One of my favorite ways to do crochet color work is to create the affect of plaid! By using two colors of red, with some black thrown in, you can crochet your own buffalo plaid crochet fabric. Isn’t it so cool that we can make the look of that fabric with yarn?! Today, in this free crochet tutorial, I’ll be showing you how to crochet the plaid stitch.
A lot of my readers have told me how they feel nervous about doing tapestry crochet or other color work. I’ve been wanting to create some tapestry crochet stitch patterns that you would be able to use in your designs or practice with, but I was nervous for awhile to try doing it. When I figured out an easy way to do plaid color work, I knew I’d found the perfect first tapestry crochet stitch tutorial to create here on the blog! I’m so excited that I get to start making more tapestry crochet patterns and graphs that you can use in your crocheting. You’re totally going to get hooked on tapestry crochet like I have!
Save this tutorial to your favorite Pinterest Board!
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In order to take away some of the stress of color work, I’ve created a detailed crochet Youtube and photo tutorial of how to crochet plaid. I made both step by step tutorials walk you through everything from how to change colors, do tapestry crochet flat, carry yarn in tapestry crochet, and have fewer ends to weave in. The video tutorial (click here to watch it or see below) goes especially in depth with it! I’ve also made a free color graph that you can use to help you tell which stitches are which.
If you’ve never used a graph before, the bottom and top numbers are the stitches, and the side numbers are the row numbers. You start your rows in the bottom right corner, and then go from left to right on the right side, and right to left on the wrong side of your work. You can use the chart to help you know what stitches to do in the following tutorial!
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Gauge for a 4″ x 4″ square:
16 single crochets by 16 rows
Supplies:
- Three Yarn Weight 4 worsted weight yarns in the following colors:
- Red
- Cranberry (or contrasting red color that is darker then the first red one)
- Black
- Size J 6mm crochet hook
- Scissors
Abbreviations:
- Sc = single crochet
- Ch = chain
- ← = work from right to left
- → = work from left to right
- RS = Right Side
- WS = Wrong Side
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Stitch Notes:
- This crochet stitch uses US crochet terminology.
- If you’ve never done tapestry crochet before, I’ve created a beginner’s guide to tapestry crochet that shows you how to do it. See the written and photo tutorial at The Beginner’s Guide to Tapestry Crochet.
- Want to avoid crochet mistakes while crocheting this stitch? Learn how to avoid them with my blog post: 10 Mistakes Common Mistakes Crocheters Make and How to Avoid Them.
- This stitch pattern is worked flat, but could easily be adapted to work in the round!
Crochet Plaid Stitch Youtube Video Tutorial:
How to Crochet the Plaid Stitch:
- To crochet the since crochet plaid stitch, you’ll need to chain a multiple of 4 plus 1. To get 4 plaid squares, I chained 16+1. For example purposes, I single crocheted one row as the base.
- Then ch 1 and turn to begin your next row.
- Sc 4, but on the last stitch don’t complete it quite yet.
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4. One the 4th stitch, with the last yarn over you’ll finish the stitch by switching to your contrasting red color. I used a cranberry color.
5. Then you’ll sc 4 again.
6. As you do your scs, you’ll carry the yarn as you crochet the stitches. That means that you’ll be crocheting around the other yarn that you were using.
7. So the other red yarn will look like it’s poking out of the cranberry stitches.
8. On the 4th stitch, you’ll switch to the 1st red yarn again. You’ll then sc 4 red stitches and 4 cranberry stitches.
9. At the end of row, you’ll ch 2 and start the new row. Sc 4 stitches in the cranberry, and you’ll switch to the red again on the last st. You’ll notice that the red yarn is on the back side of your work. This is because you’re on the wrong side of the piece.
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10. What you’ll do is that when you switch to the red yarn, you’ll pull that yarn up to switch colors. Finish crocheting the row (you’ll have done 4 cranberry sc, 4 red sc, 4 cranberry sc, 4 red sc.) Do two more rows repeating the first two rows (Row 1: 4 red sc, 4 cranberry sc, 4 red sc, 4 cranberry sc; Row 2: 4 cranberry sc, 4 red sc, 4 cranberry sc, 4 red sc).
11. On the last stitches of the second row, you’ll carry the cranberry yarn, and switch to it on the last st.
12. The next rows repeat the first two rows, except you’ll start with cranberry and then have black as your contrast color.
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You’ll notice on the back of the wrong side of my square, I barely have any ends to weave in. My trick that I do is that whenever I switch colors, I carry the tail with me as I do the other stitches till it ends. You can also see that the red yarn goes up over the cranberry here on the wrong side. When I switched my colors after the cranberry and black rows, I pulled the yarn up to where I need to use it.
For an easy way to follow the row’s stitches, see the chart here:
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The total pattern for this 4″ x 4″ grid is as follows:
← Row 1 [RS]: (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
→ Row 2 [WS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4
← Row 3 [RS]: (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
→ Row 4 [WS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4
← Row 5 [RS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4
→ Row 6 [WS]: (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
← Row 7 [RS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4
→ Row 8 [WS]: (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
← Row 9 [RS]: (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
→ Row 10 [WS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4
← Row 11 [RS]: (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
→ Row 12 [WS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Red) sc 4
← Row 13 [RS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4
→ Row 14 [WS]: (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
← Row 15 [RS]: (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4
→ Row 16 [WS]: (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4, (Black) sc 4, (Cranberry) sc 4
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I hope you enjoyed this tapestry crochet tutorial! Be sure to subscribe to my Youtube channel so that you never miss out on any of my crochet tutorials! I can’t wait to see what designs you create with this stitch!
Happy stitching,
~Claire
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