Years ago, I was crocheting a mysterious pineapple stitch market bag (I can’t seem to locate the pattern now) when I ran up against a stitch I hadn’t yet heard of: the linked treble crochet. After a few wonky stitches representing my first learning attempts, I had a band of prettily textured, smooth treble crochet stitches without holes in between them. This seemed like a tiny miracle to me, since as we know the taller stitches in this lovely craft of ours are pretty hole-y. Which is sometimes great. But sometimes not.
That pretty linked stitch stuck in my mind long after I finished off the project, so I came back for more – and found that you could link any tall stitch, which I consider one of the handiest little bits of hook wizardry to know!
UPDATE 8/2020: There is now a video tutorial available for this stitch on my YouTube channel!
Today I want to share the Linked Double Crochet tutorial, which I think is a good introduction to linked stitches and ALSO happens to be a featured stitch in my upcoming new pattern 😉 As you’ll see, linked double crochets are a neat, nice looking and easy way to eliminate gaps between stitches, which is great tool for garments that can’t be see-through or to reinforce areas of crochet for durability.
Here is a shameless plug for the Plus Size Sol halter top pattern, in which I used linked double crochet (ldc), seen above! I also find ldc does a very nice job at creating borders for Tunisian crochet fabric like in my Shaman Coat pattern– the texture and density of the two stitch styles work well together.
Neat, huh? So let’s do this!
Linked Double Crochet (ldc)
Linked double crochet (ldc) uses the middle (horizontal) bar of the previous dc stitch to draw up a loop, instead of using a yarn over wrap as for a normal dc. This loop is then crocheted into the stitch as the yarn over would be, and the resulting stitches are linked by their horizontal bars.
Step 1:
Beginning with the first dc of your linked double crochet section, locate the “bar” of the stitch which runs diagonally across the middle, shown here highlighted in blue. Insert your hook, from top to bottom through this one strand.
If you are beginning a new row and not starting in the middle of a row of regular stitches, you can insert through the front half of the second chain of the turning chain, or make a regular dc to start.
Step 2:
Yarn over and draw up a loop through this strand. The loop just made stands in for the YO wrap that would normally begin a double crochet stitch.
Step 3:
Insert hook into the next stitch and draw up a loop – three loops on the hook.
Step 4:
Yarn over and draw through 2 loops.
Yarn over and draw through two loops again to complete the stitch. The new stitch now has a middle bar (bright blue) that is linked to the middle bar of the previous stitch (faded blue).
To continue, keep inserting your hook into the middle bar of the previous ldc and drawing up a loop to replace the yarn over. The result is a line of sturdy but flexible stitching with a pleasing lined texture.
Aww, it’s like they’re holding hands.
And about those linked treble crochets I mentioned at the beginning of the post – since they’ve got TWO middle bars, you can just draw up two loops – which stand in for the TWO yarn overs you would do for a regular treble. Pretty slick, eh? I think so.
-MF