Working in a Spiral
★☆☆ - Beginner
Working your stitches in a spiral is another way of working in the round and won't show joins where the rows begin and end.
This method is used with double (single) crochets and is popular for amigurumi work as it means that there is no seam running along one edge of side of your loop and the work appears to be much more seamless. (Examples at the bottom of the tutorial.)
However it can be a little more tricky that the usual way of working in the round as it is easy to lose track of your starting point. You'll need to make such you have a crochet stitch marker to work this technique so you can always find the start of the new round.
Tutorial:
Work the start of the round in the usual way, either using a magic loop or by working into a chain.
Then, don't make a slip stitch to end the round as normal. Instead, simply make the stitch into the first stitch of the last round, as indicated in the picture.
So, start another round of double (single) crochet stitches, insert your hook into the first stitch of the last round, wrap the yarn over the hook and pull through the stitch.
Then wrap the yarn over the hook again and pull through both of the remaining loops on the hook. This completes the first double (single) crochet of the next round.
To make sure that we do not lose our place, as soon as the first stitch of any new round is made, make sure you insert a stitch marker into the stitch. You can do that by hooking under the top two loops, just as you do when working into a stitch.
Here you can see the stitch marker in place, after I've worked a few more stitches.
Then you continue working all the stitches of the round. When you have worked all the stitches you should be back around to the stitch marker again.
To start a new round, you first remove the stitch marker.
Make the first stitch of the new round and then straight away place the marker onto the stitch you have just made.
Here in the picture I have made a new stitch and replaced the stitch marker. The pin indicates where the stitch marker was before I worked the new stitch.
Carry on working rounds in the same way, just keep removing and replacing the stitch marker as you go.
Example:
Working in a spiral
Here you can see a circle made by working in the spiral. There is no seam and you can not seen where the rows end and begin.
Working in a round
This pincushion was worked in the round and you can see clearly see the seam running up the side of the work.
Next Steps:
However it can be a little more tricky that the usual way of working in the round as it is easy to lose track of your starting point. You'll need to make such you have a crochet stitch marker to work this technique so you can always find the start of the new round.
Tutorial:
Then, don't make a slip stitch to end the round as normal. Instead, simply make the stitch into the first stitch of the last round, as indicated in the picture.
Here in the picture I have made a new stitch and replaced the stitch marker. The pin indicates where the stitch marker was before I worked the new stitch.
Carry on working rounds in the same way, just keep removing and replacing the stitch marker as you go.
Example:
Here you can see a circle made by working in the spiral. There is no seam and you can not seen where the rows end and begin.
This pincushion was worked in the round and you can see clearly see the seam running up the side of the work.
Next Steps:
✽ Find out how to work into a chain to create circles with little or no centre gap
✽ Find out how to make a magic loop