Last week, we started the crochet basics series with a look at slip knots, making a chain and single crochets. I hope you found the tutorials useful and have been getting your practice in!

You can see a summary of all the basic stitches on the Basic crochet stitches  Resources Page but today we are going to focus on the double crochet and the half double crochet stitches(or treble and half treble if you use UK terms).

The imaginative abbreviation for a double crochet is dc, and for a half double crochet is hdc.  (UK treble is tr and half treble is htr.)

So lets take these fundamental stitches one by one and get straight to it!

Double Crochet (dc)

The dc stitch is taller than the single crochet and creates a looser fabric with more drape.

Written instructions to make a double crochet (dc)

Yarn over (yo), insert your hook into the stitch you are working into, yo and pull up a loop (3 loops on hook).  Yo and pull through 2 loops (2 loops on hook).  Yo and pull through 2 loops.  Dc made.

Below are the right and left handed tutorials

Right handed double crochet tutorial

Left handed double crochet tutorial

An example of a pattern using double crochet is The Falling Pines Poncho.  This uses an additional cabling technique called front post double crochet which we will look at later but otherwise it’s all just double crochet used in different ways!

Half Double Crochet (hdc)

As I’m sure you can guess by now, the half double crochet (hdc) is half way between a single and double crochet.  You start by yarning over but then work the rest of the stitch more like a single crochet.  Let’s take a look.

Written  instructions to make a half double crochet (hdc)

Yo, insert hook into stitch, yo, pull up a loop (3 loops on hook).  Yo, pull through all 3 loops.  Hdc made.

Right handed Half double crochet tutorial

Left handed Half double crochet tutorial

Personally, the hdc is probably my favourite of the 2 basic stitches.  It works up quickly and creates the best of both!  I use it a lot in my patterns.  It is used in combination with the bobble stitch in the “I made this blanket” pattern as well as the “lean on me” cushion.

By now you have learned the chain stitch (ch), single crochet (sc), double crochet (dc) and half double crochet (hdc).  These are the stitches I use for about 90% of my crochet so you’re well on your way!

Get practicing and next time we will look at the treble crochet family and some other extended stitches.

Happy Hooking

Dx