Magic Circle

HOW I CONQUERED THE MAGIC CIRCLE!

I mentioned in a previous post that I recently started crocheting again, and it has been a blast! I am loving it. One of the things I really wanted to start crocheting was amigurumi (crocheted stuffed animals).

If you’ve ever seen any amigurumi patterns you know that the foundation for most of them is the Magic Circle.

I was determined. I thought to myself…I’ve crocheted before. I’ve got some skills. It won’t be that hard. HA! I had more confidence than I should have. I tried, tried, and tried again with no luck. Either my magic circle wasn’t right, or I didn’t end up with the right amount of stitches, after dozens of tries it was driving me CRAZY! I watched video after video until finally I figured it out. But it took what felt like FOREVER to figure out why my magic circle didn’t look like all of the perfect ones I saw in the videos and what to do about it.

As a result, I decided to take a short break from my usual sewing videos (which I will get back to shortly, don’t worry!) to help all of those poor struggling souls who are having just as hard of a time with the magic circle as I did.

I hope as I share what I have learned it will make conquering the magic circle just a little easier for you.

To help I am going to break it down. We are going to start with the single crochet, reviewing the steps. Then, we’ll single crochet around the ring, and finally around our magic ring.

From beginning to end I was baffled by the magic circle. Some videos started with the single crochet, some used half double, some double….I just wanted to know how to make the magic circle! All the different types of examples really through me off until I was able to connect the stitch they were showing me with the basic stitches and from there identify what was the magic circle and what was the stitch. So we will look at how a single crochet is made.

Then we will look at single crochet around a ring or a loop. This feels and looks a lot different then simply crocheting in rows, so it is helpful to be familiar with this before you attempt the magic circle. So, if you are just starting, grab a hair tie, milk carton ring, or key chain and practice crocheting around the circle.

After that we will actually make the magic circle. I’ll show you how I hold the yarn, what I had a hard time with, and what helped me finally make it work.