Adjustable Magic Ring
One of my greatest frustrations as I was learning crochet was that all my projects in the round looked like nipples. No matter how much I tried, the initial circle was too loose or two tight. But thankfully I discovered the magic ring. It’s an adjustable center, so you mount as many stitches as you need, and then adjust it.
This technique es used mainly for amigurumis (stuffed toys), so you’ll mostly see it used with single crochets, but I’ve used it with double crochet as well, and even with clusters. For example, I’m making a hat that requires the first round to have 8 clusters with 3 double crochets each. Before adjusting the ring, it looks like this:
After adjusting, it looks like this:
Frankly, if I hadn’t discovered this technique, I would have abandoned crochet all together. I found various tutorials about it, but the one that helped the most was this video:
More Magic Ring tutorials:
- The Magic Ring with great pictures, by Planetjune.
- The Adjustable Magic Ring a couple of ways to do it at Crochetme.
- Update [April 11, 2008]: Since I wrote this post I have written an amigurumi tutorial that includes a video on how to make the magic ring: Amigurumi Tutorial 1
I have struggled with the magic ring, trying to make sense of written tutorials and other videos. This one works! Thank you for posting.
Comment by sharon — March 2, 2009 @ 8:09 pm