Ever see a crochet piece that has a beautiful design that seems to be braided onto the top of the work and wonder how its done?
It’s most likely the surface slip stitch. The surface slip stitch is of the best techniques for adding detailed patterns or lettering to your work, and also happens to be very simple to learn and master. It’s great for adding designs and textures that would otherwise be incredible hard to add, like cursive lettering. The beautiful thing is that while it is a crochet technique, knitters can also use it to add designs to their work as well (in fact, I use it in my Twisted Rainbow pattern). And you don’t need any special tools to do this, either.
What you’ll need to do a surface slip stitch:
- A crochet hook that matches the gauge of your work.
- Yarn in your desired thickness and color.
- Your finished object you want to add the slip stitch too.
And that’s it! No other tools are required (aside from the craft scissors you hid from your family of course) to make beautiful patterns on your work.
How To Crochet The Surface Slip Stitch
To start the surface slip stitch, you’ll create a slip knot on your hook, then slide it off. You’ll put it back on in a moment, but its usually easiest to get it started before putting your hook into your work (especially if you’re new to crocheting).
Insert your hook directly into you work where you want your first stitch to be, with the hook entering in the right side and exiting through the back. Once your hook is in place, put your slip knot back on the hook in the back of your work. You will be holding your working yarn in the back of your work throughout this.
You can pull your slip knot through your work to start, however I like to do a surface slip stitch right away for added security. I find that just pulling the slip knot through can cause the knot to pull through also. To do the slip stitch, with your hook inserted into your work, yarn over and pull through both the slip knot and the stitch in your work, pulling your hook to the front.
To continue, insert your hook through to the next stitch in your finish work where you want your pattern to go. Try to make sure it is a full stitch away so the spacing in your surface slip stitch will be even. When your hook is in the back of your work, yarn over and pull through both the finished object and the previous loop on your hook. That will create one full surface slip stitch.
Continue working like this in your desired pattern, tying off when you’re finished with a continuous line. This is a great technique for curves and lettering as you can move your surface slip stitch in any direction you want.
Need a Visual?
If a video demonstration is helpful, here is my YouTube video showing and explaining how to do the surface slip stitch.
I hope this helps. I would love to see any of your work that you added the surface slip stitch to, so if you used this technique, share it on instagram and tag me!
Happy crocheting!
