Today, we’re going to learn the small modification that turns Tunisian crochet, into Tunisian knit stitch.
First, check out the original Tunisian crochet post and video here. But, we’ll go over the differences in this post.
So the biggest difference is, of course, the appearance of the stitches. With the knit stitch, shown at right, the stitches look like upside down V’s, and depending on how you were looking at it, most people wouldn’t know the difference, until they look at the back. It looks like a lot of extra purls. With regular Tunisian, it has a signature look of the vertical bars on each stitch. I like both, so it really depends on the look you’re going for.
The rolling up that happens with the original version still happens with knit stitch, maybe even more so. So, remember to continue to use a larger than normal Tunisian crochet hook.
Another difference I found was the speed of the stitches. Now, I feel like a had a pretty good handle on both versions. As I said in the first post, I messed up the first dishcloth I made and had to start over. This time, I worked on that image above, in between other stuff, but for 2 weeks, and only had about 10″, with 40 stitches in my row. I made 2 dishcloths in a week with the simple stitch, but couldn’t make 1/2 a headband in 2 weeks with knit stitch.
Honestly, I have no idea why it seemed so much slower, maybe it was my yarn, but next time, I’ll probably just knit. In fact, I worked on the double stockinette pattern right after this one, and even working only half the stitches at a time, and doing the row twice, it was still much faster. I would love to know if you have better results in the speed department with this one. Please comment below and let me know!
Getting Started
For this tutorial, chain any number of stitches, like we did in the Tunisian Simple Stitch tutorial. This stitch does not require an even number of stitches or anything.
Now, the same as we did with our Tunisian simple stitch, we start our first row, through the back part of the chain stitch, see below. (Row 1 is the same as row 1 of our original tutorial)
Draw up a loop through the back part of the loop, not one of the strands from the V. See pic at right. Continue drawing up loops and keep them on your hook while you work across the chain row.
For our reverse pass, ch 1, then yarn over and draw through 2 loops, over and over all the way back across the row, until you have one loop left.
Row 2: The Difference with Knit stitch
So, with the original Tunisian stitch, we insert our hook, just under the vertical bar, as in the left image. Now, with knit stitch, you’re going to insert your hook between the vertical bars, shown below, but bring your hook through the back, as in left image below.
Yarn over and draw up your loop. Now keep in mind it won’t look like anything until you do several rows (at least a second row of knit stitch) because we are changing the row below the one we’re working on, to look like the knit stitch when we draw up our loop in the next row.
Continue inserting and drawing up loops like this, and the return pass is the same as in the first row (regular Tunisian as well).
Alright, so what do you guys think of this one? Honestly, I love how it looks, but I’d be faster just knitting. We did a third version of Tunisian crochet that I think you may also enjoy. I liked it better than this one, honestly. See it here.
Anyway, I’d love to see what you guys come up with to make with this one. Tag us on Instagram when you post. I love sharing your makes to my stories!
As always, thanks for hanging out with me today!
Much Love,
