Foundation Chain Tutorial #6: 4 Ways to Work in Your Chain

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. Today I'm going to show you pretty much the four most basic ways to work into your foundation chain and what each way looks like worked as a little swatch and what it's good for. So the first one is the one that I normally do whenever I'm just doing a basic fast project where I don't really mind about my bottom edge or if I'm going to seam it. And that is working into the back loop only. So I'm just going to do single crochet, so when you do single crochet you always skip that first chain and you work into your second one. So the back loop, if you look at our chain, it looks like we have kind of the letter V stacked on top of each other. And those are two loops on the front and we actually have a third loop for our foundation chain, which is on the back side. And it looks kind of like a little hash. Going vertical. It's a little bottom bump is usually what we end up calling it, but I'm just working into this back loop here and I call it the back loop because if I turn my stitches facing up, it's the one that's further away from me or the one that's in the back. It can also be called your top loop. So if you're working and it says work into your top loop only, this is going to be the loop that they're talking about. So to work into it, you just put your hook right underneath that one loop. Yarn over and finish your single crochet. If you need help with single crochet tutorials, I have that available. But we're just going to kind of quickly do a few in the back loop only. When you work into the back loop only, that leaves your other two loops unworked. So your bottom bump and your bottom loop or your front loop go unworked. So you get kind of this twisty little chain effect on the bottom of You can see it's almost looking like a V, but not quite. Now, I like this one also for when I'm joining, because if I'm joining, I can grab just one of the two loops, and I can start working or sewing into that loop only, and that gives me a middle loop that kind of creates a little, it keeps it from turning too much into a hole. If I grab both of those loops, then I get a big hole in the middle. So say I'm working on the back side of my foundation chain. I'll only grab one of these loops and it keeps it more closed. I won't have a big gaping hole from grabbing both loops. So this stitch is good for working really quickly or if you're going to be seaming because you're not going to see it. So it's a very quick loop to grab and I recommend it if you're just going to be doing regular single crochet or any other stitch for that matter. Now the next one... Is where you're actually going to be working into your back loop and your bottom bump. So you're going to catch this bottom bump also. And what you do to do that is you see this kind of loop that's coming right in the center of your V. That's what's creating your bottom bump. So you're actually going to grab the back loop and that bottom bump at the same time. So it's almost like you're grabbing a whole stitch on any other row. You're grabbing two loops. And then you just yarn over and single crochet that. Again, you kind of reach right through the middle and kind of push down, and that's going to catch that back loop and bottom bump. I usually stick my finger there to help guide it. I put my finger and I push kind of into my finger, and then push that loop up so it gets caught. Now with this stitch, I'll only have one loop on the bottom. So now I only have that front loop. That's becoming my bottom border, so you can see I had kind of the loopy before, now I just have this one loop coming across. This one's probably my least favorite when seaming or joining because when I go to pull just that one loop, I get that big hole again. So I don't recommend this using the back and bottom bump when you are going to seam or Or work into the opposite side of your foundation chain. But it does have its uses. It's kind of a nice looking little border, so it could be nice for, you know, a scarf edge. It kind of gives a cute little effect. And it also keeps that first row pretty even. It pulls on those other two loops, so it keeps this loop pretty much consistent throughout, whereas sometimes with just pulling this back loop... These will be a little bit out of shape because as you pull, let me show you, as you pull on one loop, it pulls the other loops into a certain shape. It'll pull on those others, so if you already are pulling on two, it kind of leaves that last loop alone. Now, we have the kind of foundation chain that creates a great border. If you're not going to do any seaming or edging, and that's working into your bottom bump only. This one takes the longest amount of time, but it creates the nicest edge if you're doing a plain stitch. So what you do is you turn your work, and you can see those bottom bumps sticking up. You're going to work your hook under that loop only, and you pull it up and just do your single crochet. And as you do that, those two loops that you don't work into turn into your bottom border. So this is a great foundation to use, and you can see that it's turned, and now that is my bottom. So instead of the loops or the straight, I get a nice V edge. So this is great if you're doing a scarf maybe, and you don't want to do an outside border. It'll give you a nice V-edge on both sides. So you can see I did a whole little swatch here. So this is my bottom edge that I worked into. And this is the normal stitching edge. So you can see they are identical. So if this was a very tiny scarf, you can see that both edges are very nice looking. So this is a great, great way to work into your foundation when you don't want to have to do anything when you're done with your project. Now the final... way to work into your chain is to actually not really do a chain and that's foundation single crochet. I'm not gonna go too much into it right now. I have tutorials available because it's own great tutorial. It takes a little bit to explain how to work the steps but foundation single crochet is great because it's going to give you that edge like in the previous swatch where you work into the bottom bump of your foundation chain But... There's an added benefit of doing foundation single crochet, and that is it is super stretchy. So this is my foundation single crochet, and you can see how far I can stretch it. So let me pull up my last one I just did, and you can see that it doesn't quite stretch as much. I can kind of get a stretch on it, but this one, you can see these are the same amount I'm going to show you the amount of stitches. I can get a lot more stretch out of my foundation single crochet than I can my regular crocheting into the bottom bump. So this is a great beginner. A foundation for anything that you want stretched to. So if you're making garments and it calls for straight rows of any kind of stitch using a foundation single crochet, foundation double crochet, I have all those tutorials available if you need them. It's going to create this super stretchy fabric that's really great for wearing. So those are the four main ways that you can work into your foundation chain. How you actually do it is completely up to you. Sometimes the pattern will tell you how to do it, but you can always change that. You can always just work into one loop or two loops or your bottom bump. Whatever you feel is best for your project, you can do. But those are the results that you're going to get. If you have any questions about them, just leave them below. But thank you for watching.