Joining Foundation Stitch

Foundation stitches are fabulous. They get the first row of your project out of the way at the same time as what would otherwise be your base chain, AND you get to avoid a tight base chain and the hassle of working into it for your first row. There are foundation stitches for all the basic crochet stitches, and you can do foundation versions of pattern stitches, but the one I use most frequently is foundation double crochet (fdc).

We've covered fdc before here, and since foundation stitches have gained popularity over the last several years, there are plenty of tutorials elsewhere online, but to recap, this is how it works:

Foundation Double Crochet (Fdc):

• Ch 3, yo, insert hook into 1st ch made (the other two chains are like a turning chain and count as your first dc).
• *Yo, draw up a loop, yo, pull through 1 (base chain made), (yo, pull through 2) twice. Fdc made.
• Yo, insert hook into base chain of prev fdc, rep from * as desired.

Here's what a row of it should look like:

Like I said above, fdc is a really useful and convenient skill, although it might take a bit to get used to keeping track of the base chains. What isn't so convenient is starting a project in the round with a length of fdc that requires the end to be joined to the beginning. If you simply join with a slip stitch, as you would pretty much anywhere else in crochet, the tops of the first and last stitches will be joined, but the bottoms of the stitches will not, making a little gap.

Now, the easy way out is simply to sew that little gap together when you go to tuck in loose ends when finishing the project, but I prefer to handle that gap from the get-go. To join the end of an fdc row to the beginning, I use what I like to call joining foundation double crochet (jfdc), which uses slip stitches to attach that final fdc to the initial ch 3 while making that final fdc.  Here's how:

Joining Foundation Double Crochet (Jfdc):

• Yo, insert hook into base chain of previous fdc. Yo, draw up a loop, yo, pull through 1 (base chain made)This step is just like any other fdc.
• Being careful not to twist foundation row, insert hook into second chain made of starting chain.

• Yo, draw through chain stitch and next 2 loops on hook.

• Insert hook in third chain made of starting chain.

• Yo, draw through chain stitch and remaining loops on hook.

Bear in mind that working into those starting chains of the fdc row make them inconvenient to treat like a dc in the next round. Because of that, I don't count the fdc starting chain as a dc if I'm going to work in the round. My turning chains for double crochet will count as double crochets later in the project, just not for the foundation row, and I adjust my stitch count in that foundation row accordingly.

To do a joining foundation stitch in other types of foundation stitches, make the base chain of your final foundation stitch, and then insert your hook into the starting chain before each next step of the final foundation stitch. Just don't insert the hook into the starting chain that functions as the base chain at the beginning of the foundation row.

This post has been linked to Busy Monday, Senior Salon, Inspire Me Monday, Wonderful Wednesday, WITS, The Stitchin' Mommy, and Thursday Favorite Things.