that, you have to stitch back into the head so that you're trapping that V. OK?

So right now, it comes out right there, and we're going to bring it across that strand. And I'm gonna stitch through to the back of his head. Right there. And that'll bring his little We got a little fuzz there. A little smile and tack it down a little bit, so he has a cute little face.

And then you can go ahead and again weave this in. I'm weaving it in through the thickness of the yarn, not just poking it into that fiber fill because I don't trust it to stay in there. It really needs to be more kind of grippy and really, uh, you really need to have it. I feel like you really need to have it go through. That the thickness of the yarn.

In order for it to really seem like it's gonna stay, I just. It's always such a bummer if something comes undone later. I never feel like fixing it, which is funny because I really like sewing and I really like crocheting, but I just don't like fixing stuff. All right, unless it was I'm fixing it for someone else, then somehow it's more fun. All right, so there we go.

We, we wove that in. Um, one last little thing is if you're having problems with this kind of not wanting to stay poked in and you want it to be more like that, you can see if making a little stitch from the top of the head here can kind of hold that in place. So I'm gonna run this right down through the middle. OK, I'm gonna switch to my other needle. That's sharper, because this dry stuffing, dry polyester stuffing is, is, um.

It's just very resistant to my needle. OK, so I'm gonna come out at the bottom. The risk you run here is making a dimple in the top of his head, though. So let's see if we can pull up on that. And maybe we can.

What we can do is, um. Stitch from here to his little underarm area, that might actually keep it up better and be a less noticeable spot for a little tiny stitch to be. So this is not something you need to worry about if you just don't care that the bottom of your little ghost is kind of rounded, um, but if that is happening to you, like I think I maybe could have put in a little less stuffing at that point, um. Then you can go ahead and make a little stitch from his underarm area to here and maybe to the other underarm area, and I think that that will keep it nice and, you know, concave here instead of convex. And then if you want his little points on his little ghostiness to be downward like this, you can give it a little shot of steam from a little far away.

You want to be careful with this though, because the steam is going to soften your, um, the steam is gonna soften your yarn a little bit, and it might not be as rigid. It is kind of, I think it's really cute if these little points come downward and he just sits on top of his little points like that. Um, but you could give it a little bit of steam to help those just kind of stay downward like that. It's basically blocking, um, or you can just love him as he is, gray ghost and all because he's adorable. OK, I'm sorry I missed so many comments.

I'm gonna go back through later and read through all of these. Let me just kind of skim them real quick first. We've got lots of suggestions pouring in here, you guys. Thank you so much for all this. Um, let's see, any concerns with using wool for the ghosts and pumpkins if they aren't going to be used by kids as a stuffy?

No, I think wool is just fine. Yeah, no, I, I feel like wool is. Yeah, I, I, I mean, I use it all the time for toys and I think it works just absolutely great. Let's see. Oh, your daughter knits and she's 8.

That's amazing. Cool. And we've got a suggestion for a tutorial on mitts or a mitten and scarf combo using team school colors. OK. Oh, either knit or crochet.

All right, thank you for that suggestion, Cindy. All right. Oh, and somebody's suggesting they have a Valari pillow. I don't know what that is, but I'm gonna look it up. I'm guessing it's some kind of pillow that can raise up your arms for crocheting.

Um, that was a great suggestion. Thank you, Christie, for adding that in there. Oh, and we've got some other suggestions for ergonomics. Carson Demmers has a great book, as well as posts on ModernDailyKnitting.com. OK, awesome.

That would be a good thing to check out. All right, thank you guys so much for all your hellos and everything. Oh, we have another question. Will it work out OK if I sew the eyes on instead? Yes, you can make little French knots if that's what you were thinking, um, or if you were gonna sew buttons on as long as it's not for a kid, but actually this, even though these are called safety eyes, I usually say this in my videos, even though they're called safety, they aren't actually safe for those that are 3 and under because they chew on stuff and they might chew through even if the eye is securely fastened, they might chew through this and then choke on the eye.

So, um, but yes, if you want to sew sew eyes on, um, you could do like a little French knots or something like that that would be really cute. Jennifer, thanks for that question? Hm, I'm using Red Heart brand size 4 acrylic for my grannies with an H-size hook. Do you recommend it? Sure, yeah, that sounds good to me.

Um, for acrylic, yeah, that's usually what I use with an H. That sounds about like how I crochet, but everyone crochets differently. It just sort of depends on what, um, what kind of fabric you're after and how loosely or tightly you crochet, so. All right. Thank you guys so much.

Um, I'm gonna be going through to see if there are any more questions that I did not answer. Uh, and hopefully I'll get some responses in there later today, but thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate you guys being here, um, thanks for joining me and I hope to see you in my next live. I'm gonna be doing a live on the 28th if any of you guys are sewers on how to make this really cute spider web collar, so look out for that if you guys are into sewing.

Bye everyone.