Pattern query

[kat.gordon]

I have recently returned to crochet are many years away. I want to do a rug. I have a pattern but I am unclear to what it means. It is step 1 on the below attachment. 

I now know it its 8 dc but are they in the stitch furthest from the hook, ch 1 or the stitch by the hook?  I can not move on from this.

 

thanks to bgs and granny square for the earlier help. 

[Granny Square]

"round 1: Ch 4, (1DC in 4th chain from hook Ch1), repeat 8 more times, slst to ch 3 space to connect."  (so we don't have to squint to read it)

There is always 1 loop ON your hook, which never counts as a stitch.  It means the first chain that you made of the 4 chains, which is the one farthest from the hook.

I can't remember if earlier you said you were a very beginner, but just in case because this can confuse beginners:  you never make chain stitches into a stitch, you always make "them into the air".  So when you DC, chain 1, the DC is made into that 1 chain farthest from the hook, but chain 1 isn't made into the same chain--because it's made "into the air" it sits near the top of the DC.

Side note 1 - slip stitches are sort of like chains, but they are made into stitches.

Side note 2 - in the directions above I highlighted 'ch 3 space' because I thought it was unclear/odd.  When you make a US DC, you need to bring the yarn up to the level of the stitch; normally, this is 3 chains, are called a turning chain (because you'd do this at the end of a row and turn if you were working flat/back and forth, not in a circle) and they normally count as a stitch.  So in your pattern, the 3 chains that you skipped when you made a DC into the 4th stitch, is that turning chain that is a DC.  Because this set of 3 chains counts as a stitch, you'd need to connect the round by slip stitching into the topmost chain, not the 'ch 3 space' which...is not impossible, but atypical/unclear at best, and would probably leave a gap.

So just to help you count the stitches:  The chain 3 is stitch one, the first DC is stitch 2, then 8 more DC will give you the 10 DC that it tells you there should be at the end of the round.

 

 

[bgs]

There are multiple ways this could be started.  I dont know if reviewing this will help or confuse you.

https://m.wikihow.com/Crochet-a-Magic-Ring

Your pattern is having you start using method 3 but it is demonstrating the method using sc which is why it started with ch 2.  If they were doing dc they would have started with ch 4 like your pattern does.

When you finish round 1 you will have 10 dc---the first 3 ch of your ch 4 is counted as 1 dc plus the 9dc that you made in the 4th ch equals 10.