In today’s blogpost I’m sharing a complete surface crochet photo tutorial. That includes how to do the stitch as well as my personal tips and tricks.
Even though I have known about surface crocheting for some time, I hadn’t learned how to do this technique until a few weeks ago. And I have to say, I’m now obsessed with this technique!
Surface crocheting is a really great way of adding detail to a crochet piece. Personally when I crochet, I don’t like carrying yarn, which is often necessary for tapestry crochet. With surface crochet, I love that I can simply crochet the piece in one color and then add the details on top of the project. This also makes crocheting the project really easy and mindless, which we all love!
If you are intimidated by surface crochet, don’t be! The reason why I hadn’t learned this technique for so long was because I thought it was complicated and hard. But I was pleasantly surprised to realize that surface crochet is incredibly easy to do! You only need to know how to do one stitch and that’s the slip stitch (which is the easiest crochet stitch out there!).
Ready to learn how to surface crochet?
How to Surface Crochet
That’s how you surface crochet! It’s so easy right?!? Now that you have the general idea, I have some tips and notes below.
Notes on Surface Crocheting
- The working yarn should always be on the wrong side of the crochet piece (or the bottom of the crochet fabric)
2. You can use either side of the surface crochet to be the right side. The picture on the left is traditionally the “right side”, but for many projects, I actually prefer the look of the back side (pictured on right) to be the right side of my project. If I know I want the bottom side to be the right side, I will flip my piece so that the wrong side is facing up and work that way.
3. You can also mix it up, and surface crochet on one side, and then flip it and surface crochet on the other side. This technique creates a really nice contrast.
4. The beauty of surface crochet is the design possibilities are endless! But if you are new to this technique, I recommend crocheting in straight lines until you get the hang of it. There are two ways to do straight lines. One is going with the rows (pictured on left) and the other is going against the rows (pictured on right).
5. Because this technique uses slip stitches, it is important to keep your tension relatively loose. If your tension is tight, the surface crochet will be much harder to do.
I hope this surface crochet photo tutorial helps you with this technique! If you have further questions please do not hesitate to ask them in the comments or email your question to me at stitchberryblog@gmail.com.
Have a lovely day crocheting!
Hi, Grace! I just discovered your post on Pinterest, and really enjoyed reading it! I have a problem I hope you can help me with. I just finished attaching some bee appliqués to a baby blanket, but can’t figure out how to stitch on the antennae. I obviously don’t want the black to show on the back. Would I use this same method, but just don’t go all the way through?
Thank you so much for any advice!
Hello! You can definitely try it!