How to Work the Double Crochet Stitch

Hi everyone, it's Jennifer from FiberFlux. In this video, I will show you how to work the double crochet stitch. This here is a swatch of two rows of double crochet stitches. The double crochet stitch is one of the most common and basic of all the crochet stitches that are out there, and you see them in a whole lot of patterns, so it's a good idea to learn this stitch. And in this tutorial, I will show you how to make a starting chain and begin a row of double crochet stitches, as well as how to make the actual double crochet stitch. And finally, I will show you how to work a second row of double crochet stitches to learn how to transition from row to row. So let's get started. I have here, this is our double crochet swatch. I also have here a single crochet swatch and a treble or triple crochet swatch. And as you can see, the variations of height are much different. This is kind of small, medium, and large. And also, the single crochet produces a very tight, kind of firm fabric. The double crochet is kind of in between. It's a lot more flexible, and as you can see, it's more open. And finally, the treble crochet stitch is very, very open and loose. You can see in between all those ladders there. It's like ladders on its side. So let's get these out of the way, and we'll begin our swatch. Now, I wanted to mention that we're going to be using general guidelines. If you're working from a pattern, you may encounter different things, like a different starting chain number. Your turning chain may be a different height. And a lot of patterns will change some of these basics just to account for maybe the particular yarn or the hook or other stitches being used in the pattern. So these are just general guidelines, but definitely go by your particular pattern. But if you're just learning the double crochet stitch, this is a good little swatch to practice. And if you are learning, you'll want to do this over and over again to practice your tension and to really master the stitch. But generally, this is what you would do with double crochet. So we're just going to put a slip knot on our hook. I just wrap it once around my finger and then bring it around the back like this. Then take your hook and kind of scoop up the middle, pull it down to secure. Just like that. Then I'm going to chain 10, just to make...this is made with 10 chains, just to make a little tiny swatch for you. And to make a chain, you're going to wrap your yarn around the hook, and you're going to pull it through this loop, just like that. That's one chain. So 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. So this is 10 chains, our starting chain. Next, we want to get up to the correct height of our double crochet stitch. So normally, and like I said before, these are general guidelines, different patterns may change things up a bit. But normally, we'll do the first double crochet in the fourth chain from the hook. So this loop here, we don't count. So 1, 2, 3, and 4. So this chain right here, we'll work our first double crochet. To make a double crochet, you're going to wrap your yarn around the hook, just like this. And then you're going to stick your hook into the chain. And then you're going to bring up the loop. To bring up the loop, what you're really doing is reaching back, scooping up the yarn, just like this, and pulling it back through the chain. You'll now have three loops on your hook. Wrap your yarn around the hook again, and pull it through the first two loops, just like that. You'll now have two loops on your hook. Wrap your yarn around the hook one more time, and pull it through those last two loops. You'll now have one loop on your hook. That is the double crochet stitch. Here it is. It's right here. Okay? Let's try again. Wrap your yarn around the hook, put your hook into the next chain, reach back and scoop up the yarn, pull it up, pull up a loop, wrap your yarn around the hook, bring it through the first two loops, wrap your yarn around the hook, bring it through the last two loops. That's our second double crochet. And I just wanted to point out here, when we worked the fourth chain from the hook when we first started, this looks like similar in height to our double crochet stitches we've worked. And we'll come back to that when we turn. I'll explain a little bit more about that. So let's do it again. Wrap your yarn around the hook, insert it into the chain, reach back, scoop up that yarn, bring up a loop, wrap your yarn around the hook, bring it through the first two loops, wrap your yarn around the hook, bring it through the last two loops. One loop left. Okay? So let's go through the rest of these, and I'll pick up the pace just a little bit. Yarn around hook, insert it into the chain, bring up a loop. Yarn around hook, bring it through the first two loops. Yarn around hook, bring it through the last two loops. Next chain, yarn around hook, insert into the chain, bring up a loop. Yarn around hook, bring it through the first two loops. Yarn around hook, bring it through the last two loops. Here's our swatch so far. Yarn around hook, insert it into the chain, bring up a loop. Yarn around hook, bring it through the first two loops. Yarn around hook, bring it through the last two loops. Here we are in our last chain. Sometimes the last chain's a little bit scrunched up, but that's okay. Yarn around hook, insert it into the chain, bring up a loop. Yarn around hook, bring it through the first two loops. Yarn around hook, bring it through the last two loops. This is our first row of double crochet stitches. Let's move on to the next row. To transition from row to row with double crochet, again these are general guidelines, sometimes things change from pattern to pattern, but to get the correct height we'll chain three. To chain, wrap yarn around hook and pull it through the loop. That's one, two, three. Next we're going to turn or flip our work over and with double crochet, normally this is called our turning chain and it counts as the first double crochet on the row. So this is the first stitch here. We're going to skip that because this counted as our first double crochet, so it's kind of substituting for this. So we're going to skip this and then in the next stitch, which is right here, we're going to work our next double crochet. Yarn around hook, bring up a loop, yarn around hook, bring it through the first two, yarn around hook, bring it through the last two. Let's do it again. Yarn around hook, bring up a loop, pull a little bit more yarn out, yarn around hook, bring it through those first two, yarn around hook, bring it through the last two. I'll do a few of these without talking just to show you a few more. I'll go nice and slow, just like that. So to finish off the row, we have here our last stitch which we will work a double crochet in and then we have our turning chain which we will also work a double crochet in. So let's work a double crochet in that very last stitch and our turning chain is made up of a few chains. You'll just want to work your double crochet in the top chain there, right into it. Some rows ask you to, let me just get this through here, I'm sorry, some patterns will ask you to work in the turning chain space and what you would do in that situation is just work it right into the this hole instead of the stitch. So this is our double crochet tutorial and I would encourage you if you're learning just to bring your your hook and your yarn right up to the video and just go right along and you'll want to do lots and lots of them to master this very basic stitch. And thank you so much for watching and be sure and click on the red subscribe button to get all the latest FiberFlux video updates. Thanks again!