14-Day Learn to Crochet—Working in the Round Beginning with a Foundation Chain

Hi, welcome back to the 14 day, Learn to Crochet Series, I'm Brenda K. B. Anderson, and in this video, I will be teaching you how to work in the round, let's beginning with the foundation chain. So, what I'm talking about is making a tube shape like this. So you're working around and around and around in a spiral instead of working back and forth and turn rows and then having to seam something. So you might wanna use this if you were making a hat or a sweater in the round or maybe socks or anything where you'd want a tube-like shape and you don't really wanna seam it. So, you're gonna begin with the foundation chain of any amount, and then you're going to bring the beginning of the foundation chain right up next to your hook, just like that, and you're gonna start by working in this, the very first chain of the foundation chain that you made. So we're gonna be working into the top of the chain, we're gonna work underneath those two V's and we're gonna work in half double crochet stitch pattern, but you could do this with other stitch patterns too. So, we're gonna insert our hook here, we're gonna yarn over and pull that through and then just gonna pull it right straight through the one that was already on the hook, that is a slip stitch, that is just joining your piece so that you're able to work in the round. So, because we're doing a half double crochet, I'm gonna give it just one chain here, you could chain more if you had a toddler stitch pattern but half double of crochet is not very tall, so for half double crochet or single crochet, I would just add one chain right there. So then we're gonna yarn over and insert our hook into the same stitch that we put our join into, that was the slip stitch, yarn over, pull up loop, and pull through all three to complete our half double crochet. So now we're just gonna begin working around and around and around. So, we're gonna work underneath all of those V's, just in the half double crochet stitch pattern. Okay, and once you have reached near the end of your round, you can take a look, this stitch here was where we did our slip stitch joint, so we're not gonna count that as a stitch and we're not gonna work into that stitch. We are just gonna work into this very last stitch here, this last chain, there's our last half double crochet, skipping over that slip stitch join and then we are going to do another slip stitch join in the top of this half double crochet. So, we've just finished this half double crochet over here, here's the very first half double crochet that we did, we're going to yarn over, insert your hook under that V, yarn over, pull up a loop, oops, I forgot to do my slip stitch joints. We're gonna join it first, so, you'll just insert your hook and yarn over, pull through that stitch and pull it through the loop on your hook, just like that. So there's a join for you, it's just gonna be a little horizontal bar that connects the end of your round to the beginning of the round. Now we're going to use a beginning chain, this is the same concept as a turning chain except we're not actually turning our work, we need to have a little ladder that brings us up to the next level. So, for half double crochets turning chains are normally a two chains, so we're gonna do two chains, and in this sample here, I'm not going to count my chains as being a stitch. So what that means is I am going to work into the very first stitch, that's the same stitch that we already made the slip stitch into. If you are going to count your turning chain or your beginning chain as a stitch, then you would skip that first stitch and work into the next stitch. Okay, so this would count as stitch number one and stitch number two would be over here, but I am going to not count my turning chain, not counting that as a stitch, so I'm just gonna work into that first stitch right there. So yarn over, insert hook, yarn over over, pull up loop, pull up all three. So that's my first half double crochet of the next round, so we're gonna work around again. Working a half double crochet into each stitch around. Okay, and we've neared the end of our round, just want you to take a look at this here, here we have, this was our slip stitch join that horizontal bar, that does not count as a stitch, okay? This would be the last stitch of the round, you can see it's connected to this half double crochet stitch, there's the top of it, so we're gonna work our last half double crochet into the last stitch, and then we would join, once again with a slip stitch to the top of the first half double crochet we made. So, you just insert your hook, yarn over, pull through loop, and then you pull that through the loop on your hook like that, that made another little horizontal bar there for your joins. So let's take a look at the sample here. You can see working around and around and around, here's all your joints, those are just those little horizontal bars. If seeing this diagonal line, if that bothers you, and you don't wanna see your joints, you can actually work around and around and around without joining. So, you would begin the same way, you would work your half double crochet stitches all the way around until this last stitch and then instead of doing a slip stitch join here, you just work a half double crochet stitch and you start the round again. So, I'm gonna insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, pull through all three. Okay, and I'll make a couple more half double crochet so you can see what that looks like. We'll work around to the end so that we can see how having no joints affects the look of it, you won't see those horizontal lines. So sometimes it's confusing when people are reading a pattern and it says, you know, to work a chain and then begin working in the round, but do not join. And then they think don't join, you're not gonna join one end to the other? How do you make a circle then? The join, that word, it just means the slip stitch that you're doing, it doesn't mean you're not connecting the end to the beginning, you're still connecting the end to the beginning in order to work around and round and round. You're just not doing that extra little slip stitch. So here we've worked our last stitch and we're gonna continue working around and around and around, just like that. So, that, you can't see those horizontal bars 'cause there aren't any there and what that actually ends up doing is you do get a little bit of a jog here from where your round comes around to here and then it has to go up to the next row, it does sort of push that down and then at the end, you have a little bit of a bump there, but you can, if you have a toddler stitch, you can minimize this bump if you want it to fasten off and not have such a big jog here instead of a half double crochet, you could maybe do a single crochet and then you could do a slip stitch maybe and then you could fasten off, like that. So that would be kind of a little ramp coming down so that it makes it look a little bit more smooth, your edge won't have quite such a big bump there from where you ended your round. So, here is the sample of working in the round with the joins, and here's a sample of working in the round without joins. One other thing that I wanted to point out is even though we've already worked in the half double crochet stitch pattern, we haven't made fabric that looks just like this yet. And that's because before when we did the half double crochet stitch pattern, we worked and turn rows, so that means you see the front of the stitch and then in the next row, when you work back the opposite way, on the right side of the fabric, you see the back of the stitch, so it alternates between the front, the back, the front, the back, and so you get this kind of texture, all these horizontal lines here are showing you that back bar on the half double crochet stitch. Well, that doesn't show up on these stitch pattern because you're working around and around and around, so you only see the right side of your work, you only see front of the stitch as you make it, you never see the back of your stitch. So, it makes the texture of the stitch pattern look different. So that was one thing to look out for when you start working in the round, it is going to change your stitch pattern, it's gonna look different from working and turn rows versus working in the round. And also it can change your gauge too, so if a project is telling you, if you know that it's worked in the round and maybe you're making a mitten in the round, and it says, a certain amount of stitches per four inches worked in the round. If you do your gauge swatch back and forth and rows, you might end up with getting kind of a skewed result because the way that your stitches interlock are a little bit different than if you keep working around and around and you only see the right side of your stitches. So if you are working on a project and you need to do a gauge swatch for it, just make sure that you're doing your gauge swatch in turn rows of the projects in turn rows or in the round if your project's worked in the round. So, in the next video, we are going to be learning how to work in the round in a different way, we're gonna learn how to work in the round from a center point outward from the center out, so, please join me for that.