How to crochet a straight seam working in joined rounds with HDC stitches

Posted on 11 August 2018

When I designed my latest crochet dress pattern, the Simple Dress To Impress, I noticed an issue that was bothering me: a diagonal seam. The dress is made with half double crochet stitches and is worked in joined rounds. This means you start every round with a chain and end with a slip stitch in the first stitch. First I tried to ignore the diagonal seam, but I really didn’t like it and decided to start over with a better method. Here I will explain what I did to crochet a straight seam working in joined rounds with HDC stitches.

I searched online for some techniques that could be used, but most of them were meant for hats and other stitches like single crochet stitches. I experimented a bit with the tips and tricks and finally found a method that seamed (😉) to work for the dress. This method can be very helpful when crocheting hats, clothing, or anything else worked in joined rounds.

The grey part of the dress has a diagonal seam, after that I switched to a new method. Pattern: Simple Dress to Impress

Some of my free crochet patterns

: Ana Lucia Shawl

: Stripe Me Shawl

: Simple double brim hat

: Bracelet

: Tooth plushie

How to crochet a straight seam working in joined rounds

The problem of a diagonal seam is caused by the shape of a HDC stitch. Since we pull yarn through 3 loops, it will always be pulled to the right. We can compensate that by changing where we start and end a round. With the method I’m going to explain, we start every second row in the second stitch and end in the first stitch.

Abbreviations:
ch: chain
sl st: slip stitch
hdc: half double crochet

Note: chains do not count as a stitch

Round 1: ch 2, 1 hdc in the same stitch as the sl st, 1 hdc in every stitch till end, sl st in first hdc.

Round 2: ch 1, skip the first stitch where you made the sl st and start in the second stitch, 1 hdc in every stitch till end, make the last hdc in the stitch that we skipped by working over the chain, sl st in first hdc.

Repeat row 1 to 2 as many times as you need.

Video

To make it easier, I made a video tutorial about how to crochet a straight seam working in joined rounds with HDC stitches.

* Click here to watch the video on YouTube

Questions?

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Wilma

Hi! I'm Wilma, a 24 year old crochet designer from Holland. I especially like to make garments, shawls, hats, items for babies and home/interior. I share all my free crochet patterns here on my blog. I would love to become friends on social media!

3 Comments

Diane

12 April 2019 at 1:34 pm

Very informative. Thank you for that! Are you in Holland, Mi? That would be handy to gave a close by friend to talk crochet and get sound guidance. You know your details.