Hey, everyone!  This year I’ve decided to make some tutorials for Tunisian crochet.  I have fallen in love with Tunisian crochet.  It’s so quick and easy to make pieces that look like you spent days knitting them in only a few hours.  If you’re like me and love the look of knitting, but don’t actually like knitting, Tunisian crochet is for you!

In this tutorial I want to go over the basics of Tunisian crochet.  We’ll learn how to make a foundation row and how to do the Tunisian simple stitch (TSS).  These are the basic skills you’ll need to make your first Tunisian crochet project.

HOOKS

Tunisian crochet hooks are different from regular crochet hooks.  In Tunisian crochet, much like knitting, you’ll pull up several loops on your hook before you finish your stitches.  A Tunisian crochet hook is longer than a regular hook, it can be solid like knitting needle, or look like a regular crochet hook with a long cord attached.  Both types of Tunisian crochet hooks will have a stopper at the end to prevent the stitches from falling off.

Here is the exact set of hooks I use for my Tunisian crochet.  I have two sets so that I can turn them into double ended hooks for Tunisian crochet in the round.
Knitter’s Pride Bamboo Interchangeable Tunisian Crochet Hook Set

CREATING YOUR FOUNDATION ROW

As with regular crochet, in order to start most Tunisian crochet projects you will need to make a foundation chain.  Unlike regular crochet, we will be working into the back bump of our foundation chain.  If you look at the back of your chains, you will see each chain has a bump in the center that your hook can be inserted into, that is where we’ll be working.

There are generally two steps to complete Tunisian crochet stitches, the forward pass and the return pass.  The forward pass is the first part of making stitches.  In this step you will pull up multiple loops on your hook, like you would with knitting.  To make our first forward pass insert your hook into the first chain bump and pull up a loop.  Instead of yarning over and making a single crochet, like with regular crochet, we’re going to move into the next bump, insert our hook, and pull up another loop.  You will need to do that for each chain bump.  By the end of the row, you should have the same number of loops on your hook as you had chains to start with.  If you started with 10 chains, you should end up with 10 loops on your hook.

Next, we need to do our return pass.  This is where we pull the yarn through the loops to complete the stitches.  For the first stitch of your return pass, yarn over and pull through ONE loop.  The first stitch of each return pass will always only pull through one loop.  For every remaining loop, yarn over and pull through TWO loops.  Repeat yarning over and pulling through two loops until you reach the end of the row.  Once you’ve reached the end of the row, your foundation row is complete!

TUNISIAN SIMPLE STITCH (TSS)

Making a Tunisian simple stitch is very similar to making your foundation row.  If you look at your foundation row, you’ll notice each stitch has a post that connects the rows together, we need to work into the front loop of that post.

Put your hook through the front post of the second stitch from the hook and pull up a loop (the loop currently on your hook counts as the first stitch for that row).  Pull up one loop through the front loop of every post for the row.  When you get to the last stitch in the row, there will be no post.  Pull out the stitch and you’ll notice a space, that is where we’ll pull up a loop for the last stitch.

Once you have pulled up loops through all of the stitches, you can begin your return pass.  Remember, the first stitch of the return pass only pulls through one loop, then every subsequent stitch will pull through two loops.  Once you reach the end of the row, you’re done with your first row of Tunisian simple stitches.  You can repeat this process as many times as you want until your work is as long as you’d like it.  When you’re ready to finish off, simply chain one like you would with any regular crochet project!