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2001 Sept 11
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Katrina |
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When I say "working in rounds" I am talking about where you start with a circle or ring in the middle and your piece grows outward, getting larger, until it is the size you need. I am going to show you how to increase rounds while still keeping your circle flat. On the next page, we'll discuss what you can do with those circles, specifically how to make a basic hat. First you need to make your initial circle, or ring. There are a few ways you can do this. One is to use an adjustable circle that you can close almost completely, leaving no definable hole in the center. Another is to make a small foundation chain and join with a slip stitch to make the ring. You can close this a little when you sew in the beginning strand, but you cannot fully close the hole - at least I can't. I will demonstrate both of those here. Neither is better or worse, just different methods for different needs. There is also another method which I have not used as of yet, but I've seen it used in recent patterns. That is to use the first chain as your center circle or ring. In other words, if you are working in single crochet, you would chain 2, then work the necessary single crochets in the second chain from hook. If you are working in double crochet, you would chain 3 or 4 and work your double crochets in the third or fourth chain from hook (in other words, the first chain you made). I don't have pictures for this method. One further note. In Pauline Turner's book How to Crochet, she has a chart which gives basic information on how to keep your circle flat. You can refer to that chart to find out how many increases you should use for different stitches. Although she assumes a joining with a sl st, the numbers will work for both methods. For dc, Ms. Turner suggests ch 3, 11 dc in ring, then an increase of 12 dc for every round. This is what we will do. Realizing that you will have more stitches on each round, you must put your increase further apart with every succeeding round to keep the same number of increases. What I mean is that on your first round, you will have 12 stitches - the beginning ch-3 and 11 dc. To make an increase of 12 dc, you will have to put two stitches in each of the double crochets of your first round, giving you 24 dc, right? That's right. Now you need to increase another 12 dc to keep the circle flat. That means you need 36 total dc (24 + 12). So you will put an increase every other stitch. In other words, you work (1 dc in next st, 2 dc in next st) all around. Then in order to increase 12 in the next round, since you have already added 12 stitches, you will need to put your increase in every third stitch. Remembering that your ch 3 to bring up to height counts as one stitch, and an increase means to work 2 dc in one stitch, you would have this: Round 1: 12 dc in ring You would continue in this fashion until your circle is as large as you want it to be. Here is the picture tutorial so you can see exactly what to do. The yarn used in the tutorial is Red Heart Bikini, a very bright, colorful variegated yarn, fun to work with. Read from left to right, top to bottom. Click on thumbnails to see a larger picture. Note: I have been told it is a little hard to see what's happening here with the variegated yarn. I know better as I always tell beginners to use a light, solid color yarn when learning. I have redone the first part of the tutorial with a solid color yarn. Round 3 and above is still in the variegated. Method 1: Adjustable Ring
Method 2: foundation chain. This is the method I first learned and which I have used for many years. Neither method is better than the other. They are just different. Of course, if you want to eliminate the center hole, the above method works better. If the hole is desired, or doesn't matter, then the foundation chain method can do the job.
1) chain 5
On
to part 2 - what to do with your circles, focus on making a hat |
The buttons above were my first at the Cabana. I keep them for sentimental reasons. :-) NOTICE: Someone is using my old
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and, to my knowledge, it has been discontinued. Copyright 1997- 2007 by Crochet
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