Left Hand Half Double Crochet Tutorial #17: HDC into a Center Ring

Hi there, it's Deja from crocheteverafter.com and I'm going to show you how to half double crochet into a ring. So instead of a magic adjustable loop where you want the center hole completely closed, this tutorial is going to actually form a ring and then half double crochet into it. So you might use this on granny square blankets or just about anything The only thing that you need is that center hole open. Certain motifs use it. But it's a very handy thing to know and this is going to cover it so let's get started. We're going to half double crochet into a center ring. This is going to be used whenever you want the center ring to actually be open so maybe a granny square blanket. Most projects are going to have you chain four when they want to have you work into that center ring. The reason being is it's small enough To create almost an invisible hole, it'll be a small little hole, but it's big enough to actually stick your hook through, and it's small enough to get all your stitches around. So if you want to stick with normal multiples, so for half double crochet you work eight into your first round, if you want a flat disc, you need a smaller hole to be able to work into. I could make my chain as big as my finger. If I wanted to make a huge hole in the center, I would just have to put a lot more half double crochets around the entire thing to fill it up. Our goal is to fill up the entire ring with half doubles. So after you chain four, you want to join the ring, and I'm just going to join it by slip stitching right through this back loop of my very first chain. I don't have to worry if the chain is twisted or where I'm putting the slip stitch because I'm going to be working all the way around it. It's not going to be visible at all. So to begin working into this center ring, what I need to do is chain 2 for the height and depending on the pattern, it'll either count as a stitch or not. I'm going to count it as a stitch, so that means I'm going to do 7 more half double crochets into the center of my ring. Now when you first start out, the hole is quite small and a little difficult to see. Just make sure that you get into the center of it. So push your hook through, and then you're going to lay over your yarn, and I just hold on to the ring to pull the hook back through, and then I have my three loops on my hook, and I'm just going to yarn over and pull through all three to make that half double. And you can see that my hole has opened up more now, so it's easier to find and stick my hook into. I'm going to do another one in there. Yarn over and pull up that loop. And yarn over and pull through all three. And to easily pull through those loops, I always turn my hook down towards my work and pull through. And it glides through easily all those loops. So as I work around and I keep adding half double crochets, it starts to fill up the circle and they just keep naturally pushing my hook around into a circle. It just forms a circle naturally because you're putting so many half double crochets into this ring. And you can see that I'm also crocheting around my tail. Instead of having to weave it in at the end, you can just crochet it right in as you go. Pull on it there. And it hides it nice. So let's see how many I've done so far. I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. I'm already there. And you can see that it filled up really nice. I'm all the way back to my chain 2. So I just need to join that. If I'm joining, if I'm working in spirals, then I would start working my next round. But I'm going to join that to finish that first round off, and now I can move on. But that is how you're going to half double crochet into a center ring, and it's going to give you a nice little open hole for your project. Thanks for watching!