fantasticmio.com

Welcome to fantasticmio.com! As my first post on my new blog I thought I’d start with something useful: a tutorial for Crochet-On-The-Double. Future blog posts won’t be as picture-intensive as this one, so no worries!

Things to expect here in the future: works in progress (yes, that is plural!), new things I’ve learned regarding yarn, rants about yarn, singing the praises of yarn, sentences with yarn as every other word, and the occasional non-yarn related topics (do those even exist?).

On to the usefulness!

This is “crochet on the double” also known as “cro-hooking” and probably a bunch of other names.

Basically, it is like Tunisian crochet (aka afghan stitch), except that you use two colours and a double-ended hook. (Short-short version for those familiar with Tunisian crochet: Work the loops on in colour A. Turn. Work the loops off in colour B. Work loops on in colour B. Turn. Work the loops off in colour A. Repeat.)

I got my hook from Mary Maxim. For this tutorial I used Bernat Satin yarn which calls for a 5mm US 8/H hook. I use a cro-hook slightly bigger than called for; in this case, I used a 6mm J double-ended hook.

Start with a base chain of exactly as many chains as you need stitches. I did ten chains, and ended up with ten stitches.

The loop on your hook at the end of your chain is your first loop in the loop row. Insert the hook into the next stitch and pull up a loop.

Continue in each chain, pulling up one loop for each chain stitch. (10 loops on hook)

Move the loops over to the other end of the hook.

Turn.

Add the second colour by pulling a loop of it through the first loop on the hook.

Work the loops off of the hook by pulling the second colour through two loops at a time.

(So, yo, pull through 2 loops, yo, pull through 2 loops, … until you have only one loop left on the hook, it will be in the second colour)

The loop left on hook counts as the first loop. Insert hook into the second vertical bar left by the first colour.

Pull a loop through. Do the same for all vertical bars. (10 loops on hook)

Move loops to other end of the hook.

Turn. (Keep an eye on the yarn leading to your yarn skeins. If you’re careful about how you turn your work, you can keep things from tangling.)

Pull the first colour yarn through the first loop of the second colour.

*Yo, pull through 2 loops* repeat between *’s until you’re left with one loop of the first colour on the hook

The loop on the hook counts as the first loop in the next row. Insert hook behind the second vertical bar in the previous row (second colour)

Continue until you’ve lifted a loop from every vertical bar (10 loops on hook)

Keep going until you get to the length you wanted.

Finishing:
Work a row of slip stitches into the vertical bars on your last row.

A finished blanket: