After you crocheted for a while you might have noticed that there are actually two different ways how to “grab” the yarn before you pull it through your loop. When you primarily crochet blankets as long as you grab the yarn in a consistent way it won’t matter that much. However, when you tend to make little cuddly toys – so-called amigurumi – you might want to think about how you grab your yarn more consciously as the result in how you grab your yarn will be more noticeable.
Traditionally you would wrap the yarn around your hook before pulling through. This means at the moment when your hook comes first into contact with the yarn is over your hook. You then wrap the yarn around your hook to be able to pull it through the loop. We call this yarn over and this little video shows you how it looks for a single (US term)/ double (UK/Aus term) crochet stitch:
While having consistent tension can be tricky as a beginner it is especially important when you start making items that will require to be stuffed afterwards. I’m thinking here of cuddly toys that show their stuffing rather than your nice stitches. Ideally, we want to avoid this to happen especially when the cuddly toy is given to a child to play with. But luckily there is one rather simple trick. It will take a little bit to get used to but I promise you after you made the first couple of rows like that you don’t even have to think about it anymore.
And it goes like that. Instead of approaching the yarn as mentioned before you have it under your hook. This means there is no need for you to wrap the yarn around your hook before pulling it through the loop. Your tension will automatically increase and you end up using less yarn per stitch. This results in a much denser crochet work which will avoid stuffing shining through. And as an added bonus you’ll have mini kisses pop up in your crochet work. Who could say no to that?
This little video shows you how to make a yarn under single (US term)/ double (UK/Aus term) crochet stitch:
Want to try your newly found skills on a pattern? Following of my patterns use a single (US term)/ double (UK/Aus term) crochet stitch:
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Happy Crocheting!
