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Crocheters aim to have their projects look great and fantastic. This tutorial will teach you how to keep crochet edges straight when crocheting in rows using single crochet and half double crochet stitches. You will never have the zig-zag edges again.
Have you ever crocheted a blanket or a scarf with a basic crochet stitch and now you do not like the way the edge looks and need to find a way to cover it? Well, most of the time, especially on scarves, I prefer not to add an edge. I do love it for blankets, though.
But seriously, that edge looks so much more professional and pretty if it is nice and straight and smooth. Do you want to get a straight and smooth edge that will make you feel so happy that you keep crocheting until the morning (please tell me I am not the only one who crochets late)?
Well, today is your lucky day. I will not only teach you how to get smooth edges, but I will also show you how you always get straight edges when crocheting in rows.
Table of contents
How To Keep Crochet Edges Straight
Just recently I create a post where I taught you how to crochet straight edges. That tutorial teaches you, every single step for every basic crochet stitch, how to prevent awkward edges and non-straight edges. It is a tutorial specifically designed for beginners to learn where exactly to add your first stitch and where to add your last stitch.
In this new tutorial, I will go one step further and describe in a bit more detail how to get even smoother edges, especially for single crochet and half double crochet.
Typically, you will see crochet patterns, like many of mine, that will tell you to do a turning chain of 1 when starting to crochet the next row for single crochet and half double crochet. Furthermore, they usually clear whether or not to count that turning chain as a stitch.
Previously, especially when I started to learn to crochet, I never counted that turning chain. But there is one thing that always drove me crazy and that is that the edge, although mainly straight, was not smooth. It was not straight enough.
Today, I will teach you how I crochet not only straight edges, but also smooth edges. And believe it or not, it is actually very easy and you will never believe the difference it makes.
How to Crochet Straight Edges
– NEW Video Tutorial
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How to Crochet Straight Edges for SC and HDC
If you are looking at the picture below, you will think that these two swatches, using single crochet, look identical. Well, as a perfectionist and critical thinker, I see the left one having a lot smoother edge than the right one, even though both are considered straight.
Let me zoom in a bit and you can tell the difference a lot more. Can you see, now, that the left swatch shows a straight crochet edge and the right one a bit more bumpy, or zig zag like edge?
Crochet edges straight – Before vs After
There is one major difference in crocheting the left vs right swatch. Are you ready to hear it? Here it goes. I simply did not crochet a turning chain on the left swatch. I did crochet a turning chain on the right one, which, therefore, adds extra weight and bumpiness on the edges as the turning chain gets pushed out a bit.
If you skip the turning chain, again that only works for single crochet and half double crochet, you will eliminate that extra zig-zag edge and have a lot smoother and straighter edge.
To make it clearer, I also created a video tutorial that will teach you how to crochet a smooth edge for single crochet and half double crochet. It really is that simple. But remember, I do highly recommend for you to see my tutorial to get straight edges for all basic crochet stitches first, especially if you are a beginner. Because otherwise, you will be confused why I suddenly removed the turning chain for those small basic crochet stitches.
What about DC and taller stitches?
No worries. I got you covered. I have a special trick for any stitches that are equal or taller than double crochet stitches.
You can read about this right here as I’ll use the Alternative Turning Chain aka stacked single crochet for that.
That allows you to have straight and very clean edges for double crochet and treble crochet stitches and even taller. It’s modifiable to work for many tall stitches.
How to Crochet a Smooth Edge
– Video Tutorial from 2018
Although I made an updated video about this trick, I also wanted to keep my older version here as some crocheters like to listen to the same techniques twice and learn more that way. So here is an older version of the straight and smooth edges video for single and half double crochet stitches.
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