Tunisian crochet: the basics

Tunisian crochet is in between knitting and crocheting. It uses a hook, but a long one, and instead of working a stitch at the time, we work a row at the time. It's a beautiful technique, that creates incredible texture. With Tunisian crochet you can replicate many of the knitting and crochet textures and stitches, but also create something that doesn't exist in knitting and crocheting! 

For this tutorial, you must be at least a beginner crocheter, knowing how to chain and do single crochet stitches (US terminology!)

Materials:

To start your tunisian crochet journey, you will need a hook and some yarn! Before committing to buy a tunisian crochet set, just grab one of your old hooks, one of those straight hook you don't use anymore to crochet - see my pink gold one in pics (amazing colour, terrible hook!). We want to use a straight hook so that we have the space to keep on it all the loops. I'd talk about what tunisian hooks are worth buying to make your first sweater at the end - so that you buy them only if you liked your fist tunisian crochet session!

I recommend starting with light-coloured yarn (it's easier to see the stitches), DK or Aran weight, and a hook size from 5 to 6.5 mm.

If you are here to learn the techniques to crochet the Acorn & Apricot pullover, I'd recommend a hook size 6 and worsted/aran yarn (or the yarn/hook combo you're planning to use to make it) - in this way, your gauge swatch is ready at the end of the tutorial, and you can start your jumper!

Tutorial

In this tutorial, we are going to look into the basics of tunisian crochet, the lingo and the two tunisian stitches I like the most! Don't worry, tunisian crochet is easy to learn!

Foundation Row

 You can watch the tutorial here:

The foundation row, as the name suggest, is the row we start every tunisian crochet project with. 

The foundation row, as every other row in tunisian crochet, is defined by two moments: at first, we work all the stitches pulling up loops - this is the forwards pass-, and then, we work back into all the loops - the return pass.

The most important thing to keep in mind for the foundation row is: the number of stitches in your chain is the number of loops you'll have on your hook!

Let's dive in into the Foundation Row

    chain 16

Forward Pass for the Foundation Row:

Now, insert your hook in the second chain from the hook (or work in the bump of the chain) and pull up a loop

    pull up a loop in each remaining chain stitch (starting from the second chain from the hook - so 15 chain stitches) for a total of 16 loops on your hook at the end (the first loop on the hook counts!)

This is how it looks like after pulling up 15 loops
 - one in each chain stitch, plus, the initial loop on the hook!

Return Pass:

Now that we have 16 loops on our hook, we want to work back into these loops to create the stitches in the foundation row. 

We start with

yarn over and pull trough the first loop

yarn over...

... pull through one loop. This creates the 
Last Tunisian Stitch! 

this creates the Last Tunisian Stitch. This stitch is always worked in this way, in any tunisian return pass row!

Now we work through all the other loops in this way:

yarn over an pull through two loops

This is how the foundation row looks like, the
vertical features are the tunisian stitches

Once we have the foundation row, accordingly to how we work in the stitches (or in between the stitches!) we are crocheting the different tunisian stitches. 

Tunisian Knit Stitch

You can watch the tutorial here:

The reason why many crocheters pick up tunisian crochet is the stitch we are gonna learn now: the tunisian knit stitch! It gives us the same texture as the stockinette stitch in knitting, however, bear in mind that this stitch is actually a bit more bulky than the knitting equivalent! 

Let's dive in!

After the Foundation Row we do as shown before, we have 1 loop on the hook again. 

When starting the first row, you'll see the two bars below
the loop on your hook (red arrow) - you do not work into these!
You will do the first Tunisian Knit stitch into the next stitch - that is the next 2 bars (green arrow)!

The Tunisian Knit stitch is done as follow:

insert the hook in between the two bar, yarn over, pull up a loop

insert the hook in between the 2 bars that form the fist stitch

Once you have inserted your hook in between the bars,
yarn over and pull up a look

Keep repeating the stitch, for each stitch, you will add 
a loop on your hook!

Repeat the Tunisian Knit Stitch, in each stitch - so 14 Tunisian Knit Stitches -up to the Last Tunisian Stitch. 

For the Last Tunisian Stitch

 we insert the hook under both vertical bars, yarn over and pull up a loop. 

You can see here the two bars of the Last Tunisian Stitch
You want to insert the hook under both vertical bars, yarn over and pull up a loop.

We have again 16 loops on the hook (1 loop at the beginning of the row, 14 given by the Tunisian Knit Stitches, and 1 given by the Tunisian Last Stitch).

We now repeat the Return Pass as for the foundation chain!

If you are going through this tutorial because you want to crochet the Acorn & Apricot only with the Tunisian Knit Stitch and make the Made to Measure version, repeat this row at least other 18 times to have you gauge swatch ready to go!

Bind Off

As in knitting, also in Tunisian crochet we need to bind off. Once you reach your desired length, it's time to bind off. We bind off during a forward pass row.

There are many different bind off method in tunisian crochet, the easiest, is to simply place a sc stitch in each of the tunisian stitches. In this case, for 16 loops on the hook, we place 1 single crochet in the first stitch from the hook, and a single crochet in each of the tunisian knit stitches we have (13 stitches), and we single crochet in the Last Tunisian Stitch. You can also slip stitch in the Last Tunisian Stitch if you prefer the look! Give it a go!

Tunsian Full Stitch

Watch the tutorial here:

Now we learn a spicier stitch, that will require a special return pass! No worries, it is very easy!

This time, instead of inserting the hook in between the bars forming the stitches, we insert the hook in between the spaces between two stitches! 

For the Tunisian Full Stitch: 

insert the hook in the spaces between two stitches, yarn over, and pull up a loop

For the Tunisian Full Stitch, we do not insert the hook in between the bars
forming the stitch (red arrow), but in the spaces between stitches (yellow dots)

We now work both the Tunisian Knit Stitch and Tunsian Full Stitch into the same row to create a more interesting texture!

After the Foundation Row (again, on 16 stitches as above), we work the Forward Pass as:

*3 Tunisian Knit Stitch, 2 Tunisian Full Stitches*, up to the final 2 stitches.

Place a Tunisian Knit stitch in each of these stitches, and work the Final Tunisian Stitch as always.

So a row in this tutorial has the following stitches:

3 Tunisian Knit Stitch, 2 Tunisian Full Stitches, 3 Tunisian Knit Stitch, 2 Tunisian Full Stitches, 3 Tunisian Knit Stitch, 2 Tunisian Full Stitches, 2 Tunisian Knit Stitches, 1 Last Tunisian Stitch.

We have this time 19 loops on the hook!

Now we need to work a Special Return Pass. Why? Because working the Tunisian Full Stitches as added 3 extra loops on our hook. We are going to pull together 2 Tunisian Full Stitches with this Special Return Pass.

It's as the Return Pass we used before, but this time, when we reach the set of 2 Tunisian Full Stitches, we yarn over and pull through 3 loops (yellow arrows). 

When reaching the set of 2 Tunisian Full Stitches, yarn over and pull three loops

This is how it will look like after pulling together the 2 Tunisian Full Stitches

So the Special Return Pass is:

Yarn over and pull through the first loop (Last Tunisian Stitch), yarn over and pull through two loops, 

yarn over and pull through two loops, *yarn over and pull through three loops, and then, for three times, yarn over and pull through two loops* until you have 2 loops on your hook. Yarn over and pull through two loops. You now have 1 loop on your hook. 

You can now see 16 stitches (including the initial and final stitches). 

We now just repeat the Forward Pass as before. This time, the Tunisian Full Stitches are going to be crochet in the spaces between the Tunisian Knit Stitch and the 2 Tunisian Full Stitiches pulled together

In yellow, where you want to place the 2 Tunisian Full Stitches

Another example of where you want to place the 2 Tunisian Full stitches

If you are going through this tutorial because you want to crochet the Acorn & Apricot Pullover, repeat this row other 18 times to have you gauge swatch ready to go!

Special Bind Off

Also for binding off, we will need to do a little tweak to deal with the 2 Tunisian Full stitches sets.

Follow the Bind off as before, but every time you reach a set of Tunisian Full stitches, insert the hook into both Tunisian Full stitches (so inside each of the two bars forming a Tunisian Full Stitch), yarn over, and pull through (to complete the single crochet stitch)

Tunsian hooks for jumpers 

If you're now hook on tunisian crochet, and feel ready to dive into your fist sweater, you want to buy your tunisian crochet hooks! These hooks need a length of at least 60 cm, so that you have enough space to keep all your loops. I recommend looking into a length of 80 cm, in this way you really can see all your stitches and it's easier to see if you garments is coming along nicely!

Also, what I highly recommend is to look into tunisian crochet with a cable, instead of the one-piece stick. Tunisian crochet is not-wrist friendly, and the cable really helps making your wrist feeling more comfortable whilst crocheting!

I adore my bamboo once, they weren't expensive and I had to sand them a little bit at first but oh babe, they have crocheted a lot and never failed me!

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!