Magic or Adjustable Ring

If you are going to crochet in cycle rounds, it would be ideal to start with a magic or adjustable ring. You start by crocheting over an adjustable loop and at the end pull that loop as tight as possible. The biggest advantage of this method is that there will be no hole left in the middle of your starting round. The magic ring can be made of different stitches (single crochet, double crochet...), this example shows a magic ring with single crochet stitches. Here are the steps:

1. Leaving a small tail, make a loop/ring with tail of yarn behind the working yarn. Hold the yarn as shown on the next pictures.

2. Tighten the loop further, insert your hook into the center of the ring, yarn over with the working end of yarn and pull a loop through the ring from back to front.

3. Chain one. This chain stitch should not be counted as one of your stitches.

4. Continue crocheting single crochet stitches around the ring and the loose yarn tail as follows: insert the hook into the ring, yarn over, draw up a loop, yarn over and draw through 2 loops on the hook to complete the single crochet stitch.

5. Continue to single crochet until you have the desired number of single crochet stitches, finish with slip stitch at the top of the first single crochet.

6. You will have a small hole in the middle of your work (the picture above). Tighten the ring by pulling the loose end as much as you can until the center of the ring is closed. The next picture shows how your starting round should looks like.

If you don't like this method, you can start the round by making 2 chain stitches and the desired number of single crochet stitches (as specified in your pattern) into the second chain from the hook.