Left Hand How To Crochet An Open Tube or Circle Tutorial ~ Crochet Tutorial for Beanies, Amigurumi

Hey everyone, it's Deja from crocheteverafter.com. Today I'm doing a viewer request video and the crocheter wanted to know how to crochet in a tube. So basically having an open ring that you're going to crochet into. So I'm going to show you how to chain and join it to form the ring and then the two most important things that you want to remember when you're crocheting this way with the open ring so that your project comes out correctly. So I'm going to show you that right now and we'll get started. Okay so the first thing we're going to do to start working to this is put a slip knot on our hook. So depending on your instructions it's going to tell you to crochet or chain a certain number of chains. So we're just going to do I'm going to say about twelve, so it's not too big, not too small, so we can do it all together. Okay so then it's going to tell you to join your ring with a slip stitch to make a round. So when you do this. When it's a short string, it's very easy to see how to join it, where to join it, so that it doesn't get twisted. But the longer that your chain is, I'm actually going to make this a little bit longer, just to illustrate this, and then I'll shorten it to actually do the tube, so you can see, so it'll go faster. But once you get kind of long on your chain, depending on how much it's going to be, so if it's maybe the crown for a beanie, it could get up to like 100 stitches. So what you have to do when you go to join this is make sure that your chain is straight, that it's all facing one way, all the Vs are on one side, and that you don't twist it. So you can't just start joining without paying attention, because if you get a twist in it, you're... The project is not going to come out correctly, so when I go to join for a tube or anything where I need to join a long chain together, so like a cowl works also, I spread out my fingers, I just go along so that I keep all the front of my chain in the same spot, and then I take my two fingers and I bring them together. So I make sure that the chains are on the outside, I kind of use my middle finger to push them down, and bring the two together. So my tail is always in my way when I do this, it's always on top, so I just flip it over to the bottom, and then I'm able to join my chain without getting a twist. So I'm going to insert my hook into any part of that very first chain, tight because I made it very tight at the beginning, and then you should be good, it's not going to twist on you once you insert your hook. Pull your loop through, do that over, and it's very loose ply. So this is a problem with loose ply yarn if you're a beginner. So don't feel bad, everybody gets stuck on it. So then I'll pull my loop through the loop on my hook for the full slip stitch. And then I'm going to check it again. I'm going to make sure that if I go around, I see just these. So now depending on what your pattern is going to call for, you might work in a spiral or you might join your rounds, and depending on what stitch you're going to use, you will have a certain amount of chains. So we'll do a double crochet. So what we'll do is we'll count chain three as the beginning of our rounds. We'll do three chains, and we'll work in the round where we're going to join our loop at the end. So depending on how many chains you make, when you slip stitch, it's going to count as that very first stitch. That chain three, the slip stitch, takes the place of your very first stitch. The chain three is as your first stitch. And then you start. Double crochet. So you can see how my slip stitch got this chain here, and then I have a chain right next to it to double crochet there, each stitch around. So I'm just grabbing the back loop of these. They might tell you to use the bottom bump, which is this spot here on the backside of your chain, this little bump that comes across. But for ease, I usually do the back loop of my stitch. So, let me get around here. I said I was going to shorten this, but I didn't. So let me do these double crochets real quick, and then I'll come back and show you when we join the round how it looks. Okay, I finished all the double crochets except for one. So the most important part of working this tube is to... there's two important things. One is make sure that your loop is not twisted before you join. And the second thing is make sure you have the right stitch count. So when you do that slip stitch, that's going to take the place of your very first chain. So that slip stitch becomes kind of the top loop that we have here of that chain, and it counts as one of the stitches. So depending on what stitch you're doing, if you're doing a single crochet, you'll probably chain one and single crochet right back into that stitch. Or if you're doing something where the chains count, like a double crochet, you'll have the chain three that comes out of that first stitch, and then you're continuing around. So a good thing to do on this first round. The next step is to count your stitches before you go on to the next round. Make sure that you didn't lose one because of that slip stitch. Sometimes it gets a little confusing and you think that it's one less stitch than you should have. So hopefully your pattern tells you how many stitches you're supposed to have at the end of the round, but usually it's the same amount of chains that you began with. So if it said chain 12 at the end of this first round, you should have 12 stitches. This one would be including the chain 3, so I would have 11 double crochets and 1 chain 3. So it's important to count those because if you have to do any kind of stitch pattern, so if my next round was shells or I had to skip stitches, I need the correct stitch count so that my pattern is correct. So that's basically what you're going to do to work in a tube, so the next round if it was just double crochets again, you can see that chain 3 is coming right off of that chain 3 because we slip stitched. Let me show you that real quick, because I don't think I said it. So at the end of the round you would slip stitch into the chain 3, so I'm going in the top of the chain 3, slip stitching, and you can see how that slip stitch kind of becomes the top of this stitch, so it looks like a V. If I do it nice and loosely, it just sits right on top, so that I would chain 3 for the next round, and it's going to create a straight seam of chain 3s, and then I start double crocheting again. So if I just did this, I would create a completely straight tube if I kept all my stitches straight. But if you're working like a beanie, you're going to have to decrease eventually. So you would follow the pattern and make sure you have the correct number of stitches so that your decreases are correct. So keep your loop straight and then count your stitches after that first round and make sure that you have the correct amount. That's about it for working in a tube. Just change your stitch for whatever stitch it calls for. If you have any questions, leave them below, and thank you for watching!