The Foundation Chain

 The foundation chain is the starting point for a lot of crochet work. It is made by looping your yarn through itself to make what looks like a chain.

How to make the foundation chain

1. Start by making a slip knot and putting it on your hook.

2. Yarn over your hook from back to front.

3. Pull your hook and yarn through the slip knot.

4, That completes a chain, this now becomes the next loop you work through.

Counting Your Chains

Each loop is a new stitch in the chain. When counting back from the hook you don't count the loop on the hook.

Reading Chains in a Pattern

For this we will be looking at standardized patterns but always make sure to check the abbreviations or key to your pattern before you begin.

In a written pattern this stitch shows up as 'ch' with a number denoting how many chains you need to make, as such 'ch3' would be chain 3.

In a charted pattern its symbol is ᆼ or  0

Working into your Foundation Chain

There are a couple of ways to do this.

The first is to go into the top of the chain, this is where you will have two bits of yarn on top of the hook and one below.

The other way is to go through the bottom of the stitch or as it is also know the back bumps, turn your work over and use the part of the stitch that is on the back