Working into Front of Crochet Chain
Mary Beth TempleDescription
Once a crochet chain is created, there’s a variety of ways that new stitches can be created from that chain. In this video, Mary Beth Temple demonstrates how to work into the front of a crochet chain.
When looking at a crochet chain, there is a front and a back. The front of the crochet chain looks like a column of Vs. The back of the chain has bumps for each chain that’s created. Mary Beth notes that each chain has a total of three legs – two legs to form the front of the chain and one leg to form the back of the chain. To crochet in the front of the chain, Mary Beth mentions that you can work under one leg of the chain, or two. She prefers to work under two legs of the chain, as this creates a sturdier edge.
Mary Beth inserts the hook into the front of the chain, at the center of the V, two chains from the hook. She notes that a crochet pattern will indicate where to start working your stitches into the foundation chain. For single crochet, which she is working in the video, typically the row will be started two chains from the hook. Once the hook is inserted, she works under two legs of the chain – one leg from the front of the chain and the leg from the back of the chain. She works a stitch into the chain.
For comparison, Mary Beth then works into the front of the chain by working under only one leg. She notes how the starting chain looks different whether you work under one leg or two. Most of the time, how you work into the front of the crochet chain comes down to personal preference and what qualities you’re looking for in the starting edge of your crochet project.
Hi guys, I'm Mary Beth Temple and I wanna talk to you about foundation chains. Now, when you make a chain to start a project, that becomes the foundation chain because it's the foundation of your project. Sometimes when you're working into that foundation chain, you work in the back or bump, but sometimes you work into the front or the V. I'm gonna talk in this video about working in the front or V of your foundation chain. Now, when you're making a foundation chain for an item, by which I mean, you are chaining to start a project or a piece of a project, and it tells you to work into the chain, you have two choices and in this video, we're gonna take a closer look at working in the front of the chain. So if you want to know which is the front and which is the back, look at the bottom of the stitch and you see that little V, that is the front. If you're also a knitter, it looks like a column of stockinette stitch on the right side. If you're going to look at the back, we see those bumps or some people call them humps. I prefer bumps. So on the back of the chain, you see bumps. So we're going to about working into the front of the chain. Now, because this is very technical, but if you're gonna learn, it's good to learn right. So every part of a chain stitch has three legs. The two legs of the stitch that make up the V on the front and then V a bump that goes with it. So there's, you know, let's pull this way apart. So you see, looking at it from the back, here's three legs, one, two, three. Looking at it from the front, let's pull that V way apart and you can see one, two, three legs. So if you're going from the front, you can work under one of the legs of the stitches or two, and either way is okay. It depends, you know, what you're going to do next. I prefer to work under two legs of the chain because I want it to be super sturdy. I don't want it to be loose. So I'm gonna just do a single crochet. For single crochet, 99,000 times out of a hundred, it will tell you to start working in the second chain from hook and that's because you can't work into the first chain from hook because it comes on done. So we're gonna the second chain from hook. We're working into the front and I'm going to work under two legs. So I'm going to take the pointy part of my hook and I'm going to insert it in that V, but under two legs of that chain and finish my single crochet. All right so there's my next chain. I see one, two, three legs. I'm going to work under two and finish my single crochet. So that is working into the front of the chain under two legs. Well, now what if for whatever reason, maybe I'm gonna have a big heavy edging on there later that I'm worried about. I only want to work under one of those legs. So let's take a look and see what that looks like. So here it is under two legs and there's my one leg. That's my edging. I have my one leg down there and I have a good, sturdy first row of single crochet or, you know, whatever stitch you're doing. If I wanted to continue on and only work under one leg, but again, working from the front, I'm just gonna grab this guy up here. So I'm gonna go under one leg of the stitch. Yarn over and pull through. And again, I'm just doing single crochet here. I'm not doing anything fancy. I'm gonna go under one leg of the stitch. Under one leg of the stitch. And then in that case, here let me just put, yeah I'm gonna put one more on there and see the difference. So in this case, so here were my stitches that I did under two legs of the stitch, my edging is a little loose. If I'm gonna go back and put an edging on there later, that might be just fine, but this is very sturdily attached to the chain. Going in this direction, I have a nice sturdy edge here because it has two legs, but you see how much space I have, how those stitches are pulling up. So whether you want to go in the front under two legs or the front under one leg, it really is going to depend on what's going to happen to this piece when you are done with it. For a lacier piece, I would definitely go under one leg. Also, we have some other video for you here on going in through the back of the chain, the bump of the chain and we're gonna talk about that in a minute too, so you can go check that video out as well. So that was working into the front or the V of your chain to make a foundation chain. So I'm Mary Beth Temple. There's a lot more for you to see here. So I encourage you to check that out and I look forward to seeing you again real soon. Thanks for joining me.
I have never did crochet but on the very occasional times I try to start, this part always had me clueless. Ie do I have two parts of wool at the bottom of the hook or at the top of the hook. Seeing this and with Mary Beth so clear in her instructions, I think I might give crochet another try at the young age of 62 lol. I have an eight year old granddaughter that I believe might benefit from these lessons. As I already noted, Mary Beth explains it all so well that we could both follow at the same time and have some special Granny/Grandaughter days. Thank you Mary Beth