How to Half Double Crochet: 7-Step Beginner Tutorial

Before you make the stitch, look at what it produces. Rachel holds up a finished hdc swatch - dense rows that lean slightly diagonally, with small gaps along the top edge and a turning chain still sticking up where the last row ended.

That fabric is the half double crochet payoff. Each row is noticeably taller than a single crochet row, so your project grows faster, but the stitch stays compact enough for blankets, washcloths, and winter wearables - none of the gaps you get with double crochet.

You need an existing row of crochet to work on. Make a foundation chain and one row of single crochet if you don't already have a starting fabric.

At the end of that row, chain 2 and flip the work over. There is a long-running debate in crochet about whether to chain 1 or chain 2 at the turn for hdc. Rachel prefers chain 2 because it sits at about the same height as the stitch. Either one works. Pick one and stay consistent through the whole project.

This is the move that makes half double crochet different from single crochet. Wrap the yarn over your hook before you put the hook into the next stitch.

You should now have one working loop on the hook plus a fresh yarn-over riding alongside it. That yarn-over is going to be one of the three loops you pull together at the end of the stitch, so it has to be there from the start. If you forget this step and just stick the hook in like you would for sc, you'll end up with a sc instead.

Look at the top of the next stitch. You'll see a little V shape made of two strands of yarn. Slide the hook under both of those strands, going front to back.

The chain-2 you made at the start of the row counts as the first stitch. So your real first hdc goes into the second stitch from the hook, not the first chain. Skip the chains and find the V of the next true stitch.

Yarn over and pull the hook back through the stitch only. Don't try to finish the whole hdc in one move - just bring the yarn through the V.

Count what's on the hook: the original yarn-over from step 3, the loop you just pulled through, and the working loop. Three loops. If you have two loops, you forgot the yarn-over and just made an sc. If you have four loops, you yarned over twice. Three is the checkpoint that tells you the stitch is on track.

Yarn over the hook one last time, then pull that yarn all the way through all three loops at once. Don't go through two and stop - that's how you get a double crochet. For hdc, every loop comes off the hook in a single pull.

You finish with one working loop on the hook, ready to start the next stitch. That whole sequence - yarn over, into the V, pull through, yarn over, pull through all three - is one hdc.

Keep going across the row in the same five-move sequence. Yarn over, into the next V, pull through, yarn over, pull through all three. The fabric grows fast.

When you reach the last stitch of the row, chain 2, flip the work, and start the next row. The row after that goes into the V of every hdc from the row below - same five moves, same checkpoint at three loops on the hook.

Once you've done a few rows, you'll have a swatch that looks just like Rachel's hdc sample. From here you can make scarves, dishcloths, blankets, beanies - hdc is the workhorse stitch for all of them. Finish your project with how to fasten off crochet and weave in your ends.