How to Crochet Tunisian Simple Stitch.

Use smooth yarn and a hook whose working shaft can hold nine loops comfortably. A short sample may fit on a suitable ordinary hook, but a wide piece needs an appropriate Tunisian hook or cable. A bulky handle or thumb grip can prevent loops from sliding along the usable shaft.

Keep the loops loose enough to move without forcing the head through them. The right diameter depends on the yarn and intended fabric; do not assume the hook for your ordinary crochet will automatically give a suitable Tunisian gauge.

If making the starting chain is new, practise that movement in the chain-stitch lesson first. You do not need to make a row of ordinary single crochet before this sample.

Chain nine. Do not count the active loop on your hook as one of those completed chains.

For this sample, gently turn the chain so you can find the bumps along its back. Beginning in the second chain from the hook, insert under its back bump, yarn over and draw up a loop. Leave the new loop on the hook beside the original one.

Repeat in each remaining chain, retaining every drawn-up loop. Do not finish each position as an ordinary single crochet.

You should have nine loops: the original active loop plus eight drawn up from the chain. If the count differs, check the first skipped chain and the last insertion before moving on.

Right-handed crocheters normally collect loops towards the left; left-handed crocheters mirror that direction. Keep the same face towards you for the return pass.

1. Yarn over and draw through one loop only. This makes the edge chain; you still have nine loops on the hook.
2. Yarn over and draw through the next two loops.
3. Repeat the pull-through-two movement until one loop remains. You will make eight of these paired pull-throughs.

That remaining loop begins the next forward pass. Do not cut it off, count it as an extra stitch or turn the sample over. You have completed the setup row.

Look across the face towards you. You should see upright strands. The stitch at the starting edge is already represented by the loop on your hook, so you do not draw up another loop through its bar.

For a nine-position row, you will work seven interior stitches, then the final edge stitch. Keep that final edge separate from the interior count.

1. Keep the working yarn behind the fabric.
2. Insert the hook sideways beneath the next front vertical bar, the first interior position after the starting edge. Pass beneath the bar rather than pushing through the whole fabric.
3. Yarn over and draw a new loop through that bar. Leave it on the hook.
4. Repeat beneath each remaining interior front bar, stopping before the final edge.
5. Turn the far edge slightly towards you to find its outside V. Insert under both strands of that edge V, yarn over and draw up the final loop.

Count nine loops: one retained at the beginning, seven from the interior and one from the far edge. Working the first edge twice creates an increase; overlooking the final edge creates a decrease.

Make the standard return pass again. You now have a complete row of Tunisian simple stitch above the setup row.

Work four more complete simple-stitch rows, checking for nine loops at the end of every forward pass and one at the end of every return pass. Count completed forward-and-return pairs when recording rows in the counter.

If the fabric curls, lay it down and inspect the count and tension without pulling it flat. Curl can occur in Tunisian fabric. It does not automatically mean a missing stitch, and blocking is not a guaranteed cure for every amount of curl.

After the final return pass, leave its single loop on the hook. Work across the next row without collecting a full set of loops:

• Insert beneath the next interior bar as for Tss, yarn over, and draw through the bar and the active loop to make a slip stitch.
• Repeat across the remaining interior bars.
• At the final edge, work the slip stitch under both strands of its outside V.

In this nine-position convention, the retained first edge already occupies the first position, so you make eight slip stitches across the other positions. Do not add an extra stitch at the starting edge. Keep the bind-off loose enough that it does not gather the top.

Fasten off and secure the tails in a way suited to the fabric. Check the yarn label before any finishing treatment; our blocking and care lesson explains that decision separately.