How to Figure Out Your Foundation Chain Number | Podcast Episode #89

Episode Transcription

Brittany:
Well, hey there, and thank you for joining me in episode 89 of the BHooked podcast. It’s a real pleasure to have you here. As always, I’m really grateful that you carved some time out of your day just for me, and I promise to make it well worth your while today.

So today it’ll be just you and me in a sort of podcast workshop session. By the way, I hope to incorporate more of these into the content strategy in 2019. So if you really love our little one-on-one chats, you can definitely look forward to more of those as we move into the new year.

So in today’s episode, I want to answer one of the biggest questions that I see come in through my inbox, my social pages, and comments. And that question is, Brittany, how many chains do I make to crochet a fill in the blank? Could be a baby blanket, could be an afghan, a king size blanket, a scarf. You name it. At some point, if you’re working in rows, you need to know how wide to make your foundation chain or how many chains to include in that foundation.

Now, if you’re working off of a pattern, well, this is no big deal, right? Because it tells you how many chains you need to make. But what if you find a pattern you love and perhaps you want to make it a different size? Let’s say you find a pattern for a baby blanket that you love and you want to convert it into something bigger for you. Well, how would you go about doing that?

Let’s say you find a stitch pattern you love. You have a stitch pattern book that you’re working with, or maybe you found a tutorial on YouTube and you wonder, okay, I’ve got this great stitch pattern. Well, how many chains do I start with to make X, Y, Z, whatever it is that you’re setting out to make? These are the questions that as a crocheter, you’ve probably already been faced with. Maybe you know the answer to this question and maybe you don’t.

My goal for this episode today is to really focus in on those people who have no clue where to start with this sort of question, to answer this question. But I think it will also serve as a great refresher if you’ve had a little bit of experience with this type of thing before in the past.

So my goal for today is to break it down as plain and simple as possible. You know, I like those nitty gritty details and I know that’s what helps you learn. So we’ll look at this topic from a drawn out perspective and we’ll look at the four main variables, the four things that always come into play or most always come into play when you’re trying to answer this question. And we’ll talk about why these four things are the reason why this question doesn’t have a straightforward answer.

From there, once we understand those variables, we’ll look at the things that we need to know before we could even attempt answering this question. And then once we understand the big picture, we’ll look at the exact steps. Now you might be surprised that there are only three steps to figuring this out, but it is a process because there are some things we need to know first.

Now keep that in mind, it is a process, not a hugely difficult one, but a process nonetheless. Now because the nature of this topic, this is one of those more technical episodes, so you will definitely want to check out the show notes page for this episode. And this week you can access the show notes page from behookedcrochet.com slash session 089.

We will talk about a couple different calculations. And I know when we talk math over audio, there’s not always a great connection between the two. It’s really easy to just let it go in one ear and right out the other. So in order to maximize your experience here and to really take hold of what we’re learning, I want you to use the show notes page in conjunction with this episode so you can see the what I’m talking about and hear it at the same time.

Okay, so the show notes page, behookedcrochet.com slash session089, just type that into your browser from whatever computer or whatever device you’re using, and you can find all of the details there.

Now, since we’re on the topic of potentially modifying patterns, well, it’s reasonable to think that you’re going to need a pattern to play with. Well, as it turns out, my sponsor for this episode, Red Heart Yarns, has, well, over 2,500 free crochet patterns on their website.

Now, don’t let that number scare you away or send you into analysis paralysis. What I would recommend is find their blanket section. More often than not, when I hear how somebody wants to adjust a pattern, it’s usually… blanket pattern. So baby blanket making it bigger, bigger blanket making it smaller.

So when you head over to redheart.com just search for their blanket patterns. You can go directly into all of their free patterns and then they have a nice little filtering section on the side of your screen there where you can tell it specifically what type of project you’re looking for.

So I would recommend going there. I will also have this linked in the show notes so you don’t have to do any searching whatsoever. But find a blanket pattern that looks to work in rows. Now that part is very important because a blanket that comes together with motifs or granny squares or hexagons or anything like that, we don’t really have a foundation chain. So this technique and this strategy really won’t apply to those patterns.

So find a pattern that looks to work in rows or you can even download the free pattern, have a look at it, make sure you have some rows to work with and use that for practice and use several of them for practice. Just start with one though. So head over to redheart.com and search for one of their free blanket patterns and you can use that as your reference as we work through the skill together.

Okay, so I promised an overview look at the entire situation, and I wanna get to that right at the start. Now, I have to be completely honest, whenever I hear this question, I get a little sad because there isn’t a straight answer. I can’t just say, okay, to make a king-sized afghan, you need to chain 400 stitches. There are four things that come into play in order to be able to determine the number of chains.

So keep that in mind as we go through those variables. The first variable we have to consider in order to figure out our foundation chain number is the yarn. The yarn is so important in figuring this out, and it’s one of those things that we could really overlook.

As we explore this a little bit, keep in the back of your mind that yarn has the potential to alter gauge. Okay, so gauge is that measure of stitches within a measurement. Now you may have seen gauge in your pattern and perhaps the red heart pattern that you downloaded before we started here to practice on. You might see a gauge that reads something like this. Eight stitches times five rows equals four inches. So that tells you how many stitches and how many rows you’ll get per inch. That’s the gauge.

The reason why that’s important here is because in most cases, when you’re looking to make something specific, we want it to be a certain size, right? So we need to factor in stitches and measurement. Well, because we’re making the stitches with the yarn, the yarn directly affects gauge, and so it will directly affect the amount of chains you need to make in your foundation.

Now along those same lines, the hook size is variable number two. That is another key player in answering this question. So the crochet hook is the exact instrument that you’re using to create those stitches. And because that ties into the measurement and the gauge, the crochet hook is very, very important as well. As a matter of fact, you really can’t calculate or figure out how many foundation chains you need for whatever project you want without these two things first.

All right, variable number three, you. We are all so unique in our crochet style and we don’t even realize it. I didn’t realize that I crocheted different than anybody else until I started watching some videos on YouTube and until I started teaching people in person, I realized that my stitches are a lot smaller and tighter, like almost more condensed than the way some people crochet. As a result, that affects my gauge.

Are you seeing a trend here? Gauge, although we don’t have to fully understand it to be able to do something like this, it’s really important in the whole process. So because my gauge is notoriously smaller than anybody else’s, I have to factor that into my foundation chain number and the calculation that we’ll look at in just a little bit. Let’s say you crochet a little more loose and you know that, well then you would likely crochet fewer chains.

So let’s look at an example here just so this sinks in. Let’s say we want to make a scarf that’s 10 inches wide. We’ll keep it really super simple. So we’re looking to crochet a scarf that’s 10 inches wide. And let’s say you crochet a lot more loose. So you might just go to town. You might just start with your yarn and your hook and you crochet your chains until it measures 10 inches and you’re good to go.

Now you might say, hey Brittany, I heard you want to crochet a scarf that’s 10 inches wide and I made… 25 chains. To get to that length, go ahead and make 25 chains. Okay, so I’ll pick up my crochet hook, my yarn, and I’ll crochet 25 chains. And just because I’m being diligent, I take a measurement before I continue. Well, let’s say my work only measures nine inches. That’s the difference between two people and that’s where gauge comes into play.

Now, I don’t want to get too into the thick of it with gauge because as you can imagine, it’s a pretty detailed topic and we could really dedicate two or three episodes to gauge and its importance. But just realize that because you and I and everyone else are so unique in their crochet style, we need to factor ourselves and our own style into it. into how many chains do I crochet to make whatever project you’re looking to make.

Okay, now on to the fourth variable. And I’m saving this one for last because it doesn’t always come into play. I would say most times it does, but there are those few cases where you don’t have to worry about it. And that is the stitch pattern.

So in those cases where you don’t have to worry about it, you’re only working with one stitch. Just a single stitch could be only single crochets, could be only double crochets. You could have a combination of a single crochet row and a double crochet row. And you’re probably thinking, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You said if I only work with one stitch, that’s when it comes into play.

So to put it in another way, we’re working with a multiple of one. One stitch that we’re just repeating over and over. And in those cases, we don’t really have to factor this variable into what we’re going to learn next. Now, I would say maybe 10% of the time, that’s the case. If you’re a beginner, this will absolutely be the case because you’ll probably spend more time working with one stitch than a combination of stitches together that make a pattern.

When I was a beginner, I really liked to change the stitch pattern row by row. So I would do what I mentioned before. I would do a row of single crochet followed by a row of double crochet. And that gave it enough visual interest, but it also challenged me a little more than just doing one stitch over and over.

But let’s remember that that won’t always be the case. So the cases where you do need to factor this into your calculation is when you’re working with any sort of stitch pattern. This could be a shell stitch, the moss stitch, a basket weave stitch, broomstick lace, you name it. If there is any combination of stitches that work together in the same row to create your pattern or whatever it is that you wanna make, you’ll need to take this extra step or basically figure out this extra piece of information so that you can plug it into the calculation that we’ll look at next.

All right, so before we move on, let’s recap. There are four variables that we need to understand before we can attempt to answer this question: the yarn, the hook, your own personal crochet style, and then your stitch pattern. Pretty simple, right?

Now let’s take that one step further and understand that three of those things are always going to be considered before you can move forward. That fourth thing is most of the time considered. And in order to make that determination, it’s basically any time where you’re working with a stitch pattern that has or incorporates more than one stitch in the same row, okay?

So now as we move into the actual strategy of it, the how do you figure this out, we’re gonna refer to those a couple of times because there is little bits of information that you need to know to sort of plug into this really simple equation that we’ll learn next.

So let’s first look at that example where we don’t have to worry about a stitch multiple. So this will be probably one of the more fewer instances, but it’s the easiest and it’s really a great way to dive into this sort of calculation and just so you can wrap your brain around it and remove one potential element.

So we’re breaking it down really simple here. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll always need to know exactly what yarn you need to use or what yarn you want to use and the hook size that you’ll use to complete the pattern or to complete the project. So those are two of those variables that you need to know right from the start. So whether you’re using the yarn that is recommended in the pattern or whether you’re using a beautiful yarn that’s in your stash that you just want to use, doesn’t matter what it is or what relation it is to the pattern, you have to know exactly the yarn you want for the project before we can go any further.

Now you might ask yourself, what if I stay within the same weight category?

Then are things pretty okay? Like maybe I don’t know what yarn I want to use, but I have a general idea. And I would encourage you to use caution in those situations because not all yarns are created equal within the same weight category.

So a good example to that is Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable. If you’ve ever used that yarn, it’s from Red Heart, of course. It’s a color changing, like long sweeping colorway, and it’s a 100% acrylic yarn. I’ve used it in several of my patterns. Well, that particular yarn is given a number four on the scale of weight. So that means it’s in the worsted weight category.

Well, then you might look at Red Heart Super Saver, which is also in the same weight category, a number four or a worsted weight. And if you put the two of those together side by side, you’ll see a big difference in the thickness of both of those yarns. So just because they have the same weight category, a worsted weight, lightweight, bulky, doesn’t matter. There are usually some variations there from yarn to yarn. So be very cautious in that.

I would still really recommend that you figure out what yarn you want to use first before going any further. Now, because the crochet hook is equally as important as the yarn, this is something you’ll need to figure out before we move forward as well.

So if you’re following a pattern and you’re just modifying it, making it bigger or smaller, I would say go with the crochet hook that’s listed in the pattern. We’re not doing anything to alter the gauge. We’re really just trying to change the size. So sticking with the same crochet hook is a good way to go.

But let’s say you have a pretty yarn, you found a pretty stitch, or you just want to practice with double crochet stitches, and you don’t know what crochet hook to start with. Now that’s a really common question as well, and you can really use any crochet hook you want, but I know that’s not the answer you’re looking for.

So what I would recommend is look at the yarn label and figure out what hook the yarn company has recommended to be best for that particular yarn. All right, so we have the yarn, we have the hook, and it probably goes without saying that we need to know how big we want our project to be.

So if you know that you’re converting a bigger afghan into a baby size, you need to have a general idea of how wide you want that blanket to be. The best place to find this answer, if you’re really not sure, maybe you don’t know how wide a king-sized blanket is, or maybe you don’t know how wide a full-sized blanket or a lapghan is supposed to be, well, I like to use charts that I find online.

I have an Afghan sizing chart on my website and I’ll link to that in the show notes so you can have an idea of what the general sizes are for different blankets. But it’s really personal preference. Whatever you want, you can make it happen.

So in those cases where perhaps you can’t take a measurement and say, I want it exactly this length because I’m measuring the bed that it’s going on, well, you can just refer to these sizing charts and they’ll basically give you that target length.

So as we move into the calculation, we need to know, of course, the yarn we’re using and the crochet hook, and now we also have our target length. Those are the three things we need before we can move forward.

So as we move into the calculation, I want to remind you once again to visit the show notes page, behookedcrochet.com slash session 089, so that you can see this calculation in action. It’ll probably sound more confusing than it actually is because I don’t know about you, but sometimes that just goes straight over my head. I need to see it in order to really let it sink in.

So the calculations and the examples will be on the show notes page. So as we move into our calculation, we need to have one more thing squared away. We need to have some point of reference because you crochet in a unique way, I crochet in a unique way.

I need to have a reference point to work into that calculation to take in my own unique style with the yarn that I’ve chosen and the hook that I’ve chosen and the size that I want. So we’re tying it all together with this reference.

Now, I also wanna remind you that in this example, we are looking at a situation where we don’t have a stitch multiple. So we’re just working with a multiple of one or one stitch, however you wanna think about it. We don’t have a stitch multiple yet. We will look at that example next though.

I personally like to work with nice round numbers. So when we’re creating our reference point, you can really choose whatever number you want, but I like to make my life as simple as possible. 10 is a really easy number to calculate with. You can most of the time calculate things in your head with that number, so that’s what I like to start with.

You’ll take your yarn that you’re planning to use and the crochet hook, create your slip knot, and then crochet 10 chains. Once you have your 10 chains, grab a ruler and measure that length.

So let’s put together an example here. Let’s say I’m wanting to make a baby blanket that’s 40 inches long and I’ve just set my reference point. So I made 10 chains and I measured it and 10 chains measured two and a half inches. Those are the two components that I need for the first equation for step number one.

So in step number one, you’ll take your target length and you’ll divide it by that reference point, that two and a half inch or whatever your 10-inch chain measured. Now, if we do that math really quickly, we get 16.

Now that number, think of it as a group and more specifically sets of chains. So when I take 40 inches, which is my target length, and I divide it by my measurement for 10 chains, in doing that math, I can translate that to 16 sets of 10. That’s step number one.

Now in step number two, we need to take that one step further because we just have 16 sets of chains now, right? We don’t know how wide our foundation chain needs to be, but we’re going to calculate it next.

So from here, we’ll take our 16 sets of chains, we’ll multiply it by the number of chains we created for that reference point. So remember we said we made 10 chains, we measured it to two and a half.

So we’re taking 16 and we’re multiplying it by 10, which gives us 160. That’s it. In this unique scenario or this example that we’ve set up here, we need to crochet 160 chains to make a blanket that’s 40 inches wide with the hook we’re using and with the yarn we want to use.

So to break it down a little more simply, to put some actual terms to this, we’re taking our desired width in inches, or in centimeters if that’s the metric system that you’re using, we’re dividing that by the width of 10 practice chains, and that gives us any number. It could be any number. It’s unique to our situation.

So we’re taking that number and we’re multiplying it by 10 or we’re multiplying it more specifically by the number of chains that we used as our reference point. That’s why I recommend you set that reference point to the same number every single time. For me, it’s always 10. That’s an easy number to work with.

So try that for yourself too. Always crochet 10 chains to get that reference point, and then you’re always going to multiply by 10. Just makes it a little more simple. So we take that number, we multiply it by 10, and that gives us the number of chains we need.

All right, are you with me? So that is a situation where we don’t have a stitch multiple that comes into play. But as I mentioned before, that’s not going to happen all the time. It’ll probably not happen very often.

So now let’s look at the example where we have a stitch multiple and we know we have a stitch multiple. Well, how do we calculate our foundation chain? It sounds so much more complicated, right?

Well, fortunately, it’s not. There’s not a whole lot of extra steps, actually no extra steps that we have to do in order to make this work out. We just have to remember those three steps from that calculation that we’ve already heard about.

So before we can answer this question, there’s a couple things we need to address. In some cases, you’ll know your stitch multiple.

For example, if you’re using a stitch pattern book, you can almost guarantee, actually I can pretty much guarantee, that the stitch multiple will be given before the pattern for that stitch.

So it’ll say something like, stitch pattern is worked over a multiple of 12 plus 3. or chain a multiple of 12 plus three. That 12 plus three is the stitch multiple, but there’s a little work we need to do to that.

That plus three part at the end always trips people up. So what I like to say is just focus in on that first number. So 12 in our case.

So let’s say you’re working through your foundation. You’re just making a practice swatch. So you’re not trying to target a certain length or anything like that. And you’re just chaining 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, all the way to 12.

And then you start over 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way up to 12. Or you can count and make sure that you’re ending on a multiple of 12. So 24 36, 48.

Those are sort of like your stopping points. Okay, I’ve made one set.

So think of that first number as your set of chains. Does that term sound familiar? Good, because it should.

Now let’s talk about the plus three, or it could be any number. Depends on the stitch pattern.

But that plus some number is your instruction for the end of your foundation chain. So we’ll talk about that as we finish up the equation at the end here in just a moment, just don’t forget that.

Well, you might be thinking, okay, I’m not working with a stitch pattern book. Maybe I found this tutorial online and it wasn’t given to me, or maybe I just have this stitch in my head that I really like.

How on earth do I figure out the multiple? Well, I have a great resource for that where I spelled out the entire process of how you do it.

And because that is definitely a more visual topic, you’ll find it in a blog post on my website. So if this is the situation that you’re in where you have a stitch that you want to use, but you have no clue what the multiple is, maybe you have a diagram and you don’t know what the multiple is, check out that post.

I’ll have it linked in the show notes page. You’ll have to do that before we go any further, at least if you’re using that as your practice, because we need to know that stitch multiple.

So like before, we need to know the yarn we plan to use, we need to know the hook we plan to use, we need our target length, but we also need that stitch multiple.

So even though we’re working with the same calculation, the same strategy as before, we just need that one extra piece of the puzzle to figure this all out.

All right, so let’s think about another example as we dive into this calculation. It’s still a three-step process. We have those bits of information we need.

So here’s the example. Let’s say we’re crocheting a scarf that we want to measure 15 inches wide. That’s our target length.

Now, before we set an arbitrary number of 10 to our reference point. Well, instead of doing that, which by the way, you could, but you’re sort of creating more work for yourself if you do, use your stitch multiple.

So in this example, let’s say our stitch multiple is eight.

So I’ll crochet eight chains with my chosen yarn and my chosen hook, and then I’ll do that math.

So remember, in step number one, we’re taking our target length and we’re dividing it by the length of our little practice reference.

Let’s say when I crocheted eight chains, it measured two inches. So I’m going to divide 15 by two.

That gives me seven and a half. That is seven and a half sets of chains.

So now as we move into step number two, we just need to do a little more computing to get our foundation chain number.

So we’re taking our sets of chains, which we said was seven and a half, and we’re multiplying that by our reference point or our reference number of chains. Remember that was eight, our stitch multiple.

So I’m taking seven and a half and I’m multiplying it by my stitch multiple, which is eight. When you do that math, you get 60.

So that’s it. I need to make 60 chains with my chosen hook, my chosen yarn, and I’ll get a scarf that’s 15 inches wide.

Now there is one additional step that you’ll need to do to make all of this work out. And that’s when you have the scenario of an addition at the end of your stitch multiple.

So let’s say in this example, the specific stitch multiple that we’re given is eight plus three. So because I have that plus three, I need to add that to my total number of foundation chains, which we already calculated with 60.

All right, so we’re not doing a whole lot different, but we’re just adding those chains to the end so that everything works out as it should.

So to put it into words, we’re taking our desired width in inches or centimeters, and we’re dividing that by the length of our reference chain or our reference point.

That is going to give us some number of chain groups. And from there, we’ll take that chain group number, we’ll multiply it by the chain multiple, and that’ll give us our total number of chains.

And if we have the situation where we need to add any number of chains to the end, we’ll do that here.

Okay, I hope your head isn’t spinning right now. I know this is a ton of information to take in and it’s math, right? It sometimes just goes in one ear and out the other.

I want to remind you one more time because I really want you to check out the show notes page so this completely sinks in. BeHookedCrochet.com slash session 089.

You’ll be saying that in your sleep, but you’ll find the equations spelled out, the examples that we’ve talked about here so you can put two and two together. It’s really easy math. I think it’s just going to take you seeing it to let it really sink in.

So let’s do a quick recap. The number of chains you need to make for your project is always dependent on three and sometimes four variables.

It’s always dependent on the yarn you’re using or plan to use, the hook size, and your unique crocheting style.

It’s sometimes dependent on the stitch multiple.

The number of chains you need to make is also dependent on the size you want your project to measure.

And remember, if you can’t take a measurement, just use one of those sizing charts as a point of reference so you know exactly what that target length is.

Then once you know what pattern, the yarn, the hook, that target length, then you can easily calculate the number of chains that you’ll need to make for any project under the sun.

And remember that calculation is just a three-step process. It’s same in the situation where you know your stitch multiple and it’s the same in the situation where you don’t have a stitch multiple.

Now, as we wrap things up for today, I wanna challenge you to pick a pattern from Red Heart’s database and play with it, just experiment. You don’t necessarily have to make the project, but you’ll find a lot of opportunities to practice what you’ve learned here.

Now, while you’re on Red Heart’s website, we want to say a big thank you to them, right, for sponsoring the show. It is them that allows me to bring this episode to you today, and I am super grateful for them.

I know they have a wonderful mailing list. So I don’t know about you, but I love to save money, and I’m sort of a coupon fanatic. And that’s one of the great things about being on their mailing list. They let you know about promotions and coupon codes and that sort of thing.

So if you love to order your yarn online, this is a great way to save some money. So check out redheart.com, browse through their collection of free patterns, and sign up for their email newsletter.

That wraps things up for today, my friend. But don’t worry, I will be right here next week with another episode of the Be Hooked podcast.

I’m really excited about the guest that we have scheduled. She is going to share and elaborate on a topic that came up a couple months ago. If you go back to episode 81, that’ll give you a little clue as to what it could possibly be.

But for now, I’m going to keep it a secret.

Until next week, my friend, have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you soon.