How to Crochet the Horizontal Puff Stitch: Photo & Video Tutorial

It’s time for another Stitching Saturday Crochet Stitch tutorial! There are so many fun crochet stitches out there that often it is extremely difficult to choose, which one to teach next. I mean, can’t we just do all of them at once? As I’ve been trying out other makers’ patterns, I’m learning lots of new stitches to begin using in my designs. One of the recent ones that I’ve come to love is the Horizontal Puff Stitch, which is what I’ll be teaching you today!

The horizontal puff stitch is made by doing a double crochet, and then yarn around the post of that double crochet stitch a few times. I had never done this stitch before until I started making Hooked Hazel’s Paired Paths shawl. Her shawl pattern uses Horizontal Puff stitches as an accent for the other stitches in the pattern, which I think adds a really pretty texture and detail to the pattern. I’m loving the stitch so much that I’m going to be using it in one of my upcoming spring/summer designs!

In this tutorial, I have a step by step photo guide that walks you through each step of making the horizontal puff stitch. If you like videos better, I’ve also included the video tutorial that I created for this stitch, since I always learn better by watching someone else do it. This stitch can be made using any weight of yarn or corresponding hook size, but I also added in what yarn and hook that I used for this tutorial in case you’d like to use the same. I used Lion Brand 24/7 cotton in Jade, which is what I’ll be using for my new design, and I really like how the horizontal puff stitch looks in the cotton yarn. Let’s go ahead and get started!

Supplies:

Yarn (I used Lion Brand 24/7 cotton, which is a Yarn Weight 4 Worsted Weight yarn. I really like how this cotton yarn drapes and has great stitch definition with the horizontal puff stitch.)
Hook to go with yarn weight chosen (I used a 5.0mm crochet hook to go with the 24/7 cotton yarn to create a tighter fabric.)

Video Tutorial:

Photo Tutorial:

Before you start doing horizontal puff stitches, you first want to create a foundation row to crochet them on. I chained 18, and starting on the third chain from the hook I double crocheted 16 across the chains.

A. Once you have your foundation row, chain 2 and turn your piece to begin a new row.

B. Starting in the first stitch, double crochet 1.

C. Chain 2, and then yarn over.

C. After you’ve yarned over, you’ll be inserting your hook to go behind the post of the double crochet you just did.

D. Yarn over again, and pull yarn through.

E. Pull yarn up to be the height of the chain 2 you did before starting the puff stitch.

F. Yarn over again and repeat steps C-E till you’ve done it a total of 3 times.

G. Once you’ve done steps C-E three times, you’ll now have 7 loops on your hook. Yarn over again and this time pull the yarn through all of the loops on your hook.

H. You’ll now have your first horizontal puff stitch. Now we’ll chain 1 again to start another one.

I. Skip 1 stitch, and double crochet 1 in the stitch after the one you skipped.

J. Chain 2

K. Then begin doing steps C-H till you have your next horizontal puff stitch. Keep doing the pattern of chain 1, skip 1, horizontal puff stitch till you’ve gone all the way across your row.

Now you know how to do the horizontal puff stitch! This gauge swatch is what a complete square of double crochet rows and horizontal puff stitch rows looks like. If you like the look better, you can even do just horizontal puff stitches! It’s really up to you to do any combination that you’d like.

I hope this tutorial was helpful for you and that you loved getting to learn a new stitch! Stay tuned for next week’s Stitching Saturday Tutorial where I’ll teach you how to do another crochet stitch.

Happy Stitching!

~Claire