How to Work a Slip Stitch

The slip stitch is a crochet stitch that doesn’t have any height. It’s commonly used to join a piece in the round or to easily travel from one part a project to another, like when creating an armhole of a sweater. In this video, Mary Beth Temple demonstrates how to work the slip stitch.

The mechanics of the slip stitch is similar to the single crochet stitch. To create the slip stitch, Mary Beth inserts the hook under both legs of the top of the stitch and works a yarn over. She then draws this yarn over through the stitch and through the loop on the hook. One loop remains on the hook and the slip stitch has been created. Mary Beth continues to work several more slip stitches on her swatch.

Mary Beth notes that the stitch doesn’t have a lot of height, making it a good stitch to use to travel from one place to another on a project. She also notes that it’s commonly used to finish an edge of a crochet piece as it makes a nice, sturdy edge.

The most frequent use of the slip stitch is to join in the round. It will often be written in a pattern as “Jn rnd with sl st” or “Join round with slip stitch.” Slip stitch is typically abbreviated as “sl st.”