The Magic Circle

 

Above, my very first magic circle.

Surprisingly, the first thing I learnt when I first started was not how to create a chain but how to make a Magic Circle (MC) or some call it the Magic Ring (MR). As a complete beginner, it took me many frustrating hours of trying to follow along with numerous different YouTube videos to learn how to make a MC/MR. None of them really helped and only contributed to me getting more frustrated each time my yarn unravelled. The good news is that I did eventually watch a video that showed a simple, straight-forward and easy to remember way to create a magic circle. The video was shared to me by a friend who was also at the start of his crochet journey and found the magic circle method in the video to be easier to understand and do.

Needless to say, this is the MC/MR method I still use today.

Here's the video that helped me to learn how to create a MC/MR: 

Other things I've learnt about the MC/MR: 

• The single crochets (SC) I make into a MC/MR, especially the very first SC, tends to be too tight to fit my crochet hook through easily. If it is too tight, I sometimes use a darning needle to loosen the stitch or a smaller crochet hook. Usually, I also actively use less tension when making the first SC into my MC/MR (i.e. my stitches are looser compared to SC I would have in other rounds). This took some practice to get the right tension for the SC in the MC/MR but it really helped to make it easier for my crochet hook to fit through after closing MC/MR. 

• As shown in the photo of my very first MC/MR, I used to have a little hole in the middle of the MC/MR. However, I've learnt that this hole can be closed quite easily by holding onto the MC/MR and pulling tightly on the dead tail (i.e. the yarn tail the arrow is pointing to that will not be used to create any future stitches and is not attached to your crochet hook).