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
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- Ana Lucia Shawl
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- Stripe Me Shawl
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- Simple double brim hat
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- Bracelet
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- 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
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6 Comments
Brenda L Agee
2 January 2020 at 10:07 pmI’ve seen other videos but your’s is the most simply and efficient. Thank you so very much!
Ginger
13 November 2019 at 6:31 pmThank you thank you Wilma! I’ve been doing so much better at crocheting in the round and then I was working with the half double crochet and getting very very irritable about it, until I found you. Thank you so much!
Noe
1 November 2019 at 9:56 pmThanks for the tip ! It’s very usefull 🙂
Diane
12 April 2019 at 1:34 pmVery 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.
Wilma
12 April 2019 at 2:16 pmThanks! I live in the Netherlands, a country also called Holland, in Europe 🙂
Soffity
19 August 2018 at 12:52 amThis is marvellous well done