My Video on How to Crochet a Flower

Make sure to set quality to 360p 🙂

What is the learning purpose of your video?

The learning purpose of my video is to share a quick step by step instruction on how to crochet a flower. This project should be easy enough for absolute beginners to follow along to. I wanted this video to be at a pace for anyone at any skill level to understand.

Why is video a good medium for this learning purpose?

Video allows learners to watch how the crocheting is done and lets them follow along at their own pace. They can pause, go back, or come back to it when they choose to. This video shows the movement of my hands and yarn and allows for the viewer to copy easily. Without the visual aspect of the video, I would have had to really break down how to do each stitch. The visual aspect saves time and allows for easy comprehension.

Which of the principles we’ve covered this term (e.g., Mayer/Universal Design for Learning/Cognitive Load Theory) did you incorporate into your design and why?

Crocheting is nice because you are only ever doing one thing at a time. Therefore it naturally uses the segmenting principle by taking each step individually. I showed the flower first and then showed how to create each stitch on the petals. I used the redundancy principle to avoid showing the four other petals and risk losing the attention of my viewers.

What was challenging about capturing your own video?

The most challenging part about capturing my video was working at a pace that a learner would be able to follow along to. I usually go quite a bit quicker than what I showed, but it was important for me to go back to when I was learning and reflect on what pace I would have found useful. I really had to slow down and take breaks to allow for my voice overs and introductions to different types of stitches. There had to be a balance between being fast enough that I don’t bore my viewer, but also being slow enough that my viewer can see and follow each stitch easily.

It was additionally difficult to think of how to create my video when storyboarding. Crocheting is something that happens quite fluidly where each step is done individually on the same medium, rather than something that needs multiple steps in multiple locations. I decided to stick to quite a simple layout like the videos that I watch, where all the crocheting is done at once. This simplifies the video for the viewer where all the crocheting is in one clip. If the viewer needs to find a certain part of the video, they can read the written instructions on the clip.

What did you find easiest?

It was really easy to set up the video. All I had to do was find a good camera angle that showed my hands well, turn my lamp on, and crochet like I usually would. I think that a step by step video where my hands were the only thing on screen was the best option for this type of video. When I follow crocheting videos I like the most simplistic ones that keep me engaged and learning.

How would you approach capturing video differently next time?

Next time I think I would probably do a bit more of an introduction into how to crochet. I think I went through the stitches quite fast without an explanation on how to hold everything, and this was a challenge for me personally when learning. I think just slowing down a bit and talking through hand placements could really help beginners. It is important that next time I try creating a instructional video, I really think about all skill levels and try my best to cater to beginners.

Script:

Hi, my name is Kylie and today I’m going to show you how to crochet a flower. All you need is some yarn and a crochet hook.

We’re first going to start by creating a loop. We’re going to wrap around our two fingers and then grab the yarn with our ring and thumb finger. Wrap around again and pull the left side over the right side. Now put our hook through the top loop and pull to tighten. We’re going to start by chaining 6. This means putting our hoop underneath the yarn and just pulling through. There is my first one and I’m just going to repeat this five more times. It’s important that we don’t keep our chains too tight otherwise we won’t be able to go back and put her hook into it. At this point we have 6 chains done and we’re ready to make a circle. Go back into our first chain and we’re gonna pull through once and then pull through twice so we only have one loop left on the hook. Here you can see that we’ve created a little bit of a circle. The circle is what we’re going to be working out of and where we’re going to be putting our petals through. We’re going to start with our first petal by chaining 6 again off of this circle. Remember don’t keep these loops too tight. These six chains are going to make the outside of the petal. The middle of the petal is going to be 3 triple crochets. To make these three triple crochets we’re going to wrap around our hook twice with the yarn and then we’re going to stick it into the circle in the middle and pull through once, so that we have 4 loops on the hook. We’re going to pull through the first 2 loops then the next two loops and then the next two loops until we just have one on the hook. I’m still learning so sometimes the yarn comes off my hook. We are simply just going to repeat this triple crochet two more times and then to finish the petal we will do six more chains. The triple crochets are done. We’re just going to chain the six now. At this point we just need to attach the left side of the petal, so we’re going to stick our hook through the hole and pulled the yarn. We’re going to grab the yarn and pull through both to create a slip stitch and this is our first petal done. All we need to do is repeat this four more times and we will have a finished flower.

I really love making these flowers because they’re so simple and easy and make a really good first project. You can pick any colour that you like and you could even layer them if you want.

Thanks so much for watching my video.

Storyboard: