14-Day Learn to Crochet—Double Crochet

Hi, welcome back to the "14 Day Learn to Crochet" series. I'm Brenda K.B. Anderson. In this video, we're going to be learning all about double crochet stitches. Double crochet stitches are a little bit taller than the half double crochet and the single crochet that we've worked on so far, so it gives it a little bit more drape and you can see that there's some holes in between the stitches that is characteristic of double crochet. So in order to begin the swatch, we're gonna start out the same way with the foundation chain. I've already chained 10 stitches here and I'm going to be working into the bottom bump or the back bump of my crochet chain. You can work into the top if you prefer. It doesn't matter. I've got 10 stitches chained and then I'm gonna add some stitches on to be the turning chain. So the turning chain for a double crochet is generally suggested to make three stitches for your double crochet turning chain. Because my chains are kind of loose, sometimes I will choose to make two stitches. It just depends on how it looks with my fabric. So as you're starting out, start with three. But if your chains are bagging out away from your work and you see a little hole in between the turning chain and the rest of your stitch pattern, then try doing just two chains instead or you can try doing the three chains but just making your chains a little tighter instead. So I've got my 10 chains and I'm going to chain three. One, two, three. That's my turning chain. I'm going to turn it over so you can see. One, two, three. Those are my turning chain stitches. So I'm gonna work underneath this bump. So to start a double crochet it's very similar to half double crochet. You're gonna do a yarn over and then you're going to insert your hook underneath that stitch. Yarn over, pull up a loop. And then on half double crochet, we yarned over and pulled through all of them. But on a double crochet, we're gonna do it in a two-step process. So we're gonna yarn over, pull through just the first two loops and stop. Then we're gonna yarn over and pull through the next two loops and stop. So let's do that again. We're gonna yarn over, insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop. Now, we do this in a two sections. So we yarn over once, pull through two, yarn over a second time, pull through two. Because we're doing it in those two sections, that's how I remember what a double crochet is. I remember we break it down into two movements. So yarn over, insert your hook, yarn over, pull up a loop. Now, we're gonna do a two-step process. Yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So you can see what it's starting to look like. These are taller stitches than before. And so, because they're taller, there's that little gap between all the stitches. So we're gonna continue across the chain and I will show you what that looks like. So yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. That's what I said to myself as I began working in double crochet when I was first learning how to do it. It's kind of like a little song. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. Now, maybe you'll be hearing my voice saying that as you're working on your project. It'll help you remember. All right, so we've reached the end of our chain. There's all of our stitches. And if you wanted to count your stitches you could count the posts of your stitches. That's this part it's kind of like the trunk of your stitch. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. If you have trouble seeing those stitches, you can pull them apart a little bit and then you can see that there's a space in between them. It helps you differentiate from stitch to stitch. Another way to count your stitches is if you flip your crochet up and you look at the top. Those chains will tell you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. There's 10 stitches there. You see 10 Vs. So we're gonna do our turning chain. So actually I wanna point out. See, because I did my three stitches turning chain. There is a little hole here and I don't particularly like that. So normally, I would only chain two for my double crochets because that's how I crochet. My chains are a little bit looser, so I like to do one fewer chain a lot of times on my turning chain or I'll do the same amount and just do them a little bit tighter. So I would have just chained two here and began working across. But I wanted to show you the standard way. The standard way is three chains there but whatever works for you and makes your fabric look the best, that's the right answer. Don't let anyone tell you you can't chain two stitches for your double crochets because you can, if it looks good. So I'm gonna chain two, because I'm a rebel, and then we're gonna work across the opposite direction. We're gonna start working in that first stitch. So remember, I just turn chain two. One, two. You can chain three if you want to chain three. And then we're gonna work into that stitch and work all the way across. So we'll yarn over, work into the stitch, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So you can see what's happening over here. I had a bigger gap where that turning chain was. But here it's tighter because I didn't do as many. So when you come back and you work into this stitch, it'll stretch it up and this kind of moves in snug right next to your stitch so you don't see a big hole there. So that's what I mean about, do the kind of turning chain that works for you and makes your fabric look the best. So we're gonna just continue cross to the other end and then I will show you how to do a double crochet decrease. So back to my double crochet song. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. And when you have practiced this long enough you can probably say something to yourself like "Yarn over, yarn over," or something like that. Maybe you won't even need to say anything to yourself to remind you of how to do it. Your hands will just know. All right, here we are working into the last stitch. Okay, that last V and then we're gonna do our turning chain. Remember, you can do three for the standard way. I'm doing two 'cause my chains are kind of loose and I'll work... If you wanted to count your turning chain as a stitch, sometimes patterns will say "Turning chain counts as first stitch," or "Counts as a stitch." If it says that, it's telling you to skip that first stitch and begin working in this stitch and you're turning chain, when you count your stitches, will count as though it were a stitch. So if you were gonna do that, if you're turning chain is supposed to count as a stitch, that means you'll leave your turning chain here. You'll skip that first stitch and then you're gonna work your next stitch right here. So this turning chain is standing in for a stitch, so that when you would count your stitches you would count all the way across. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Okay, so that would count as one of your stitches. So let's say that you wanted to do some increases. Let's talk about increases first. So in order to do an increase, that just means you're adding more stitches across the row and your pattern will specify, if you put two double crochets in a stitch or it might say, "inc", I-N-C, that means increase. So that would mean you're gonna put... Unless it specifies. Otherwise, you would put two stitches into that stitch. So we're gonna do that in this stitch right here. So we'll yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. That's the first double crochet. Now, we're gonna do the second double crochet of the increase in that same stitch. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. We'll do another increase right next to it. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. Same stitch. Yarn over, you're putting your hook into the same place you just worked. Yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. So we have added two more stitches here. And so eventually, as you keep adding stitches, if you went back and forth and added, and added, and added it would start to pull your fabric like this because it needs to give those stitches a place to go. So those are creating fullness that wasn't there before. So let's say that you wanted to do some decreases to make your fabric get smaller. And you can do decreases at the ends of your row or you can do it right in the middle, wherever you need to to get the shape that you want. Your pattern will tell you where to put them. But if you're not working from a pattern and you wanna make it your own way just know you can do a decrease anywhere. So in order to do a decrease, we're going to work into two stitches but we're going to work those two stitches into one stitch. So we're gonna yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, and then we're gonna yarn over and pull through two and stop. And then we're gonna do repeat that same process into the next stitch. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two and stop. Now see, look, you have to half... Well, you have two double crochets that are half created. I don't wanna confuse you with a half double crochet because that's a different stitch. Oh, crochet. Okay, so you've got your stitches halfway made and then you're going to complete your double crochet decreased stitch by doing a yarn over and pulling through all three of those stitches. So yarn over, pull through three. So see here, we had two stitches and here is the post of those stitches. They started out as their own stitch and then they became one stitch right here. So there's one stitch where there were once two stitches. That's a decrease. So we'll do that again. One more time. So we'll yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two and stop. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull up loop, yarn over, pull through two and stop. Now, you've got three. Then you're gonna yarn over and pull through all three. So we've done two double crochet decreases right next to each other. And that's how you make your fabric becomes smaller as you work back and forth in rows. So if you're working on your dish cloth swatch, work back and forth even. So you put one stitch in each stitch until it becomes a square, and then you're going to go back and do the same finishing that we did on the previous video for half double crochet and for single crochet. You're just gonna single crochet all the way around the edge, fasten off, weave in your ends and block it. So on our next video, we are going to learn how to do the treble crochet which is also known as triple crochet. So please join me for that.