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The Relationship Between Chains and Stitches

So today’s post is going to talk about a concept I like to talk about with my students.  For some of you it’s going to seem pretty obvious, but for some of you (and me, for a long while) it was a concept that I struggled with.

In crochet, it’s a convention that at the beginning of a row or round, where you need to get to the height of the next row, you chain a certain amount of stitches to replace the stitch.  The relationship goes something like this:

Sl st- 0 chains
Single Crochet – 1 chains
Half Double Crochet – 2 chains
Double Crochet – 3 chains
Treble Crochet – 4 chains
Double Treble Crochet – 5 chains
… and so on a soforth.
The key is, you can not only substitute chains for a stitch, but you can substitute stitches for chains.
Take this granny square.  It’s pretty standard, but you see where the single crochets are (hint: The red x’s)  They are worked into the 3rd chain.  I do this instead of doing a slip stitch to finish off the row.
Confused?
Let’s see if I can explain it with pictures.
Things making more sense now?  Let’s compare the two different types of Granny Squares.