Crochet Invisible Join and Finish in the Round

I must confess to being a bit of a perfectionist and one bug bear that’s really got to me lately is joining in the round. It’s just so untidy isn’t it? I know for many crochet patterns it doesn’t matter and isn’t really that noticeable.

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But I’ve been using chunky (bulky) weight yarns like Paintbox Recycled Ribbon and Hoooked Ribbon XL yarns recently and with the chunkier yarns, joins are all the more noticeable!

The problem is caused by joining with a sl st and then doing a chain to start the next round. It causes a very visible join with the extra joining st and sometimes that’s really going to affect the overall appearance of the finished item. The same problem comes with the finish. The finishing slip stitch leaves a noticeable bump.

So I had to investigate and play around with other options for joining rounds on recent new designs I’m working on and I thought I’d share what’s been working well.

In this post you’ll find a photo tutorial for an Invisible Join in the Round and Invisible Finish (fasten off). There are other tutorials out there for this same kind of join that are different and some that might be the same. It won’t be the only way to do it, and I’m not the first to come up with it, but through my own experimentation I’ve found it to work very well with single crochet (UK double crochet) in particular. The invisible finish technique works with all stitches.

So if you’d like to give it a try, I hope you find this tutorial helpful.

I’ll get a YouTube video tutorial done soon and will add the link into this post. I’d love you to subscribe to my channel. I will just tell you though, it’s all very new for me and I am waaaaay out of my comfort zone with videos so need all the support I can get. I am enlisting the help of my very tech savvy 12 year old son who is most amused by his techno terrified old mum!

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How to do an Invisible (chainless) join in the round:

When you have worked the last st of the round, take the loop off the hook and thread through the loop of the 1st st, where you would normally sl st into to join (Pic 1) and (Pic 2)

Insert the hook onto the loop again (Pic 3)

And make the starting stitch of the next round in the same stitch (pic 4).

How to do an Invisible (FO) Finish:

Once you’ve worked the last stitch, cut yarn and pull yarn up through the stitch as you remove the hook (pic 5).

Tighten the stitch up neatly and thread the yarn end under both loops of the 2nd stitch (pointing to in pic 6) from front to back (pic 7).

Now take it back over the top to the last stitch and thread down from the top and under the back loop (where my finger is just poking through pic 8), yarn comes through at the back of your work (pic 9).

This makes the appearance of the top of a stitch, just like all the rest in your round, with no ugly finishing bump (pic 10).

Now weave in the end at the back of your work making sure you don’t pull the yarn end i.e. the last stitch, too tight.

I’ve used both of these techniques on my new Sparkle Star Coaster pattern pictured below. It’s now released on the blog and there is also the option of a very low cost ad-free PDF that also includes this stitch technique tutorial so that you can easily print it for quick reference.

Hope you find this tutorial helpful. Please Pin and share to help others find it too.

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