Left Hand Treble Crochet Tutorial #3: TR in First Stitch of the Row

Hi everyone, it's Deja Gettner from CrochetEverAfter.com, and this tutorial is going to cover how to make that first stitch of treble crochet into the row when you're working your project. So if you've never done treble crochet before, be sure to check out my treble crochet for beginners. Otherwise, this is going to give you just how to do that very first stitch of your row. Okay, so we have already treble crocheted into our foundation chain, and now we're going to work into the first stitch of our row. So of course we need to turn our work, and then an important thing to know is whether your chain 4, which is your turning chain, that's another name for it, it just means the chain that creates the proper height for your stitches, whether it counts as a stitch Nine times out of ten. The chain four is going to count as a stitch. Most designers will count it as your very first stitch. Every once in a while it may not, depending on what you're doing. But we're going to count it right now as our first stitch, which means that our very first V, which is normally what we would work into, we're going to skip because this chain four is pretending to be the very first treble that would go into this stitch. So we're actually going to work into the second chain from the beginning of our row to do our very first treble. So I'm going to insert my hook, and I make sure that I get in between the two loops that are on top, which is my V, and this bottom bar. I don't want to go under all three. This nice big space is very welcoming, but this is not where our hook needs to go. It needs to go right into that little hole. So, if you're new, make sure you stop and check that you only have two loops on your hook. So I'm going to put my hook through there, and I'm going to finish off my treble crochet by pulling through the first two, the second two, and the third two. So now I have two treble crochets, I have my chain four, which I'm counting as a stitch, And the very first one I made. Now you can see this chain 4 looks a little wimpy next to my treble, it looks a little skinny and misshapen. I have a fix for that, and that's called beefing up my chain. I don't know if that's anybody else's uses that, but I call it beefing it up. And what I do is I pull my loops out just a little bit. I'm going to do 4 chains, and after each chain I'm just going to pull it out a little bit. It's going to make a really tall turning chain. But when I work that treble crochet into that first stitch, or technically second stitch of the row, it's going to squash down this turning chain, and it's going to make it look more like a treble. It's going to beef it up. It kind of makes it a little bit wider when it squishes it down. So if I do that continually on every round, or row, sorry, it's going to look a lot better than that skinny little chain four. Now, in the chance that your pattern says that your chain fours don't count as a stitch, all you simply do is work into that first chain. So you would do your chain four, and then you would go under the V of that very first stitch. So I'll just show you that to make sure that if you... Have a pattern that says that, that is what you're going to do, and you might have that happen. Thank you. If you're seaming your work, that could be a possibility. It's not likely, but just in case, you know if it's not counting as a stitch, work into that first stitch. If it counts as a stitch, always start in your second stitch. So that's how you're going to treble crochet. So the next tutorial is going to cover the middle part of your work, so you can check that out if you need to.