Linked Double Crochet Tutorial

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. Today I'm going to show you how to make the linked double crochet stitch. This is a swatch with a couple rows of this stitch worked. What this is, is if you like the height of double crochet stitches, this is a regular double crochet swatch. If you like the height of these double crochets but you want to minimize the holes in between, so say you're making like a cowl or a scarf where you don't want All of these wide open holes in between you can use this stitch instead and it's going to create a really dense fabric But it's going to work up just about as quick as a double crochet project would, which you know if you crochet a lot that a double crochet project works up much faster than a single crochet. So you could do single crochet, which would make a pretty dense fabric, but this is going to work up even faster. So let me show you how to do this stitch and you'll see how easy it is. It's the same as a double crochet, we're just changing one step. So, what I have here is a little swatch that I've begun already, and what I have at the bottom is just a row of single crochet. And the reason that I'm starting this off with single crochet is because of its density. If I were to start it off with a row of double crochet, I'm going to have those holes. So I want just a base row of single crochets, so if you're making a project for yourself, Start off with a base of single crochets before you start this stitch. Then, I've begun a couple of my link stitches already, and I did that because I want to show you how to begin a row after I show you how to do the stitch. So to begin the stitch, a regular double crochet, what we would do is yarn over, insert our hook into our next stitch, yarn over again, pull up our loop. And then we would work off two loops at a time. We'd yarn over, pull through the first two, yarn over, pull through the second two. And that creates that double crochet that has the gap in between each stitch. As you can see, there's no gaps. I can't pull these apart because they're all linked. So let me show you how you're going to do that. So instead of beginning your double crochet with a yarn over, what you're going to do is you are going to look at your previous stitch. And you're going to see that little bar that's coming across the middle. And that is from your drawing through your loops. That is from your first two loops that you drew through. So what you're going to do is you're going to take your hook and you're going to push your hook through that loop that's right in front. Then you're going to yarn over and pull up a loop. So now I have two loops on my hook. The next thing I'm going to do is insert my hook into the next stitch I come to. Then I'm going to yarn over and I'm going to pull up another loop. Now I have three loops on my hook. This is the same as if I had yarned over and inserted my hook into a loop and pulled up a loop. So I can just finish my double crochet by pulling through two loops at a time. So I yarn over, pull through the first two. And you can see that little bar right there is the bar that I just came through. Then I yarn over and I pull through the next two. So now I've created a link stitch that is attached. So you can see how it's kind of attached to that middle bar of the previous stitch. That gives me my density. So again, what you do is you look for that little middle bar that's right in the center of your stitch and you're going to go under it. It's just one loop that you're going under. Then you're going to yarn over and pull up a loop. I have two loops on my hook. Now I'm going to go in my next stitch. Stick my hook through, yarn over, pull up that loop. And now I'm going to finish off my double crochet like normal. Pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So as you can see, instead of yarning over and doing my normal double crochet, all I'm changing is I'm putting my hook into this loop before I pull up a loop. And that's going to create the three loops that I need to make my double crochet. So once you get going and you get used to this loop, it sticks out pretty well, so it's not too difficult to insert your hook into, so it's not going to slow you down too much. But you can start working pretty quickly. You just have to remember to pull up the loop before you insert your hook into your next stitch. But with practice, you'll remember very easily. So I insert, sometimes you can catch extra loops, so be careful. Let me go to the end of the row so I can show you how to make the row, or the beginning of the row that I prefer. You can do it one of two ways, and I'll show you both ways. One second. Alright, now I'm going to turn my work and I'm going to start my next row. Okay, so before I begin my row and show you the way that I did this beginning over here, Here, I'm going to show you the normal way that you would... I'm going to do this without the trick that I'm going to show you. Now the normal way I would do this is I'm going to chain 3 and then start my first double crochet in the next stitch. So what that does is that leaves us with a gap. So we do just a chain 3 which would count as our first double crochet. Since it counts, we don't work into this first stitch. Then I double crochet in my next stitch because I can't start linking my stitches yet because I don't have a double crochet to link to. You could get crafty and grab one of these loops to try to start linking them, but it's going to look a little funny. So if I start linking on this next stitch, you'll see that I still have the gap. So it starts coming together after that first stitch, but I have this big gap here and I I don't like that. I did this swatch with the gaps just so you could see what that looks like. So every other row you're going to have a big gap. So you can see I did three rows of my linked double crochet here. So to get rid of that, to get this effect over here where there is no gap, we're going We're going to do my how to eliminate gaps in your turning chain. A little fast tutorial, I have a whole video on it that you can check out, but basically what we're going to do is instead of chaining three, we're going to put a double crochet in this stitch instead. So to do that, I need to pull out a loop that's about as tall as my double crochet. Because I don't want to just start making a double crochet right here without starting A height requirement, because I'm going to have a squished double crochet if I do that. So what I need to do first is pull out a loop that's going to be as tall as my double crochet, and then I'm going to chain just to kind of lock it in there. Just make one chain. Now I have a height that I can work a double crochet into. So now I'm just going to do a regular double crochet right into that first stitch. So it's a lot less bulky than a chain three, and it's not very noticeable. It's almost like just a strand of yarn sitting next to your double crochet. Now, I can start my linked double crochets right on the edge of my project. So if I don't want to put a border, or even if I do want to put a border around my project, I'm not going to have these holes where if I'm making a border, I'm going to have a hole still every other row because these are very large and noticeable. By making that tall beginning stitch, I eliminate that big hole that I would have gotten if I would have done a chain 3 and a double crochet. So that's all we're changing. Let me show you one more time. So this is the end of our row. We turn our work, and this is just the loop that's on our hook. We're going to pull it up about as tall as a double crochet. It doesn't have to be perfect. It will adjust itself. Then you yarn over and just make a chain. Just pull it close to where my shaft is. Then I yarn over and do a regular double crochet. So this is the only regular double crochet that you do in the entire row. It's the only one where you're actually going to yarn over. Everyone after that is going to be linked. So you go to that middle bar that's right there, pull up a loop, go in your next stitch, pull up a loop. And you can see that I still keep my loops the same size as my shaft, so I work off diagonally. If you like to lift up your stitches, that's perfectly fine, that'll give you a much taller stitch. So if you pull up like this and make a long stitch, you can do that. That'll give you much taller stitches, you can see that one's much taller than the rest of mine. Same thing will happen, you'll just go through that middle bar, pull up a loop, go through Go through the next one, pull up a loop. And pull through everything. Now this is a lot thinner, well not a lot thinner, but it's thinner than a single crochet and it's taller, so this is four rows of double crochet and this is three rows, so you can see that it's still the same height. As a regular double crochet, I have one row sticking up here. So you're still getting the same height as a double crochet, except you're not getting any of the holes. So you're going to work through this project a lot faster than if you were doing single crochets to try to get the dense fabric. So that is how you are going to make the linked double crochets. If you have any questions, leave them below. And thank you for watching.