How to Single Crochet Without Making a Chain First

The longer I crochet, the more I find myself trying to avoid making a foundation chain to start a project. They are kinda boring, easy to miscount, and they end up being too tight and can distort your project. Plus, foundation chains look different than the final row, so you often need to add a border to hide them.

Luckily, there is an alternative: Foundation stitches, where you create the chain as you go. It’s kind of like a cartoon I remember when they quickly built the train tracks as the train was going down the track.

I shared the Foundation Double Crochet (Foundation dc, or Fdc) in a previous post. Since then, I’ve learned a couple more tricks to make foundation stitches even better. So, this time, I’m showing you how to do the Foundation Single Crochet (Foundation sc or Fsc) with these extra tips added in.

The Foundation Single Crochet stitch creates the chain as you go, so you don’t have to make the chain first. To do the Fsc, first insert the hook into the chain from the previous stitch, so you have 2 loops below the hook, and pull up a loop. Next, yarn over (YO) and pull through only one loop. This creates the chain for the stitch you are about to make. Then, complete the stitch by doing a YO and pull through two loops.

As a result, the sc stitches are joined with a chain along the bottom as you go. You can make any stitch into a Foundation stitch by adding the extra loop at the beginning of the stitch and using that as the chain as you go across.

Watch this video to learn how to crochet the Foundation Single Crochet stitch: