[music]
Hi.
This is June from PlanetJune, and today I'm
going to show you
how to make a magic ring.
The magic ring is an essential technique for
crocheting in the round
if you want to avoid the hole you get from
working into a starting chain.
I'm going to demonstrate the magic ring using
single crochet,
as it's most often used for amigurumi,
but you can also use it for other projects
by substituting a taller chain
for the ch 1 at the beginning.
To start making a magic ring, lay the yarn
over the fingers of your left hand,
and wrap it loosely around the first two fingers,
holding it in place with your thumb.
Insert your hook into the ring, behind your
fingers,
and draw up a loop of the working yarn.
Carefully remove your fingers from the loop,
and pick up the yarn as you normally do for
crocheting,
making sure the loop doesn't come undone where
you were holding it with your thumb.
Now hold the ring together and chain 1.
Now we can begin to crochet the stitches of
Round 1, working into the ring.
The important thing to remember is that we
work over both the ring
and the starting yarn tail at once, to make
each stitch.
So, to begin Round 1, I'm going to insert
my hook into the ring,
so it goes underneath the ring and the starting
yarn tail,
yarn over and draw up a loop,
then from outside the ring, yarn over, and
draw through to complete
the first single crochet stitch.
Now we can work the rest of the stitches of
Round 1 into the ring as well,
again working over the ring and the yarn tail
with each stitch.
(I'm going to make 6 single crochet stitches
in total.)
I'm working over both the ring and the tail
with each stitch.
Now I have 6 single crochet stitches, the
ring is ready to be closed.
So take the starting tail, hold onto the last
stitch you just made (loosely)
and then firmly pull the starting tail to
close the ring.
Now my tip here is that it's actually quite
difficult to pull that ring completely closed
at this stage, and if you do that it also
makes it more difficult
to work the first stitch of Round 2,
so I leave a small hole like this for now,
and continue with Round 2.
You do have to remember that the 'chain 1'
doesn't count as a stitch,
so ignore that little bump there and work
straight into the first stitch
of Round 1, to begin Round 2.
(I'm just going to make 2 stitches into each
stitch around.)
Now I've completed Round 2 and we still have
that hole in the middle which has opened up
again, so now I can close it properly.
Just grasp your work and take the yarn tail,
and now you can pull it really tight.
If you pull it closed, a little, like this,
it looks pretty good, but it will open up
again,
so you have to really yank very hard.
[slight 'clunk' noise]
Depending on the yarn you use, you can normally
actually hear that noise when you
pull it tight, and that noise means it's not
ever going to come undone again.
So now you can see you have a beautiful start
with no hole at all in the middle.
And that's the beauty of the magic ring!
