Short rows

Short rows are an incredible tool when crocheting! They can help you shaping your garments (for example hats and  bralettes) but also creating incredible beautiful textures for garments or accessories!

This powerful tool, it's actually very simple and can be used by beginners crocheters without problems! However, for some obscure reason, crocheters tend to find out about short rows only later on in their crocheting journey! 

Well, let's try and change that in this nook! We are going to look into short rows here. In particular, I'll explain a bit the philosophy and lingo around short rows, and then I'll show you a little tutorial, perfect to understand how to use short rows. 

I used this technique to create some of my beanie designs (the Spice Island Beanie and the Granola & Frozen Berries beanie). 

Spice Island beanie - constructed with short rows

Overview & lingo:

Short rows are worked in pairs, so they are a 2-rows set. 

As the name suggests, short rows have fewer stitches than the foundation chain (or rows around them).

The first row of the pair is the one creating the short row length, simply skipping stitches (you just have to not work a certain number of stitches at the end of the row).

Not working stitches is very easy, you simply don't work them!

Now, the tricky point (not really! still very easy!) comes when we need to work a long row again, after a short(er) row(s)! To do so, we join the rows together. I'll show you how to do it in the tutorial here!

Tutorial:

To explain the short rows, and for you to practice if you don't want to jump in into a project yet, we will work a segment (something like a triangle) here. To make it beginner friendly, I show it first the technique using single crochet stitches!

I use...

Materials:

yarn: Drops Paris, 100% cotton aran yarn

hook: 5 mm hook

You can use any hook/yarn in your stash!

Abbreviations (US terminology):

chain - ch

single crochet - sc

back-loop-only: blo

stitches - sts

Let's start!

ch 9

ch 9

Row 1: sc 8. ch 1, turn. [8 sts]

sc 8

We start the first short-rows set:

Row 2: blo sc 6 - skip the 2 final sts. ch 1, turn. [6 sts]

Row 3: blo sc 6. ch 1, turn. [6 sts]

We start the second short-rows set:

Row 4: blo sc 4 - skip the 2 final sts. ch 1, turn. [4 sts]

Row 5: blo sc 4. ch 1, turn. [4 sts]

We can see here the two sets of 2 skipped sts (yellow)
In the middle of the two short rows, we will insert now the hook to start
joining the rows (red)

We start now joining the row. 

Row 6: blo sc 4. *Now [1] insert the hook in the middle of the 2 short rows. [2] Then insert the hook in the back-loop only of the first skipped st. [3] Yarn over pull through 1 loop (you now have 3 loops on the hook). [4] Yarn over and pull through all the loops (1 loop left on the hook). Place a blo sc in the second skipped st.* repeat another time the steps in between **. ch1, turn. [8 sts]

Row 7: blo sc 8. ch 1, turn. [8 sts]

[1] Insert the hook in between the 2 rows of the short rows set

[2] Next, insert the hook in the blo of the first skipped st

[3] yarn over and pull through the first loop 

[4] yarn over and pull through all the loops (1 loop left on the hook) 

Row 7 is the final row for the first half of the segment. 

It should look like this now

You can find the tutorial from Row 1 to Row 7 here:

Now we start shaping the second half of this segment.

Row 8: blo sc 4. ch 1, turn [4 sts]

Row 9: blo sc 4.  ch 1, turn [4 sts]

We start joining the rows again now:

Row 10: blo sc 4. Now place 2 blo sc as in Row 6, so  insert the hook in the middle of the 2 short rows. Then insert the hook in the back-loop only of the first skipped st. Yarn over pull through 1 loop (you now have 3 loops on the hook). Yarn hover and pull through all the loops (1 loop left on the hook). Place a blo sc in the second skipped st. ch1, turn [6 sts]

Row 11: blo sc 6. ch 1, turn [6 sts]

We join the rows for the last time:

Row 12: blo sc 6. Now place 2 blo sc as in Row 10, so  insert the hook in the middle of the 2 short rows. Then insert the hook in the back-loop only of the first skipped st. Yarn over pull through 1 loop (you now have 3 loops on the hook). Yarn hover and pull through all the loops (1 loop left on the hook). Place a blo sc in the second skipped st. ch1, turn [8 sts]

Row 13: blo sc 8. ch 1, turn [8 sts]

You can find the tutorial from Row 8 to Row 13 here:

That's it! You can use this technique with ANY stitch you might want to use

In the case of my beanie designs, I do not use single crochet stitches, but I alternate yarn over slip stitches and slip stitches! If you don not know these stitches, you can find a tutorial here: Perfect Ribbing #1

To use these stitches in the short rows, we use exactly the same method: we skip stitches when we are constructing the short rows, and we join the rows simply inserting the hook in between the short rows. You can find a tutorial on how I join the rows for one of my beanie designs here:

To see what I'm up to you can follow me on insta at @o_layarn

Go and look around this nook, because many things are already up and many others are coming!