Left Hand Double Crochet Tutorial #17: DC Into A Center Ring

Hi everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. I'm going to show you today how to double crochet into a center ring. You're going to see this type of technique used a lot in granny squares or other motifs where you want a center ring. So I'm going to show you how to do that So to begin my double crocheting into a center ring, I of course need a center ring. Now most patterns, when you're working a center ring, like for a granny square, usually have you chain four, and that's going to give you... A small center ring, you can definitely chain more if you need a bigger center ring. You'll have to adjust your double crochets, and I'll talk about that more after we finish this round, how you adjust for bigger center rings. But you'll find that most patterns, especially granny square patterns, will have you chain four for the center ring. Then, after you chain you need to join the round to make the ring. So to do that easily is I just grab this back loop here. It doesn't really matter where you're going to grab because as you work your center ring or as you work your double crochets into your center ring, it's going to cover all of these chains so you're not going to be able to see any of them. So if they're big, small, ugly, tall, you're going to cover all of them so don't worry So now I have my center ring, and you can see my hole. I pull it apart, and you can see the hole where my stitches are going to go. If you're not pulling it apart, it just kind of looks like a big old bunch of chains muddled together. So we're going to start our double crochet, and most times, I'm not going to say every time, but most times your chain 3 is going to count as your first double crochet. And here it is also. So to get all the way around my ring, I'm going to do 11 more double crochets. So to do my very first one, to get into that center hole, I'm going to yarn over, and then I'm going to pull that ring apart again to find that hole. So I have my hole right there, and I'm just going to insert my hook through it. So now I'm through the center, now I need to grab my yarn for my yarn over, and pull Pull that loop up. And I'm just going to finish off my double crochet, yarn over, pull through the first two, yarn over, pull through the second two. And now you can see that my center hole has opened up a lot more, I can see it a lot easier. So I'm going to do my next double crochet, I go through that center loophole again, pull up my loop, and double crochet that away. You can start covering your tail if you want. Let me show you how you can kind of weave in your tail as you go. I would still weave it in even more. I wouldn't cut it off right at the end of this round because you'll see it's kind of a small circle, so you're not going to get much of it hidden. I would still take my yarn needle and weave in more. So we're going to yarn over, put it through, and then I am going to take my tail and wrap it over. My tail, my working yarn over my tail so that it's going to get trapped in my stitch. Pull that loop up and now you can see it's trapped inside of my circle. I'm going to finish off my double crochet. If you don't want it trapped, if you want to just weave it in like normal, just bring it behind you and out of the way as you work your stitches. Either way is fine, whatever you feel most comfortable with. If you like to weave it in completely and not rely on your stitches to cover it up, you can do that also. So I'm going to keep on reaching through the center hole, you can see it's getting even bigger. So it starts out really small, but it gets quite wide by the end. So you only need about four chains to make a nice size hole for your project. If you need a really big hole for whatever reason, Then you're just going to make more chains and join it and then This is the part that I was talking about earlier, how you're going to get all the way around. I know that 12 double crochets will fill this circle in because it's almost close to being a completely closed hole. If you're making a bigger one, all you're going to do is just keep double crocheting. As you put them in, they're going to start to curve. So you can see I'm just putting double crochets in the center and they're naturally curving around. So if your hole is really big, just keep on double crocheting until you reach. The beginning of your round and then join it up. Try to, you know, make an even number that you can work with. Don't stop at 33, you know, maybe go to 35 or 34 depending on what kind of multiple you're working with. So let me see how many I actually have here because it looks like I'm almost there. I like to usually count backwards from my loop. I find it a little bit easier to go that way. So I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. So I was there. So you can see, I still have a little space, but I know that these are all filled in. So if you're working a bigger round, make sure to just stop when these are filled in, when the center ring is filled in, because once you join it, it's going to close that gap at the top. So I'm going to join with a slip stitch at the top of my chain 3. You can either count your chains, 1, 2, 3, or you can go to your first stitch and go back 1 to your chain. I catch two loops. The reason I catch two loops is if I just catch one loop of my chain and I slip stitch, that loop pulls on all my previous chains and gets really big. I don't like the look of that, so I catch two loops and it doesn't pull on my other chains in my row, or in my three chains, and it doesn't make as big a hole. You can see that now I have a completely filled in circle, just for making sure that my center ring is completely filled in. So that's how you're going to work into a center ring. You can change it up however you like, and this is totally, you can use it for any stitch, which I do, the tutorials are available if you need a different stitch. So if you have any questions, leave them below, and thank you for watching!