You know the ugly line that you see when you crochet around caused by the starting chain and the slip stitch to join. I’m going to teach you a way to make this line almost invisible. We do that with the chainless starting stitch and the seamless join. Grab your yarn, crochet hook and a stitch marker and let’s get started.

Chainless Starting Double Crochet

Instead of starting with a chain 3, we start with a chainless starting double crochet.

Pull up a loop a bit longer than a normal double crochet.

Yarn over this loop and hold it tight with your finger.

Insert your hook in the first chain.

Yarn over and pull through.

Yarn over and pull through two loops on your hook.

Yarn over and pull through the last two loops on your hook.

Put in a stitchmarker to mark your stitch.

Now you can continue to make your normal double crochet stitches all the way around.

Seamless Join

At the end of your round you normally join with a slip stitch. In this case we use the invisible or seamless join. Pull up a loop and take your hook out of that loop.

Insert the hook back to front through the first stitch of the round. You’ve marked this stitch with a stitchmarker. The yarn must be behind the hook and out of the way.

Put the loop back on your hook.

Pull the loop through the stitch. Remove the stitchmarker. You’ve just made your invisible join. You can use this join for all kinds of stitches.

Chainless Starting Half Double Crochet

Pull up a loop a bit longer than a normal half double crochet. Place a stitchmarker around this loop. Hold the stitchmarker against your hook.

Yarn over the loop. Hold the stitchmarker tight with your finger otherwise it unwinds again.

Insert your hook in the first stitch.

Yarn over and pull up a loop.

Yarn over and pull through all loops on your hook.

Make sure you keep your stitchmarker on the right so that your stitch looks like a normal hdc.

So now you know this easy trick, have fun crocheting!