Mushroom Backpack Charm

Hello, everybody and welcome to another live crochet event. I am Brenda Kay Anderson. And today I get to show you how to make this super cute little Agami mushroom. Isn't this adorable? Uh So I was thinking when I designed this, I was just thinking about what would make a fun little backpack charm for um my kids for going back to school.

But of course you can use this um you know, on your own bag or you don't even have to put the little um ball chain on it. You could just make an aga just for, just for the fun of it purely for the fun of it. That's the great thing about Agami Crochet. It is, it's, it's not really a necessary thing, but it makes you feel good and it, it like the only purpose of it is to make people smile and to make you feel good. So that's why I love making toys so much.

Um So you will want to go ahead and download the free pattern. Uh So you can follow along if you don't feel like doing it now, it's gonna be available later. That's no problem. You can always do it later. Um But sometimes it does help to just be able to follow along while I'm talking about stuff.

So, um you can do that and then um while you're doing that, I am going to be talking about the materials that you will be needing for this project. So obviously, we're gonna need some yarn and we're gonna need two colors of yarn. So the main color is what um I'm referring to as the, the cap. So that would be the red in this case. And then the contrast color is this sort of lighter off white kind of tape color.

Um for the stem and for the gills and then for the secret little piece that's on the inside of the mushroom that you can't see, um called the support circle. And I'll explain a little more bit more about that later. So you really don't need that much yarn. So this is a great project for using up scraps. Now, if you have worse of weight scraps, um, that's perfect for this.

This is made with worse of weight. But if you happen to have, you know, a thinner yarn, you can absolutely make it out of that. You'll just have a smaller mushroom, which will be adorable. Anyway, um if you have a thicker yarn, your mushroom will be larger. So the only thing about that if you are using a thicker yarn and you get a larger gauge, which results in a larger mushroom, you might need a slightly longer piece of the ball chain.

So I kind of mentioned the ball chain earlier. This is just um it's like that metal chain that looks like a whole bunch of balls kind of strung together. And then there's a little clasp so you can hook the end of the ball chain together like this. Um You just slide the little bead into the, the clasp like that and that way you can hook it to something, you can hook it to your bag strap or you know, backpack zipper or what, whatever you wanna attach it to. Um, but like I said before, you don't have to add this if you don't want to, if you just wanna make fun little ham Roomy toy, that's fine too.

You don't need that done. Um The other thing you're gonna need is some fiber fills. So you'll need like a good handful of the fiber fill and you will need two colors of embroidery floss. I used a light pink for the cheeks of my little mushroom. You can barely see them here.

Um I purposely chose here. Let me show you the one I actually used. I purposely chose sort of a grayish pink to sort of blend in a little bit with this um kind of tape color of the mushroom because I wanted it to look kind of like the mushroom is just a little bit flushed. Um, and not a very dark dot here but of course, you know, you are, you, you can be your own designer here in this situation, you choose whatever pink you want, maybe you want your cheeks to show up a little bit more than mine. Um I wanted mine to be subtle, but I'm gonna be using a lighter pink that's a little bit brighter.

So hopefully you can see what I'm doing just a little bit better. Um Today when I do the embroidery for the cheeks. And so, so you really only need one of these pinks. Let me be clear about that. I'm just showing you the one that I actually used in the sample here.

And then the one in the that I'm gonna be using today is a little bit of a lighter, brighter pink. And then of course, you're gonna need a little bit of black embroidery floss um for the mouth and for the eyes. If you prefer, you could use safety eyes instead of making French knots. That's what I used here. I just did French knots here.

Um You could use safety eyes instead, but just know the stem is kind of small in circumference. So getting the safety eyes in, there might be a little bit tricky. You can still do it because you'll be able to fit your finger in inside the stem most likely, um unless your mushroom turns out smaller than mine. Um But so that might be the drawback to switching to safety eyes. You just wanna make sure the backings on your safety eyes aren't particularly large because they might kind of bump into each other here.

You just have to make sure there's enough room for a backing underneath each eye and they can sit next to each other like that. So that's my only caution about switching that out for safety eyes. All right. Um And let me just talk a little bit more about the yarn. Um I am using a wool where to weight yarn all the details of that are in your pattern download.

So if you want to know exactly what color, exactly what brand um and you know, that's all in your pattern download but feel free to substitute with other kinds of words to weight. You can use acrylic, you can use wool, you can use a blend of the two. You can even use cotton. I mean, really as long as you can crochet the the yarn at a fairly tight gauge to get kind of a firm fabric, you're good to go on that. So, um and you'll need about 35 yards of each color.

Um And you know, if you don't want to measure that out, out that's fine, but just to visualize it, it would probably be about the size of your fist. Um you know, or like a an apple, smallish apple is about what you would need um for each color not very much yarn. So hopefully you have that in your stash already. All right. So let's see.

Um You are also going to need a crochet hook. Of course, I am using an E which is a 3.5 millimeter hook, but you can use whatever hook you need to, to get a nice fabric that has a firm gauge. It's much more important in this, in this project to get a nice firm gauge where you're not gonna see the stuffing when you put, you know, when, when you stuff in a room, you are kind of stretching the fabric just a little bit, you know, not a lot. You don't wanna make it look, you know, lumpy and stretched out, but the stuff when the stuffing goes in, it does stretch out the fabric a little. So keep that in mind when you're making your fabric and deciding, you know, is this tight enough, you know, you don't really want to see the stuffing coming out from between your stitches.

So, so you can use whatever hook you need to, to get a nice fabric that you um feel is gonna withstand, you know, the stuffing process. All right. So that is that is it for materials? And oh, and you, you, I forgot to mention you'll need a yarn needle, a stitch marker and then also an embroidery needle too as well if you're embroidering the features onto it. Ok.

So, um let's start with the support circle. So this is the thing when I mentioned, there's a little piece inside this mushroom that you can't see. Let me show you what it looks like. There's just a little disk here, just a little circle here. Um And that's actually what we attach the ball chain to.

And that is inside the mushroom. The reason that I did that instead of just attaching the ball chain to the top of the mushroom here, which is kind of what it looks like I did. Um, if you didn't know better, you would think I probably just had a shorter ball chain and threaded it through here. It's actually attached further down in the mushroom. And the reason that I did that is two fold.

So first of all, I wanted to make sure if this is hanging on a backpack and getting some pulling on it that it is not going to be stretching out the very tip of the mushroom because I didn't want it to get all misshapen. So I wanted it to be anchored further down in the mushroom. And what I, what it's pulling on is this little circle which is stitched through some of the fiber fill and all the way through into the stem. So you can see when I pull on this, it's gonna pull the stem in just a little bit. So you can see it's kind of pulling on the stem.

So the other purpose of this is to allow uh the stem to kind of look like it's pulling up inside of that mushroom. So you get these nice curves here and the mushroom, the stem doesn't start to kind of distort the bottom of the mushroom because I really, I, when I stuffed it, I did not want it to look like a round ball. I wanted it to look like the stem is kind of going up inside of the gills of the mushroom there. So that is what's the purpose of this little circle? This little circle is does a lot for this project.

Secret little circle. All right. So we're gonna start with that. Um This inner circle, it's called the support circle. Um We're gonna begin with a magic ring um or an adjustable loop.

So the way I like to make mine, you can make yours. However you like, I just draw a little loop like that and then I take the loop and flip it over onto the strand that's connected to the ball of yarn. And then I just put my hook underneath here. I'm gonna tighten that just a little bit there and then I'm going to just chain one to anchor it. So now we're ready to go.

So you can either stitch around your magic ring this way or if you prefer to have it be a little bit more sturdy, you can stitch around, you can just twist your magic loop this way and stitch across um, this twisted area right here. You can do it either way, doesn't matter or make your adjustable loop, how you normally do? All right. So we've, we've anchored it and now we are ready to begin. We're gonna start by working in the center of that circle and we're gonna create six single crochets right in the middle of that circle.

Right. So we're going to insert our hook here, yarn over, pull up a loop yarn over and pull through two. That's our first single crochet. Let's do that five more times. Insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two.

That's our second single crochet. Insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. That's three, four, five and six. So once you get your six stitches on there, you just pull on your beginning yarn tail to make that uh beginning adjustable loop, just disappear. And then we are going to begin by working on round two.

So we've already completed round one. We don't need to make a join, which means if you're joining at the end of your rounds, that means you do a slip stitch into the first stitch and then you do a beginning chain and then you work around. We're not doing that in this project. We're just working around in spirals. Um It's just to avoid that kind of visual jog that you see when you do your slip stitch joints.

So we're gonna start with the very first stitch that we made the first single crochet and we're gonna make two stitches in that stitch and in each of the next five stitches. So here's our first stitch and I'm going to put a stitch marker in that so we can keep track of the beginning of our rounds. And then we're gonna put another single crochet into the very same stitch. OK? So there's two and now we're gonna do two in each of the next 51 and two, two and two, three and two, four and two and five and two.

So now we've worked into a total of six stitches and we did two stitches in each stitch. So that means we have 12 stitches all the way around and our next round, we are going to make two single crochets. Let's see. Let's see. Uh a single crochet into the next stitch and two single crochets into the following stitch.

So we're gonna work a single crochet into the next stitch. So that's just one in that stitch replace the marker and then we're gonna do two in the next stitch. One and two. OK? And we're gonna repeat those stitches over and over.

OK? So one in the next and two in the following one and 21 in the next and two in the following one and two, one in the next two in the following one and two, one in the next stitch and two in the following stitch one and two and one more time one in the next stitch and two into the following stitch. One and two. All right. So we have a total of 18 stitches that was round three of the support circle.

And now we're working on round four. So we're gonna do two in the next stitch one and two and then one single crochet into each of the next two stitches. All right, I'm placing my stitch marker in the very first stitch of this round. So we're gonna do one single crochet into each of the next two stitches just like that. So we've worked a total of four stitches and we're going to repeat that all the way around.

So two in the next stitch, one and two and then one single crochet into each of the next two stitches, one in that stitch and one in the next stitch. Let's repeat that again. Two in the next stitch and then one into each of the next two stitches, two in the next stitch, one and two, one into each of the next two stitches. One and two, two in the next stitch and one into each of the next two stitches and two in the next stitch and one into each of the next two stitches. One and two.

All right. And then we're just going to cut our yarn and then we're gonna do a slip stitch and fasten off. So that just means we insert our hook into that very first stitch of the round that we just worked, yarn over, grab that yarn, pull it through the loop and then we'll just yarn over and pull that and through to finish that off. Ok. So this is our support circle and it's also a gauge swatch.

So if you've watched Lives with me before, you know that I like to wiggle my way out of doing gauge swatches because I know people hate them. Um And I don't, I mean, I like them for making things like sweaters and things like that, that you absolutely just need to know ahead of time before you start on a giant project. But for little things, I like to find little areas um to just test out my gauge on a piece and then add that to the gauge information. So that way you can actually start on it right away and check your gauge at the same time. You can have the best of both worlds, right?

So, um, in the gauge section, I mentioned that this should be about an inch and five eights, uh or about 44 centimeters across in diameter. So you'll just measure that, make sure it's something close to that if you're using a worst of weight yarn. Um But like I said before, it's much more important that you, you get a nice firm fabric. Um So if you're putting stuffing into something, you're not gonna see the stuffing popping out through the holes because that doesn't look very nice and it loses its shape. It's just not as sturdy.

All right. So the next thing we're gonna do is we are gonna add the ball chain to this piece. So here I have a six inch piece of ball chain and you can use a longer one if you need a longer chain on it or a shorter one if you barely want it to be sticking out. Um, or if you don't have ball chain and you want to use something to tie it onto a backpack, you can just make yourself a chain of, you know, tight, make some tight chains um with just your crochet hook and a piece of yarn and you can just thread that piece of yarn through and then you can use that to tie to tie it onto something later. You don't have to buy the ball chain.

Um, the, the link for the ball chain where I purchased it. That is in your pattern if you are interested in looking for exactly what I used also. So, all right. So we're gonna slide the ball chain in from the back. I am going to just actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go from the front because I'm using this little clasp because it's a little bit stiffer.

I'm just gonna shove that through the, through the fabric like this. It's just a little bit easier to use the, the clasp end than to try and put the, the ball end through. And then you're gonna come back out across from that, from across the center of your circle. So here we slit it through there and we're coming up right here. OK.

So, and then we're just gonna let that hang out for a little while. We're gonna give it a little time out over here and we're gonna work on the next piece. So the next thing we're gonna work on is the stem and we're gonna create this in much the same way. So I'll go a little quicker here. We're gonna start with the adjustable loop.

I'm gonna do a chain one just to anchor it and then we're gonna work six single crochets right into the center of that loop just like we did at the start of our support circle. So 23, four, five and six and I'm gonna tighten that up and on round two, we're gonna work two single crochets into each stitch around. This is exactly like our support circle. I'm gonna leave this yarn tail on the, on the outside of my work because I can weave it in later and you might be thinking, why would you weave that in? You can just stuff it in the stem.

That doesn't make any sense. But sometimes those magic loops they open up. And so I do like to weave in my end even though, you know, it's anchored pretty well. I still like to weave it in so I'm gonna leave it on the outside of my stem to make that a little bit easier for me. OK.

So now we are going to do two single crochets into each stitch around. So here's our first single crochet of the previous round. And we're gonna do one single crochet here and one single crochet into this very same stitch. I'm gonna go ahead and mark that first stitch of the round. So I don't get confused and then two single crochets into each of the next five stitches.

So there's two and two more, two more in that next stitch, two more here and two more here. All right. And now it's going to start getting a little bit different from what we just worked on from the, that support circle. So on round number three of the stem, we're gonna single crochet into each of the next three stitches and then we're gonna make an increase into the following stitch and we're gonna do that three times. So we're gonna work one, two, three and I'm gonna place a stitch marker in the first of those three.

And then we're gonna do two single crochets into the next stitch. And now we're going to repeat that same process two more times. So one to three and then two single crochets here, one to three and two single crochets here just like that. You can see it's starting to cup a little bit. It's not going to be a flat circle because we didn't do as many increases as we would need to, to make that a flat circle starting to make kind of a shallow little bowl here.

And from this point, we are going to work five rounds. So this would be rounds four through round eight, so 4567 and eight, that would be five rounds where we just work even. So you're gonna put one stitch into each stitch around, use your stitch marker to make keep track of that beginning of the rounds and your piece will look like this. OK? After you've done that and after that, you're going to single crochet around making one invisible decrease per round place, each decrease in a different place during each round.

So that a decrease is not worked into another decrease. So that, that is rounds nine through 11. We're gonna, we're gonna be making these decreases. So that, that's for the next three rounds. So what an invisible decrease is, we're gonna make one right at the beginning of this round, you can place them anywhere you want to as long as they're not in the same place for each round.

Um Otherwise, well, actually, you know, that's kind of a design design, design decision. Um If you wanted to put them all in the same space, like right on top of each other, you're just gonna have kind of a, a stem that kind of dents in a little bit, but that might actually be really cute. So I don't wanna discourage you from, you know, trying something to see. Maybe that's something that you're going for if you want your stem to kind of like dent in a little bit like that. That might be cute.

Um, but I'm going to just kind of evenly play mind so you can see what that looks like. Um And when I say invisible decrease what I mean, um other people will use just the front loops of these two stitches and single crochet them together. What I like to do for my invisible decreases and you can do this any way you like, you can even use a regular single crochet decrease here if you want to. Um But I like to just place my hook under the front loop of the next stitch and then under both loops of the following stitch, then I yarn over and then I bring that loop through both of those stitches and then I yarn over and pull through two. So that makes your decrease a little bit less noticeable than if you did a regular single crochet decrease.

Um You can do it either way. Um You can do, you can do it really anyway, you just need to make a decrease somewhere within that round on each of the next three rounds. OK? So maybe for this round, you'd make it right at the beginning and then you just single crochet your way around. Um until you get to that first stitch of the round, then maybe on the next round, you'd make your invisible decrease over here and then single crochet, you know, to the end of the round.

And then on the third round, you could make it maybe over here. So that way you're not making it right in the same spot. So it kind of evens it out a little bit. So after you work those decreases, those rounds with the decreases, your piece will look like this. You can see it's just starting to come in just a little bit.

It's a little bit wider here on the stem, ever so slightly smaller up here. So we've completed around 11 and now we're gonna work round 12. So round 12, we're gonna work just in the back loop of each stitch and we're gonna do some single crochet two together. Now, you might be wondering why is she switching to that? And she used an invisible decrease before.

That's weird. Um The reason is, is because now we're just working underneath that back loop, which is right here. So we're gonna insert our hook here and then here and crochet those two together and let me show you how to do that. So we're gonna be making single crochet two together. Those decreases all the way around.

So we're gonna insert a hook here through the back loop and then in the next stitch through the back loop actually. Uh Sorry, that was incorrect. I was doing an in invisible decrease for a second there. OK? You're gonna insert it through that back loop, yarn over and pull up a loop.

Then you're going to insert it into the next stitch, insert ya and over, pull up a loop into the next stitch. So you have a loop coming up from each of the next two stitches, then you'll yarn over and pull through all three of the loops that are on your hook. The reason I'm not doing the invisible decrease here is because I wanted a little extra bulk in this decrease. Um But you, you know, you really can switch it out for the invisible decrease, but just working through those two back loops, we want to make sure that we keep the front loops open because that's gonna help the top of the stem have a nice square edge. Let me show you what that looks like.

So here's here are those unused loops. It makes a nice place for your stem to kind of bend at the top and this is gonna become, you know, this is gonna be stitched flush to the bottom of the gills and it, these little loops give you a really great place to stitch to. So you don't have to be like wondering where you want to put your needle through. You can just you go put it through each of those unused loops when you stitch it to the gills. So that's why, um That's why we're stitching it just through the back loop there.

All right. So we're going to insert, you're an over, pull up a loop, insert, you're an over, pull up a loop, yarn over and pull through three. That's our second decrease. We're going to do four more insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, insert yarn over, pull up a loop. You're an over and pull through three.

And before um I should mention this, before you start doing your decreases, you're gonna wanna stuff this with fiberfill. I just kind of forgot to do that while I was talking about my decreases, I still have enough room to get it in there. Um So if you, you know, if you want to do a couple of decreases and then stuff that's perfectly fine. But I in the directions, I tell you to stuff it before we start doing those decreases just because it's a, it's a nice place to stop and add your fiber fill, just kind of push it in there. Um And when you're adding your fiber fill, you're gonna just add it so that it's nice and firm.

But you don't want to see your shape distort really? You just want to kind of fill it up with that fiber fill. All right. Now we're gonna do a couple more decreases here. So we're gonna insert ya and over.

Pull up a loop, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop insert. You aren't over, pull up a loop, you aren't over, pull through three. And here's our last decrease. Insert ear and over. Pull up a loop, insert and over.

Pull up a loop yarn over, pull through three. And then we are just gonna make a slip stitch into the very first decrease that we made. And then we'll cut our yarn and I'm gonna leave it extra long because we're gonna use this yarn till later to stitch things together. And then we're just gonna pull that through. And right now before we move on, we can go ahead and close up the very top of that stem so that it's just ready to go later.

So the way that you would do that is you just thread a needle onto your yarn tail and then you're gonna run your needle underneath that front loop of each of the last remaining six stitches that you had just like this. And once you come all the way around, then you can go ahead and pull that tight. All right. So now you can see there's a nice little flat spot at the top and we are going to leave this yarn tail connected. I'm just gonna kind of move it over here so that it's at the corner for now and then we'll set that aside for later.

All right. So the next thing we're gonna do is we are gonna create the gills. This is what the gills look like. So in order to make this, we're actually making this out of a long rectangle and we're gonna use the slip stitch through the back loop, only uh stitch pattern because it makes these nice little ridges that I wanted the gills to have these kind of radiating ridges that come out from the center. So we're gonna begin by chaining six.

We're gonna chain six. So 1234, five and six. And now I'm going to begin by working into the bottom of my chain you can work into. However, however, you normally like to work into your chain, that's completely fine. I almost always work into the bottom of my chain because it just looks a little neater and Tidier and it's easier for me.

So when I do that, I look at all these little vs and then I roll them over onto the table, so they're facing down. And then I see all these little horizontal dashes on the back of my chain. That's where I insert my hook underneath. So we're gonna skip that first stitch. We're skipping that first dash and we are going to insert a hook underneath the second dash before we do that, we're gonna make a yarn over.

So we yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up a loop and we're gonna pull that loop through the two loops that were already on the hook. Ok. We're gonna do that a few more times. So we'll yarn over insert, yarn over, pull up a loop and pull that loop through the two loops on the hook. You're an over insert, yarn over, pull up and pull through the two loops on the hook.

You're an over insert, you're an over, pull up and pull through those two loops on the hook. So this is kind of like part way between a half, double crochet because we start with that yarn over and between a slip stitch. But it makes a really nice ridge on the back side of your work. You can see that here. It's making this little V on the back.

So it has those nice lines and that's why I chose the stitch pattern uh to create the gills. So now we are gonna work this back and forth and turn rows. So we're gonna chain one at the end of our row, turn our work and now we are gonna work back and forth and turn rows and we're only gonna be working underneath that back loop. OK. So again, the back loop is back here.

It's not underneath both how we normally crochet. We're just inserting under that back loop. So we're gonna yarn over, insert under the back loop, yarn over, pull up a loop and pull through the two on the hook, yarn over, insert through the back loop. Yan over, pull up a loop and pull through two. You aren't over insert, you aren't over, pull up and pull through two.

You aren't over insert, you aren't over, pull up and pull through two. You're an over insert, you're an over, pull up and pull through two. All right, we've worked our second row. We're gonna chain one and turn and I'll just do one more row. So you're an over insert into that back loop.

So every time we make that chain that is not going to count as a stitch, we're not ever going to work into that. That's just our turning chain at the end of the row. So we're always, instead of working here, we're gonna be working here. OK? Through that back loop.

So you're an over insert, you're an over, pull up and pull through two. You're an over insert. You aren't over, pull up and pull through two, you're an over insert, you're over, pull up and pull through two. You're an over insert, you're an over, pull up and pull through two. You're an over insert, you're an over, pull up and pull through two.

OK? So we, we would just continue working back and forth until you've worked 30 rows of the yarn over slip stitch through the back loop, only stitch pattern, which is this, which by the way, makes a fantastic ribbing. Um If you're looking for a nice stretchy ribbing, that kind of springs back into shape. This is a really good one for that. Like if you're gonna do cuffs or the ribbing on the bottom of a hat or, you know, wherever you would normally use a ribbing, this is, this is one of my favorites.

Ok. So we have worked our 30 rows. Um, and you can count that by just if you have the yarn tail going to the right here, you're gonna count the grooves. So this would be 2468, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 2022 24 26 28 and 30. So that would be 30 rows right there.

And then you are going to start working along the side edge of your piece. So we're gonna work along this edge here. So we're just gonna turn our work 90 degrees. So it's facing sideways and we're only gonna work in the ridges of this ribbing piece. So that means we're gonna work into this stitch and this stitch and this stitch and this, see how I'm skipping these grooves in between.

We're only gonna be inserting our hook kind of in the end of these sort of stacks of V. So here, here, here, here like that, OK. We're just ignoring the rest of it and we're gonna do single crochet two togethers. So that means we insert into that groove yarn over, pull up a loop and then we're gonna do that into the next stitch. So insert yarn over, pull up a loop and then we're gonna yarn over and pull through all three.

Let's do that again. So here's our next groove. So we insert yarn and over, pull up a loop, insert yarn and over. Pull up a loop and yarn over and pull through three. So we're gonna work that all the way across.

Looks like we have a question here. Um a question for Brenda yarn over or yarn under which is better. I heard someone say that doing yarn under helps keep the stuffing from peeking through, but I haven't tried it. Yes. Um The, I have actually done that and I do like, I do like to do yarn overs but usually for my patterns that I'm creating, I often don't do the yarn unders because it's one more thing for somebody to learn at the beginning if you've already been, you know, if you're kind of used to crocheting and you wanna try a yarn under instead.

So what that means is instead of having your yarn go over your hook like this, that's how we normally do it. Your yarn will go under. So you're kind of just grab your hook is on top of your yarn and you're grabbing it. So that would be a yarn under. Um It makes your stitch look a little bit different and it kind of um it, it minimizes the space between your stitches.

It is a really great way to keep your stuffing from showing. Um, but I find if you work at a tight enough gauge, you don't really need to do the yarn unders, it's personal preference and I like to do it both ways. But when I'm teaching things, I often shy away from the yarn unders unless I'm specifically teaching something about the yarn unders. Um, because I, um, I try to make my patterns so that there aren't too many layers for somebody who's starting out. Um But yes, I would definitely try it.

If you've never done it before, then check it out because it is a really good tool. It's really good to know how to do that. OK. Oh And Deb is saying she likes the way that I decreased. Um And she's gonna try it.

Awesome. All right. So we've already done a couple of decreases here. We're gonna continue working into those ridges. So remember we're just working into these ridges here, these little columns of vs right into the top.

So we're gonna insert yarn over, pull up a loop and then the next one, we're going to insert yarn over, pull up a loop, then we're gonna yarn over and pull through three and let's continue doing that across the edge of our gills here. So, what this is doing is it is cinching in 11 end of this very long rectangle and it's going to turn it into a circle for us. Basically, we're making it where you could also, you know, just use your needle and kind of gather that in. But I found that doing this one row of the single crochet decreases seemed to help make it look a little bit neater. All right.

So we now we only have one ridge left and we're just gonna make a single crochet into that last ridge just like that. And then we are going to fasten off and I'm gonna leave a longish yarn tail just like this. And then we're gonna use this yarn tail to complete this circle. So I'm gonna throw this onto a yarn needle here and I am going to here is my yarn tail. Let me get this one out of the way because that's a little confusing.

This was my beginning ya and tail just ignore that one. Here's the one that's um my ending yarn tail where my yarn needle is. And I am going to just run my needle through the top of each of these stitches. I'm only using the front loop. You could run it through both loops if you wanted to.

Um It's, it's easier to run it just through that front loop. Um So that's why I'm doing that and this is all gonna be hidden underneath the very top of the stem anyway. So just continuing to run through and we're just gonna use this to gather in the top, that top edge of the rectangle to make it into the, the very center of our circle here. So we're gonna pull that tight. So you can see now all the lines are radiating out.

And if you, if you have an iron nearby it, this would make things a little bit easier if you gave it a little shot of steam and it would lay flat, but I did not do that on my sample. I just kept going. Um And it didn't really seem to need it, but it, you know, if you're a newer at crocheting and it's kind of bothering you that it's rippling here for now. Um Go ahead and give that a little shot of steam and it'll lay flat for you and then we're gonna continue using that same yarn tail to just to do a whip stitch to close this little gap here. So we're just stitching the, the two shorter ends of the rectangle to each other.

And I'm running my needle through both loops um of each edge here just like that. Ok. So that'll make a nice, nice looking circle and then we can weave in our ends just to kind of get them out of the way and make sure that that yarn tail is anchored. So it's not going to undo any stitches or any um of your seam at all. And when you weave in your ends, it's great if you can split through your yarn because that really helps to kind of give it a little friction and make it less likely to undo.

And then you can go ahead and cut that off and you could also weave in this yarn tail too if you want to or you can just kind of ignore it and it'll end up on the inside of your mushroom. That's fine too. All right. So the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna create a little edging round around the outside of the circle. So let's see to do that.

We are going to start right before this first ridge. So here's the ridge right here. You can start anywhere on here, but I like to start between ridges. So here's a ridge here and here's a ridge here. So I'm gonna insert my hook right after a ridge yarn over and pull up a loop and then we're just gonna chain one that doesn't count as anything.

We're just anchoring our yarn here and then we're gonna do two single crochets between ridges. So we're just working this into the edge. It doesn't need to be in a very specific spot just somewhere along the edge that looks nice. And then we've gotten to the next ridge. So we're going to do a single crochet into the ridge and you can see I'm just gonna start crocheting over this yarn tail just to kind of hide it a little bit and get it out of the way just to manage it all right.

So here's a ridge and here's a ridge. We're gonna do two single crochets between the ridges and then another single crochet into the next ridge. So one and two and now here's one in the end of our ridge. Then we're gonna do two single crochets between ridges and one single crochet into the ridge. So that's the pattern that we're gonna work all the way around.

Two single crochets between your ridges and one single crochet into your ridge. So two between ridges and one into your ridge. So we're gonna work that all the way around the circle and you will end up with a piece that looks like this. OK? So the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna start working on the, the cap.

So that would be our main color. Let's see, we are gonna begin by making a slip stitch into each stitch around and it doesn't matter where you start, it doesn't make a difference. You're just going to insert your hook into any of those stitches, pull up a loop and then insert into the next stitch and pull up a loop and pull through the loop on your hook and you're just gonna continue making slip stitches in each stitch around. You should have a total of 48 stitches at this point all the way around the circle. OK?

So you're just making those slip stitches all the way around, one into each stitch around and that's going to create a nice edge for that main color section. So when you're done with that, it'll look like this. And then we are gonna continue working on the cap. So the next step is to work, let me show you where we are in the pattern here at this point. All right.

So we're in the cap of the mushroom section here and we've already done round one which was making our slip stitches in the main colors, um main color yarn and then we're gonna work into the single crude stitches from the contrast color edging. So now what that means is we're not actually working, we're not gonna our hook into these slip stitches, we're not sliding them under them. We're just kind of letting those slip stitches be on the front of our work and we are gonna work again into those same contrast color stitches that we've made our slips into. So that will be back here. So you're just gonna kind of pull those stitches forward and you're gonna create single crochet stitches all the way around, but you're gonna be making some increases.

So let's see where those are um single crochet in each of the next 14 stitches and then two single crochets into the next stitch. So if you're new to reading patterns, I want to just point this out. Um I like to kind of remind people what, what all this business is about with the brackets in your pattern. So, so this says single crochet into each of the next 4, 14 stitches, two single crochets into the next stitch. And that section right there is in brackets and then outside of the brackets, next, it says three times.

So what that means is you're working this series that's inside the brackets. You're doing that three times um, before you're finished with the round and then these little italicized numbers afterward, that's, that's basically just a stitch, count it so that you can check your work and make sure that everything is making sense and you did the right amount of increases and all that stuff. So we're gonna do 14 single crochets. So one and again, I'm just working into those, the contrast color here. Let me move this so you can see better.

I'm working underneath that kind of beigey color and the red is just sitting here on top of my work. It's just being pretty and decorative and it's not really doing much else. So we've got two stitches. I'm gonna mark my first stitch of the round. Three, four, 56, 78, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

And then we're gonna do two stitches in the next stitch. One and two. Ok. And we're gonna repeat that around one, two, three, four, five, six, 78, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. And then we're gonna increase here.

Ok. And then we would just continue that, that same sequence. Once more till we get to the end of the marker on the following round. Um We are also going to be increasing a little bit here. So let's see.

Well, single crochet into each of the next three stitches, two single crochets in the next stitch and then single crochet into each of the next four stitches. So that's within brackets. So we're gonna repeat that series six times around. Ok. So we're basically, I just want to make sure that you understand how to read this and what this is telling you to do because I'm not gonna be able to do every single on this to show you all that because we have to skip ahead to assembling things.

Um But you're basically doing two rounds of increases and this will tell you exactly where to put your increases and just remember whatever is in those brackets, that's what you're repeating the amount of times it says right outside of the brackets. OK? So then on round number four, you can see single crochet into each of the next seven stitches and then we do an invisible decrease and then that section, we're going to do six times. Now remember the invisible visible decrease, you can do that. However, you like, you can even do a regular single crochet two together if you don't want to do the invisible decrease.

The way that I've been doing them in my projects is I slide my hook under the front loop of the next stitch and under both loops of the following stitch and then I create my single crochet um to decrease those stitches together. And I already showed you how to do that um early on this project. So you can go back and watch that if you don't remember how to do that part. Um But I just wanted to let you know that there's, there's two rows of increases and then we start doing these decreases. OK?

So there's a decrease in round four, there's a decrease in round five decrease in round six. OK? So everything within those brackets, that's what you're repeating and you're doing that, you know, the specified amount of times and this is just a little check here to make sure you're on track. Um So you can count your stitches and make sure. So as we work these decreases, we're gonna be shaping the top of our mushrooms.

So it's gonna come in like this and there is one round here around number eight where you, you're just working even you're just making a single crochet in each stitch. And then on the following round, we're gonna do a set of, you know, an invisible decrease and then single crochet in each and then it's three stitches and they're gonna repeat that segment six times around. OK? So you're gonna end up with 24 stitches and at this point, this is where you can place a stitch marker in your loop so that you don't lose it. So it doesn't unravel on you.

And then this is where you can assemble the mushroom. Uh Most of the way anyway. So in order to do that, we are going to stuff the cap with fiber fill. So you're just gonna add some fiber fill into the cap of your mushroom like this. All right.

And then we're gonna take our um our little, our little piece that's from, let's see, what did I call that? Now, I'm forgetting what I call it. Support circle. You're gonna take your support circle with your ball chain and I'm just gonna attach my ball chain to itself so that it doesn't slip out. I know where it is.

I don't have to worry about it. Um And then this whole thing goes inside the top of your mushroom cap. So right here and you want to have, you know, you want there to be some fiber fill between the support circle and the gills down here. And then we're gonna be taking the, the stem of the mushroom, which is right here and I'm gonna put a needle in here and we're gonna use this uh yarn tail from our mushroom stem to sew it to the bottom of the mushroom. And we're gonna sew it not only to the bottom of the mushroom, but up through the support circle.

And I'll show you what I mean by that. So if you place your mushroom right here. You can go ahead and pin it in place if that makes things easier. Um, I didn't actually use a pin because I just sent my needle up through, um, the inside of the mushroom. But I think it'll be easier for me to show you with the pin here.

So you're gonna just catch through that, that unused loop, push it up through the mushroom and your needle is gonna come out somewhere sort of near the edge of this support circle. OK? You don't want to catch the cap. You don't wanna catch any of the main color just like that. And then you're gonna send it back down and it's gonna come out, see where my needle coming out right underneath that unused loop.

So we're just sewing this together all the way around your support circle and you're kind of squishing them together and that's what's gonna create. That's what's gonna make it look like the stem kind of goes up into the mushroom just a little bit and it's gonna keep the bottom of your gills from being a round ball because you can kind of pull them tightly together. So every time we're coming out, we're stitching through that support circle and we're coming out the bottom of the mushroom near those unused loops just under the unused loops there. I'm gonna take this pin out because it's kind of in the way just like this. And there are some yarn tails here that are, you know, coming from the support circle.

Those don't need to be a woman in. Um, unless you want to, if they're in your way and they're driving you crazy. Of course you can weave them in before you do the step. Um, but I just leave them in there because they're not gonna, it's not gonna go anywhere. All right.

So we'll do a couple more stitches just to make sure this is sturdy. I would, I would go around this twice because you know, it wouldn't hurt just to have a little bit extra. Um But for the sake of time, I'm just gonna go around once and then I'm just gonna weave in my tail here because I don't want that to unravel. So when you do that, you wanna make sure you're sliding it through your stitches and not just kind of poking it into the fiber fill. You wanna make sure that there's, you know, some kind of friction to keep your yarn tail in place.

All right. And then you can trim that off or you can just kind of coil it up and shove it in there, which is what I'm gonna do and then you can continue working on the cap of your mushrooms. So we would be at, let's see right here. Continuing with the cap round 11, we're gonna make a single crochet into each stitch round and I believe I already did that actually, um I think I already did that for this sample. But so you would conti once you continue, um after you've stitched those pieces together, you do one single crochet in each round and then you're gonna single crochet into the next stitch and then you're gonna do an invisible uh decrease into the next stitch.

So here's my single crochet. Here's my invisible decrease going through the front loop, going under both loops, you over pull up, here's the invisible decrease and then another single crochet and we're going to repeat that all the way around. OK. So single crochet invisible decrease, single crochet repeat again, single crochet, invisible decrease and single crochet. And you can substitute a regular decrease.

Here, you can just do a single crochet two together. If that's what you prefer, that is completely fine. We have a couple more repeats here. Invisible decrease, single crochet, single crochet, invisible decrease and a single crochet. All right.

So we have finished round 12 and now we're doing round 13, we're gonna do an invisible decrease and then a single crochet and we're going to alternate those all the way around. So here's our invisible decrease and then a single crochet and I'm gonna place my stitch marker back in that first stitch and we're gonna repeat, invisible decrease. Oops and a single crochet. Invisible decrease and a single crochet invisible decrease, single crochet. Invisible decrease, single crochet and one more repeat and visible decrease.

And a single crochet. So on the next round, which is round 15, um Basically what I'm telling you with this big paragraph is we are going to trap the ball chain within our stitches. OK. So we are gonna work, let's see. Um invisible decrease and the next stitch trapping the ball chain in place and then invisible decrease twice more.

So we're just doing all invisible decreases all the way around, but we're going to place, I'm gonna open this up right now so that I have both ends and I'm gonna take one side and place it right next to where I'm about to stitch. So it's just hanging out. OK. So we're gonna do an invisible invisible decrease right here. And by doing that, I've trapped it, it's coming out through my fabric and then we're gonna do two more.

Invisible decreases one and two and we are going to make sure we stop and stuff this before we go any further. I should have actually added a little bit more stuffing as I was going because now this hole is getting a little small. I can still get it in there though. So this is a good lesson, just keep stuffing it as you go. Um It's probably best to stuff it a little bit before you get to this point, but you can still get it in and that's this last round here if you need to.

All right. So I'm just kind of stuffing around, I'm avoiding hitting that ball chain with my finger because I don't want to push it to the ball chain all the way to the inside. I don't want to lose it. All right. You can see here is the ball chain that was trapped already.

I, by that first stitch that I made and now we've done um, a couple more invisible decreases and we're gonna trap the other end of the ball chain here. We're just placing it right next to our work. So it's just laying right across that last stitch that we made. And now we're going to do an invisible decrease here. Oops, I'm gonna make this loop a little smaller.

It got a little stretched out here. We go invisible decrease and then another invisible decrease and one more invisible decrease here just like that. And then we are just going to fasten off. So I'm just gonna cut my yarn and then I'm gonna pull it through and we just wanna make sure we're not losing our ball chain yet because we're gonna close this up with our yarn needle. OK.

And then we're just gonna run our yarn needle through each of the, the last six stitches of the round. And so I'm just running it underneath the front loop of each of those stitches. You can do it under both loops if you prefer. This is just easier for me and I think it looks fine. So that's how I usually close things and then you just pull on it to close up the top.

Ok? And then you're gonna wanna weave that in and make sure that it is really secure. You don't want to just sort of pop it inside and cut it off because it could, you know, start to come loose later. So I like to make sure that my yarn tail is going actually through those stitches so that it gets kind of stuck and it won't just unravel itself and kind of go in a couple of different directions there. All right.

So now I'm gonna hook that ball chain together so you can see what that looks like. So it looks like it's just coming out of the top of our mushroom, which it is all right. So now we are going to create the face. So I've got a strand, this is held double, so it's went through my needle and it both ends are right here. Um I'm gonna do it doubled, but you can also just do it singled if you want, like not quite as dark of a face.

Um But I wanna do it doubled so that you can see what I'm doing. So I'm just going to send my needle in somewhere from the back and by back, I it's just somewhere near where that little jog is. Um I would call that the back and then I'm gonna come out, let's see. Let me compare it to this little face. Yeah, about that.

About here somewhere a little bit lower than halfway along the stem is where I started the bottom of my mouth. So I'm gonna let this tail just kind of stop pull until your tail disappears and then take a little tiny, a couple of little tiny stitches right here to anchor your yarn, just little tiny stitches. This is instead of doing a knot and then I'm going to come up here for the, for the one side of the V and come right back down from the same place that I um came out before we'll take a little stitch going up here to the side and a little stitch here and I'm gonna come back down just to make sure it looks nice and symmetrical. There's my little smiley face and then I'm going to make a little French knot over here. It's just a little bit off to the side from where the, and above where the, the top of the mouth is.

So I came out here and I'm going to take a little stitch. So I'm sending my needle through that stitch just grabbing a little bit of the yarn. And then I'm gonna wrap this around like maybe four times, you can wrap it more if you want a larger um a larger knot there. And then I'm gonna send it back through to the other side and then I'm gonna take a little stitch here and wrap that around again about four times, maybe four or five times. I can't remember if I wrapped it four or five the last time.

But either way and we just kind of hold on to that to make that other little eye and send it back out through the back of the stem. It's looking very cute and then I like to kind of weave this back and forth, kind of underneath. So that way, I know that it's, um, it's catching and it's not just sort of in the fiber fill. You want it to be catching on your stitches a little bit before you cut it off. All right.

And then to do the cheeks, you can do little tiny chain stitches. So I just do this with one thread because it makes it a little bit easier. Um, so you can send your yarn in much the same way and I'm just gonna do a little cheek below each of the eyes, pull that through till it disappears and then take a couple of stitches and you could, instead of doing, um, chain stitches here, you could certainly do a satin stitch. Um, that just seemed a little bit trickier to make that look neat and tidy for somebody who hasn't done a ton of embroidery. Um, so I was going for the little, making little chain stitches.

So to make a chain stitch, you're gonna have your needle go down the same place that came up and then you're gonna take a very small stitch like this and you're gonna wrap that yarn or the, the embroidery floss below it and that's gonna keep it, keep the end of it anchored like this. And then we can make another little chain stitch. And I'm just kind of gonna kind of work in a little bit of a circle here, just inserting where I came out making a tiny little stitch and making sure that I catch that embroidery flash with that stitch just like that. So I made the outline of my little cheek and then I can continue to fill in by going around in a smaller circle on the inside here. And like I said before, you know, you can embroider this however you like, maybe you don't even want to embroider it.

Um But you do want cheeks, you could put a little bit of a fabric marker on a Q tip and just sort of blot it on to give it a little bit of a rosy glow there. Um You know, there's lots of different ways to get kind of a rosy cheek. Oh And now I have a nice little knot here. Uh There we go. But see how I can just kind of go in a little spiral and just fill this in with chain stitches and it looks, you know, fairly round and fairly solid.

It's, it's just a little bit easier I think than doing satin stitch on. Crochet. Crochet can be doing satin stitch on, you know, a fabric is one thing, but when you're doing it on crochet, it can be a little bit tricky because it's such a lumpy thing to be stitching into. So it, it can be hard to make your stitches look very even. So that's why sometimes on my Acaroni pieces, if I'm embroidering a little section of something, sometimes I will just fill it in like that with a little bit of chain stitches.

Um And then go across to the other side like that and then I would do the same thing over here and kind of fill that in, make a little circle, fill it all in. And then the last thing that you would do is you're just gonna create some French knots up here just the same way that we created the eyes. Only. This time, you're gonna use a double strand of the contrast color and you can use a yarn needle. So it's exactly the same process.

You have your needle come out, you wrap your yarn around and send it back in to make these lovely little kind of, you know, the little puffy dots on the outside of your mushroom. All right, I'm just checking to make sure I answered anything. Looks like I answered all the questions that you guys had. Um Yeah. And so here's our cute little mushrooms, you guys, it's such a fun project.

Um I really love teaching these lives. Let me know in the comments section. If there's anything in particular you guys would like to learn if you're excited about a certain kind of project or a certain kind of technique? Definitely let me know um because II I like to read through those to see what you you guys are interested in making. So thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate you guys being here. This is always so fun for me to teach and um you know, for me to have these live uh dialogues with you guys, so I can see how you're doing and make sure that you guys can ask questions if you have questions. So thank you so much and I will see you next time. Bye.