How To Yarn Under Single Crochet

The Yarn Under is a technique that gains new followers every day among the amigurumi makers. And not without a reason. The yarn under is making the stitches tighter and the fabric denser, and as a result, the stuffing is not shown through the stitches and you don’t have to strain your hands by working tight.

In the photo below you will see two balls that are made with the same yarn, hook size and pattern. The only difference is that one is worked with yarn over (left) and the other with yarn under (right) technique.

As you can see, when you are making a single crochet with yarn over, the ‘legs’ of the stitch are placed next to each other, forming a V shape. The stitches that are made with yarn under, have the left “leg” in front of the other forming an X shape. 

The stitch shape is not the only difference between the two techniques. When one leg is placed in front of the other, the stitch occupies less space, leading to a smaller stitch and a smaller piece in general.

And finally when you are working in the round your stitches slant to the right (for right handed), but the yarn under makes that slant less noticeable and the stitches appear to be, just a little bit, straighter.

Now let’s see how to make a yarn under single crochet

Yarn Under Single Crochet

Pic1

1. Insert the hook into the stitch. Pic1.

Pic2

2. Place the hook over the yarn and catch it. The yarn should be UNDER the hook. Pic2.

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3. Draw up a loop through the stitch. Now you have two loops on your hook. Pic3.

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4. Make a normal yarn over, with the yarn OVER the hook. Pic4.

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5. And draw up a loop through both of the loops on the hook. Pic5.

That’s it! 

As you may have noticed, we only make the yarn under in the first half of the single crochet and we complete the stitch as we normally do. But there is no right or wrong in that technique, you can choose to yarn under both times if you like.

Watch the video tutorial

If you like to see the yarn under in action, I made a little video for you where I demonstrate the technique.

Conclusion

As I said before there is no right or wrong method to crochet, but the yarn over is the first technique we all learn and it will not be easy to change your way of doing things. It took me a lot of concentration to make an amigurumi with yarn under (and my brain didn’t like it). 

If you like to see how the yarn under looks in an amigurumi, Malou The Bunny Girl is made using yarn under.

Have you used this technique before? Are you going to give it a try? Let me know what your preferred method is, Yarn Over or Yarn Under?

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