How to Work the Loop Stitch

In this video, Brenda K. B. Anderson demonstrates how to work the loop stitch. You can make a loop stitch anywhere you’d make a single crochet stitch. The loop stitch can be made in turned rows or in the round.

To begin, Brenda starts out with a foundation chain, and works one row of single crochet in each chain. She uses a ch-1 as a turning chain (this does not count as a stitch) and turns her work in order to work across the next row.

First, Brenda talks about adjusting your yarn-hold so that you have a strand of yarn going up, over a finger, and back down. Let’s call these the “yarn strands.” You will need enough space to wrap your hook around both sides of the loop-over-your-finger (the “yarn strands”), so you may need to play around with how to hold the yarn in order to do this.

To make the loop stitch: insert hook through the next st, then rotate your hook in a counter-clockwise circle in order to pull your hook around the outside of the “yarn strands” and across the back of both strands. (If you crochet left-handed, your hook will rotate in a clockwise direction.) Use the hook to pull both “yarn strands” through the stitch, which creates a loop around your finger on the wrong side of the fabric. Remove your finger from the loop, yarn over, and pull through all three loops on hook to secure the stitch. As you crochet, the loops will appear on the wrong side of your work (on the opposite side of your work), so keep this in mind.

Brenda explains how to make longer loops and shorter loops: the loop length depends on how far you pull your finger away from your work as you make the loop around it. She also recommends practicing this stitch a bit before using it, in order to get a feel for how long to make the loops.

If you want loops on both sides of your work, then you would make loop stitches on each side when working in turned rows. If you want the loops to be on one side only, then you would make the loops every other row (with rows of plain single crochet between) to keep them all on the same side.

Next, Brenda demonstrates how to make the loop stitch in the round. She explains that if you want to make a circle, you can use the same stitch counts and process as a flat circle in single crochet, except you will substitute all of the single crochet stitches with loop stitches. She shows us how to make an increase in this stitch pattern and notes that again, all of the loops will end up on the opposite side of your work (the side away from you as you crochet).

This stitch looks much more difficult than it is—and it is so exciting to make! Use it for mop covers, rugs, and amigurumi.