Tunisian crochet tutorial – Twisted Simple Stitch (twtss) and Rib Stitch

Tunisian Rib Stitch is the next stitch in my tutorial series. The rib stitch is nothing but a combination of two stitches – one tss (Tunisian Simple Stitch) and one twtss (Twisted Tunisian Simple Stitch). In this tutorial, you will see how to make a Twisted Tunisian Simple Stitch and how it can be combined with a Tunisian Simple Stitch to create the Tunisian Rib Stitch.

Here is the front and back of a Tunisian Rib Stitch swatch.

Front
Back

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.

Curling

The fabric built with this stitch curls slightly. You can try using a larger hook or block the fabric to fix it.

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

Left handed

Photo tutorial

Forward pass

Step 1: The first stitch of the forward pass is the one that is on your hook. You do not have to do anything to make the first stitch.
Note: Your row must have even number of stitches to get a rib stitch across the entire row.

Step 2: Identify the vertical bars of the next two stitches.
In the figure below, you can see two pins marking the next two stitches. The grey pin marks the stitch where we will make a Tunisian Simple Stitch (tss) and the pink pin marks the stitch where we will make a Twisted Tunisian Simple Stitch (twtss).

Step 3: Insert hook into the vertical bar of the next stitch (marked by the grey pin in Step 2), yarn over and pull through the vertical bar on the hook – effectively creating a Tunisian Simple Stitch (tss).

Steps 4 and 5 show how to make a Twisted Tunisian Simple Stitch (twtss).

Step 4: Insert the hook into the vertical bar of the next stitch (marked by the pink pin in Step 2) in the opposite direction. (If you are left handed, you would insert the hook from right to left and if you are right handed, you would insert the hook from left to right).

To insert the hook in the opposite direction, twist your crochet hook so that the hook can be used to pick the vertical bar in the opposite direction. Another way to do this is to use your fingernail to push the vertical bar on to the hook but that method never worked out for me.

Step 5: Yarn over and pull through the twisted vertical bar on the hook – this completes the Twisted Tunisian Simple Stitch (twtss).

Step 6: Identify the next pairs of vertical bars and repeat steps 3 to 5 across the entire row until there is one stitch remaining in the end.

Step 7: The last stitch is made differently. Find the two vertical bars of the last stitch: the ones in the front and the back. Insert hook into both those bars, yarn over and pull through both of the vertical bars on the hook. You can see a detailed explanation of this step in the Tunisian Simple Stitch tutorial.

Reverse Pass

This is the same as the reverse pass in the Foundation Row.

Step 1: Chain 1

Step 2: 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.

In Tunisian crochet, the stitches on any given row are defined by how you crochet the next row. The row that was just made defined the one before it as a Tunisian Rib Stitch row.

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I really hope you liked this stitch / technique. I would love to see what you make with it so please share your pictures with me!
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