The Tunisian Simple Stitch

Tunisian crochet, also known as Afghan crochet, is a combination of knitting and crocheting. It creates a thick texture that makes it perfect for things like blankes, dishcloth, washcloth and winter accessories. Nobody knows where Tunisian Crocheting has it’s origin. I first thought it was from Tunisian but after doing a bit of research, (yeah, I know, crochet geek!) I learned that it most likely was developed from a hooked knitting style that was used in Africa and Central-Asia. Tunisian crochet is sadly a little unknown, but I see more and more bloggers are writing about this relatively forgotten craft, and I am glad! If you wanna impress your friends, and learn something new then I strongly urge you to learn some Tunisian crochet! I made a baby blanket with the Tunisian simple stitch and I was very pleased with the result. Today I want to show you how you can do the Tunisian simple stitch (TSS).

Here’s a dishcloth that I made. It’s really thick and soft. It’s made with two strands of yarn in blue and white.

To do this dishcloth/washcloth just chain 17 chains with a 10 mm or N/13 and follow the instructions below. When I was happy with the size I just did single crochet around it and I but 2 sc in the corners. You also need a longer crochet hook/Tunisian crochet hook. My washcloth is made with DROPS yarn from Garnstudio. It’s clever to go up 2-3 hook sizes than the label on your yarn recommends, otherwise the work will curl up.

First make a foundation chain with any amount of chains.

For this tutorial I used 8.

After you have made the chains, insert the hook in the second chain and pull up a loop but leave the loop on the hook.

Do this with all your chains. If you have made 8 chains, there should be 8 chains for you to pull up.

Now yarn over and pull trough the first loop.

Like this;

You made a chain 1

Now you are going to yarn over and pull trough two loops

Do this the entire row down.

Now we will start on the second row. You are not going to yarn over like with normal crochet.

But insert the hook in the vertical bar that I am pointing on.

Now you can pull up a loop.

Keep doing this for the entire row.

When you get to the end you have to put the hook trough the both chains that i am pointing on.

This is to keep the work straight.

It can sometimes be confusing to know where to put the hook, but if you hold the work straight, it’s easier to see!

Repeat what we did before. Yarn over pull tough the first loop and then yarn over and pull thought two loops.

If you wanna make it more interesting, you can just add some color. It’s so simple, you just yarn over with the new color and continue like normal.

You can either change the color at the beginning or the end of the row, and it will create different effects.

See how different the effect gets, depending on if the color change was at the beginning or the end of the row. This is what i personally love with Tunisian crochet!