Learn a Basic Pineapple Stitch

A pineapple stitch pattern is a popular vintage crochet motif that is still prominent in lace and retro-inspired crochet patterns today. In this video, crochet expert Mary Beth Temple discusses the construction of the pineapple stitch and shares her tips and tricks for crocheting it successfully.

Mary Beth begins by looking at a swatch featuring a crocheted pineapple motif. She explains that as the pineapple stitches shrink and grow, the stitches around the pineapple must accommodate for that. There are thousands of pineapple motifs to be crocheted, but they all have a similar construction. Mary Beth then begins working a traditional pineapple shape in a bulky yarn and discusses how it is constructed.

To start the crocheted pineapple motif, Mary Beth chains 5 stitches and joins them with a slip stitch to form a ring. She works the first row by chaining 3 stitches (which count as a double crochet) and then working another eight double crochet stitches into the ring. She notes that conventionally there will be an odd number of double crochets worked into the ring. Because the initial chain-3 counts as a double crochet, there are nine double crochet stitches in the ring.

For the next row, Mary Beth works double crochets along with chain-1 stitches in order to have the bottom of the pineapple start to fan out. On the next row, she begins working rows of slipped stitches, single crochet stitches and chain-3 stitches. Each subsequent row, one less chain-1 space is created, which starts to form the top of the pineapple. On the final row, a single chain-3 space is remaining, and the pineapple is fastened off.

Mary Beth ends the video by once again looking at the basic crocheted pineapple motif. She notes that the bottom of the stitch looks like a large shell, with the chains creating the top of the pineapple. There are many different pineapple motifs to explore in crochet, and a crochet pattern featuring these stitch patterns will give you the specific instructions on how to create the motif.