Tunisian crochet tutorial – Bobble stitch

Have you tried crocheting bobbles? I think they are a lot of fun to make and when I made them using Tunisian crochet, I really liked how they turned out! In this tutorial, I will show you how to make them using two stitches – Half Double Crochet and Double Crochet.

Tip: I have found that Half Double Crochet bobbles don’t work very well with Velvet yarn. I recommend making Double Crochet bobbles if you are working with Velvet yarn.

The hook

There are a bunch of different Tunisian crochet hooks available for purchase. You can read about the hooks I use here. Because of the nature of Tunisian crochet stitches, I recommend using a hook that is at least 2 sizes larger than the recommended hook on the yarn.

Video Tutorials

I have right and left handed video tutorials for this stitch on my Youtube channel. You can find all my Tunisian crochet video tutorials here.

Right handed (Half Double Crochet Bobble)

Left handed (Half Double Crochet Bobble)

Right handed (Double Crochet Bobble)

Left handed (Double Crochet Bobble)

Photo Tutorial

There are two things that you need to consider while making this stitch:
1. Where to make the stitch – If you understand how a stitch is made in Tunisian crochet, you will know that different stitches are made by inserting the hook in different parts of the stitches from the previous row. See Tunisian Full Stitch, Tunisian Knit Stitch and Tunisian Simple Stitch. The bobble stitch can be made by inserting the hook in any part of the previous row stitches – in the front vertical bar, back vertical bar, between the two vertical bars, between two stitches, etc.
2. Use Half Double Crochet or Double Crochet Stitches – Once you have identified where you would like to make the stitch, the next step is to decide whether you would like to make Half Double Crochet or Double Crochet bobbles. You can see how to make both in this tutorial.

For the purpose of this tutorial, I will make the bobbles knit-wise. That means that I will insert my hook in between the two vertical bars of the previous row stitches.

Forward pass (Half Double Crochet bobble)

Step 1: Start working your row as you normally would until you get to the point where you would like to make your bobble stitch.

Step 2: Yarn over, insert the hook knit-wise (between the two vertical bars of the stitch from the previous row – see Tunisian Knit Stitch), yarn over and pull through into a loop on the hook.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2 three more times (makes a total of 4 Half Double Crochet stitches in the same space).

Step 4: Isolate the loops that were added to the hook in Steps 2 and 3. Yarn over and pull through all those loops.

Step 5: Chain 1 – This is to ensure that all the stitches that form the bobble are locked in place. If you forget to do this, your stitches can become loose and the bobbles won’t be firm and they won’t pop as expected.

Step 6: Add other bobbles as explained above during your forward pass and complete the row.

Reverse pass (Half Double Crochet bobble)

This is the same as the reverse pass in the Foundation Row: Chain 1, yarn over and pull through two loops on the hook. Repeat this for all the loops on the hook until you have one loop on the hook.

Forward pass (Double Crochet bobble)

Step 1: Start working your row as you normally would until you get to the point where you would like to make your bobble stitch.

Step 2: Yarn over, insert the hook knit-wise (between the two vertical bars of the stitch from the previous row – see Tunisian Knit Stitch), yarn over and pull through into a loop on the hook, yarn over, pull through two loops on hook.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2 three more times (makes a total of 4 Double Crochet stitches in the same space).

Step 4: Isolate the loops that were added to the hook in Steps 2 and 3. Yarn over and pull through all those loops.

Step 6: Add other bobbles as explained above during your forward pass and complete the row.

Reverse pass (Double Crochet bobble)

This is the same as the reverse pass in the Foundation Row: Chain 1, yarn over and pull through two loops on the hook. Repeat this for all the loops on the hook until you have one loop on the hook.