by Johanna Draper

Created on: February 28, 2009

The double crochet is probably one of the most important stitches in the art of crochet. It is used for many kinds of fancy stitches. You see, when you look at all of those "hard" fancy stitches such as shells and v-stitches, they are really just a bunch of double stitches combined with chains and single crochet. Sometimes the trebble crochet is used, and sometimes the double trebble, but most often, it is the double crochet you see.

Lets get started in understanding how to create the double crochet.

Each stitch has an abbreviation. Chain will be seen as ch, double crochet will be seen as db, and yarn over will be seen as yo. Yarning over is when you wrap the yarn around your hook once.

Now lets make a row of double crochet.

First of all, most every crochet piece you will make requires some kind of foundation, and for now, we will use chains for our foundation. So ch 7. This will be enough to make 5 double crochet. After you have chained 7, you will start the row by yarning over (yo) and inserting your hook into the fourth chain. Now grab the yarn with your hook, and pull it through the chain. You will now have 3 loops over your hook. Yo, grab the yarn, and pull it through two of those loops. Now you have 2 loops on your hook. Yo again and pull though the last 2 loops. You will now have just 1 loop on your hook. That is your first double crochet! Notice that you skipped 3 chains. Whenever you start a row, you will chain 3 and skip them, because that chain 3 counts as your first double crochet. So even though you have only made 1 double crochet, you really have 2 double crochet! Make sense? Don't worry, as you continue to practice, it will begin to make sense.

To Finnish your row, yo, insert your hook into the next chain, yo, pull the yarn through the chain, yo, draw the yarn through two loops, yo, draw the yarn through 2 loops again. Tada! Another double crochet! Now you will repeat this until you come to the end of the chain.

To start another row, ch 3. Skip that first db, because your ch 3 counts as your first db. yo and insert your hook into the second db, and draw the yarn through the double crochet. yo, and pull through two loops, yo, and pull through the last 2 loops. Now just keep going all the way across.

congratulations! When you get to the end of the row, you will have 2 rows of double crochet! It may look a little funny, but that's ok. No one can make their stitches look perfect when they first start. You should see my first projects...quite hideous looking!

Now you undrstand how to make the double crochet. Have fun playing around and making new projects with your newly learned stitch!

Learn more about this author, Johanna Draper.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.