How to single crochet (sc) in the round

in this video I’m gonna teach you how to create a single crochet stitch and once you’ve mastered the single crochet stitch you’re on your way to figuring out how to do all the more complicated stitches like half double crochet double crochet triple crochet stitches so the first step in figuring this out is figuring out where do you put your hook this piece that I’m holding right now actually has 12 stitches in it and even if you hadn’t known that you could count the number of stitches by looking for these horizontal V’s where the bottom of the V points to the right like this so here’s the stitch that’s immediately next to the one that I’ve just made and that’s where you’re gonna need to put your hook but for sake of completeness let’s just count the number of stitches in this round so here’s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 alright so I’ve double confirmed that this is indeed the next stitch to put my hook into so let’s get into position tighten the loop hold your working yarn as you normally would so that there would be enough tension there now we’re gonna stick the hook under the top loops of the next stitch so now it should look like there’s three pieces of yarn on your hook then we need to execute what is called a yarn over and it can be confusing which direction this goes to so I’m gonna show it to you in slow motion the yarn goes from the back of your hook to the front of it over the top it should not go this way remember it is a yarn over which means it should start by going over the hook alright so notice how the tip of the hook is currently facing me I’m gonna pull it through these top loops and as I do I’m gonna rotate tip with a hook a little bit down and then when I pull it through I’m gonna rotate the tip of the hook to face me again and I do this to minimize the chance that the hook is gonna get stuck on some piece of yarn in there while I’m pulling so now I have two loops on the hook I got a repeat the yarn over so remember from the back of the hook over the top grab the yarn with the tip of the hook spin the hook a little bit down as you’re pulling it through these loops and then spin it back to face yep and that’s it that’s a single crochet stitch so let’s do another one a little bit faster the single crochet stitch that you just made was made in this stitch and you can tell because another way of identifying a stitch just to see where in the previous round it got hooked into and you can see these lines and how if you pull on this stitch it makes this gap bigger it means that you just put a stitch in this previous stitch so if you’re gonna make a single crochet in the next stitch you need to move one over so the next full horizontal B so again put it under the top loops grab and yarn over pull it through now you have two loops on the hook and yarn over and pull it through again and that’s the second single crochet stitch so I want to go over a few things that often happen with beginners when they’re having trouble pulling the yarn through so step one is if you’re having some trouble getting the hook under these top loops it means that you might have crocheted this stitch too tightly so my recommendation for beginners is always to crochet extremely loose to begin with just make it easier to make any of these motions and then as you get better you can work on tightening your stitches all right so that’s possible issue number one possible issue number two is what I mentioned before that the yarn-over is in the wrong direction this is the direction where the yarn is literally over the hook and facing you not this way which is where the yarn is under the hook all right issue number three is that especially when you’re getting used to the coordination between your two hands some people are focused a lot on maintaining tension correctly on the working yarn and then they forget that this is the same this piece of yarn is the same yarn that needs to get pulled through the loops as is the yarn that’s on your hand so if you’re constantly pulling on it the working yarn with your left hand while trying to pull yarn the same yarn through these loops that’s not gonna happen or you’re gonna have a really troublesome time doing it so loosen your hold a little bit on that working yarn it’s better to go looser than tighter in the beginning again just so that you get a feel for all the motions and then just pull it through let me undo that really quick because another problem that often happens is that someone’s hook gets stuck in the yarn in here and either on a full piece of yarn or more likely like with the type of yarn I’m using in this video this yarn can easily split right like I could I could accidentally grab only part of the yarn and then my hook would get stuck that’s why it’s really important to do all the twisting that I told you about where you twist the tip of the hook from facing you so it goes like this from facing you up they’re facing you it’s a turning down when it goes under the loose to back to facing you when you’re out of loops so I’ll show it to you with the yarn my hook is facing me I’m twisting it down and that’s facing me again alright and I’ll just complete this single crochet and there you have it single crochet stitch