14-Day Learn to Crochet—Single Crochet

Hi, welcome back to the 14 day learned to crochet series. In this video, we're going to be talking about single crochet. We're gonna learn how to do this single crochet and turned rows. And we're also going to talk about increasing and decreasing in single crochet. So let's get started.

So as you remember from the last video, your foundation chain has to be done first. So let me just review a little bit. So you'll have your hook and you can hold your chain in your, in your hand, in your dominant hand. And then you're going to wrap the yarn around the hook from the back up through the top, and I'll do my little finger hold here. And then you're going to pull through, wrap, pull through, wrap, pull through, and remember you're not going this way from the bottom.

You're going back up and over, back up and over. All right, and so you'll make your foundation chain however long you want it to be for the swatch that you're making. And you could be doing this with, I have my chunky yarn here and an L hook, or you might be using the dish cloth cotton and making yourself a nice dish cloth for later. So either way, it doesn't matter. So when you begin working in these stitches, like I said in the last video, this is the top of the chain where all the Vs are, and this is the bottom of the chain where all the dashes are.

Now normally when people learn how to crochet, they're taught to go underneath the V. So we're going to do that first. And then I'm going to show you how I prefer to do it because I think it's easier, but I'm going to make you learn the hard one first just so that you know what it is. Okay, so when you're working in single crochet, there's something called a turning chain on the ends when you're working in turn rows. All that is is just one extra little chain to allow you to go up to the next row.

And you'll see more what I mean as we start working back and forth in rows. But what you need to do when you're starting, you do your foundation chain, plus you need to chain one more chain. That's that last chain is going to serve as your turning chain. So you don't count the one that's actually on the hook. That doesn't get counted.

This chain would be the last one you did. This is going to count as you're turning chain, so you are going to skip that chain and you are going to work into this chain. So this V right here. So there's a V here. This V is your turning chain.

And this one's just on your hook and it never counts. So we are going to work from front to back underneath this V. So that means right here you're going to insert your hook right there underneath that V from front to back. So we're skipping that chain and we're working under this one. So there's the first loop.

There's the second loop. Sometimes it's easier to do that one at a time instead of trying to poke it through both at the same time. So when you insert your hook, then you're going to yarn over again. You're going to go back up and around like that. And you're going to pull up.

First let me say I'm using this finger right here to hang on to this loop so it doesn't get away from me. And I'm holding the chain right here, pinching the chain with my thumb, so that you can have a little bit of tension on that. But between the hook and my finger, you can pull it. So we've inserted our hook from the front to the back under that V. We're going to wrap the yard over and then we're gonna pull it through.

And see again, I twist my hook a little to the side so that it has that little window to get through. So turn it to the side and pull it through. Now, you have two loops on your hook. Then you're going to finish your single crochet by back up and around. That's called a yarn over.

And then you're going to pull through both of these loops. So again, I'm going to twist my hook like that to pull it through. Now, you may find that twisting your hook, maybe that's unnecessary for you. That's fine. You do not have to do that.

I just find that it can be a little tricky especially when you're first learning and your gauge is a little bit tighter to get that hook through your, through those loops without snagging on, without your hook snagging on your loops. So now we're going to go into the next V. So underneath those two stitches and let me show you what the, what the bottom looks like. So you're going under those two stitches. So you're just leaving that one little dash on the bottom.

Okay, so that's what that should look like. So you'll insert your hook. You wrap the yarn around your hook, you know from over the top. And then you're going to drag that loop right through. And now you're going to have two loops on your hook.

You're going to yarn over again, and then you're going to pull through two. And it should look like sort of a little V on the front and then a little dash at the top. So you'll insert your hook under the V, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, just like that. Insert your hook under the V, yarn over, pull up a loop. Yarn over, pull through two.

Now I've been doing this since I was about five years old. So it's going to look super easy for me. But I know when you're first learning, it can be really awkward. You don't quite know how to hold everything. It can kind of stress you out.

Maybe it's hard to work in two because your chain was kind of tight. I understand all that. And it will for sure get better with practice. I promise. Every expert crocheter started out as a total newbie.

So just keep that in mind. So we're going to keep going underneath these Vs, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, just like that. And you can see what this piece looks like. Here's your stitches. Here's how to count your stitches.

Every stitch has a little V in the front and a loop on top, a little V in the front and a loop on top. So this would be one, two, three, four, five stitches across. We've done five stitches. You can also count them if you look at the Vs on the top of your work. One, two, three, four, five.

There they are. So at this point, I want to stop working underneath these Vs here, because it is awkward even for somebody who's been crocheting as long as I have. And I want to show you how to do it the other way. So I'm just going to undo this by pulling on my yarn tail. And we are going to flip our chain over.

This is called working into the bottom of the chain. Sometimes it's called the bottom bump, or sometimes people even call it the back bump. But don't let that confuse you because there is something called the back loop which is this part of the chain. There's the front loop and the back loop when you're looking at it. There's a lot of different terms.

So ultimately it doesn't matter too much how you begin that first row unless your pattern specifies to do it a certain way, then you should follow whatever way they say. So we're going to skip the first little dash on the bottom of our chain, and we're going to work into the second dash. Now we're skipping this first one because that's going to count as our turning chain. So we're going to work under that dash. So we'll insert our hook and we're going to work this single crochet exactly the same way.

Yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. Okay, now we're going to insert it again under the next little dash, yarn over, pull through two. Insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. So we'll do this all the way across. And you can see as I work a little faster I'm actually, instead of, you know making this big motion with my hand to yarn over as I was when I was teaching you, I'm actually more using my hook to grab that yarn.

Yarn over, pull through two. See how, you know, I was saying before, you wrap the yarn like this, well you can just kind of go and get it with your hook by twisting your hand like that, go get that yarn, pull it up. So, because you're not going, trying to go under both of those loops it's a bit looser to work into the bottom of the chain. And there's only one loop to deal with to push it through. So that is why, one of the reasons why I like working into the bottom of the chain.

The other reason is an extra added bonus. When you take a look at your chain, it looks the same on the bottom as it does on the top. So you have all those nice little stacked up Vs. So it looks nice and polished. So that is another reason why I like starting out most of my projects working into the bottom, the bottom of the chain.

So what happens when you get to the end? You've crocheted all the way across, then you're going to create a turning chain. The training chain is like what we talked about before. It's basically like a ladder up to the next row. Like you have to get a little higher up in order to make the next row of stitches.

So I prefer to do a chain like this and then turn my work. Some people turn their work first and then do the chain. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you have a turning chain and you've turned your work. So now what happens?

Where do we put our hook? So you need to know, usually your pattern will specify if a turning chain counts as a stitch or if it doesn't count as a stitch or if you're just making a dish cloth or something making up a pattern for yourself, you can decide whether you're turning chain is going to stand in for the first stitch or not. So what it means when the turning chain is standing in for the stitch or the turning chain counts as a stitch. So this is your turning chain, that last loop that we did, that means you're going to skip this first stitch because this is going to count as though you made a stitch already. Then you would just work into the next stitch here.

So you'll insert your hook. Yarn over, pull up loop, pull through two. Well, one of the things that I find tricky about using a turning chain as your stitch, especially when you're first starting, is it is really hard to see where you put your hook on the next, on the next row. So I prefer at least for just, you know when you're starting out, to not count that turning chain as a stitch. So what that means is this turning chain is just a turning chain.

It's just a way to get up to the next row. We're going to leave it there on the side of our work. And we are not counting it as a stitch. And so our first stitch will go into this, into this space right here. This is the first stitch.

So if you're having trouble figuring out where your hook goes, you can stretch it out a little and then you can see the holes a little bit better. But also you can look at the top of your chain, which is I find very helpful. And that V right there, that's where we're going to be putting our hook underneath. This one was the turning chain. This is just the loop on our hook.

And that's the first stitch right there. So we're going to insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop. Yarn over, pull through two. Just like that. Insert your hook, pull up a loop, pull through two.

And we'll do that all the way across. And eventually after you've practiced for awhile you won't have to count or say, you know, pull through two, yarn over, pull. Your hands will just know what to do. And it can be very meditative. All right.

So this last, this last stitch often people miss the last stitch because it's just kind of hanging out there on the side. It kind of bends around and it's a little bit hard to see. So what I would suggest when you, after you make your very first stitch is put a stitch marker in that stitch. And then when you come across, you will see it. So actually we're going to do that right now so you'll see it on the next one.

The very first stitch we did was a right here. Oops, mark it in another color so we can see. That was our first stitch that we did. And now we're going to also, we can mark our last stitch too, just in case. It's hard to tell.

When you're first learning, I recommend marketing the first stitch and the last stitch until you understand where to put your hook. And, and then it just starts to get annoying that you have all these things that you have to take out when you, when you work it into your stitches. So we'll insert our hook into that last stitch, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. That was the last stitch we did. And we're going to put a lock, a split stitch in there, split stitch marker.

We're just putting it underneath that V so we know where it is. And then we are going to chain one for the turning chain, because it's single crochet, just chain one and turn your work. And see now you can see exactly where to put your hook because we marked it. And we'll do one more row across. Insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, just like that.

And I'm going to do these a little faster since you already know how to do this. You can see how it looks once you get used to working with the yarn and the hook. So here we are at that last stitch, we marked it so we know where it is. Take the stitch marker out and work into that stitch just like that. So what happens if you need to add stitches or subtract stitches?

So when you're making something like, say a hat or you know, a sweater, if it changes in dimensions, like if you were making a sleeve, your sleeve is narrower at the wrist usually than up near your shoulder, around your bicep. So you would need, if you were going back and forth in rows you would need to add some stitches to that to make it a wider piece. So we're going to talk about how to add stitches. That is called increasing. And you might see that in a pattern where it says it's abbreviated I-N-C.

That means increase, inc. So in order to do that, I'm just going to work back across just a little ways here. We're going to do our turning chain. We'll do a couple of single crochets. One, two, and then we'll do an increase here.

So that means, an increase means you're putting two stitches into one stitch. So this is the stitch we're going to work into. And we're going to do two single crochets right in there. So we do a single crochet and then we just do a single crochet into the very same stitch like that, one, two. We'll do that again on the next one.

So we just insert our hook. Yarn over, pull up a loop. Yarn over, pull through two. And now we're going to make a second stitch into that same space. So we have just added two stitches in here because I did two in this where there was only one.

So we added one there. And then I did two stitches in this stitch and there was only one, so we added another one there too. So then we'll just crochet across like that. And I'll work my way back. And then I'll show you the increases one more time.

Then you can see what it's starting to do to the fabric. One, two, three. See, here's our increases. You can see there's just more stitches going into those holes. It stretches them on a little bit.

So we'll do two, two increases, right on top of the increases that we did last time. One, two, and here's two single crochet is right into that increase as well. So you can see what's happening. It's starting to curve our piece. You can see that there are more stitches here.

It's adding some length. This is the longer piece than it was when it was down here. When, when we had this many stitches, it was a little shorter than what we have now. So that is how to do a single crochet increase. So what happens if you want to take stitches away and you want to have fewer stitches?

If you're working something wider and you want to go down to something narrower? So I'm going to show you how to do a single crochet decrease. So we're going to do a couple of single crochets here. We'll go over to the other side of our piece. So if you're making a dishcloth swatch, I would say just to go back and forth and back and forth and practice in your single crochet stitch pattern.

In the next video, I'll show you how to finish it off, how to, how to do some finishing. But for learning how to do the increase, increases and decreases, just start another dish cloth. Or if you have some other yarn, you know like an acrylic like this, then just do a couple of rows back and forth of single crochet and then practice doing some increases which means just putting two stitches into one and then some decreases, which I'm going to show you now. So in order to decrease, you are going to insert your hook, yarn over and pull up a loop. And this looks like, just like a normal single crochet.

Normally you'd just yarn over and pull through two to complete it. But we're going to wait until we get more loops on the hook. Now we're going to go into the next stitch, okay. So we worked in this one. We're going to go into the next stitch, insert your hook, pull up, yarn over and pull up a loop.

And now you have three loops on your hook and you're just going to yarn over and pull through all three of those. And so now we have one stitch here where there was once two. So we've decreased our stitch count by just one stitch. We're going to do that again. So we'll insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, insert our hook, yarn over and pull up a loop.

Now you have three loops. Yarn over and pull through two. Now we've done another decrease right there. You can see it's pulling our fabric in here. We'll do two more decreases and then you'll see what it's doing.

So we're gonna chain one for your turning chain. Turn your work, insert your hook, pull up a loop, insert hook, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three. Same thing, insert hook, pull up a loop, insert hook, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through three. I'll just do a couple of single crochets to get my loop out of the way so you can take a look at what that did. See right here.

The edge of our piece is starting to slant in here because we just got rid of some stitches. There are fewer stitches now over here than there were down here. So if you do lots of increases on top of each other and lots of decreases on top of each other I just want to show you what that looks like so you can visualize what it does. So this, I had changed 16 stitches across here and every time I went through the middle I added two increases right in the middle, back and forth. So I increased on the front side, the right side of the fabric, and also on the wrong side of the fabric as I went up.

And see that starts to shape your piece into this shape. So just depending on where you put your increases, how many you put in there, you can make so many different kinds of shapes with it. I mean, the possibilities literally are endless. You can, you can increase in any different way to get a different shape. So you don't have to worry about where those increases need to go unless you're designing your own pattern.

Your pattern will tell you in the instructions, you know work six single crochets, and then increase here. Or it'll, it, it might say two single crochets in the next stitch or something like that, so, so you'll know where those need to go. This is a sample showing you decreases. So I started off once again with six, foundation chain of 16 plus a turning chain. And then I worked back and forth up to here.

And every time I went through the middle, I decreased twice. So I decreased here and here and then on the wrong side here and here. So as, as I worked, I got fewer and fewer stitches and this is how many we have left after a few rows of turning. So that makes the opposite shape. This one bends it this way because you're adding stitches and this one bends it that way because you're taking away stitches.

So those are the basic increases and decreases in single crochet. And now you know how to work single crochet in turned rows, how exciting. And in the next video, I am going to show you a little bit about finishing. So if you're working on that dishcloth swatch, we can finish it up and make it look nice and neat and tidy. So please join me for that.