Stitch Parts: Where We're At

After writing Tunisian filet crochet patterns over the years, I appreciate the way stitch parts are referred to in Tunisian crochet. I think regular crochet could benefit. 

Just look at the texture of Aquarienne! Which is the forward pass, which is the return pass? If you didn't know it was Tunisian, these could be tall regular crochet stitches (except they're vertical and horizontal).

When something has a name we can single it out, bring attention to it, use it to grow our craft. For this issue #94 I took stock of what is yet unnamed. 

First I listed the names of crochet stitch parts in the general order of when a crocheter would first encounter them. I found that most of the unnamed parts are the strand bundles of the stitch stem (a.k.a body, post). Taller stitches have more of these stem strands.

I think of the stem strands as "bundles" because of the way the yarn-over loop wraps around the stem diagonally. (That's the front view, anyway.)

It took me decades of crocheting to stop being rather mystified by what's bundled "inside" LOL.
 

There's a Tunisian Name for It

Tunisian crochet already has a term for each bundle: horizontal bars. It's part of a neatly logical naming system: the forward pass creates stitches that have a front vertical bar (VB) and a back VB. The return pass adds three horizontal bars at the top of each stitch. 

It's often the case that we crochet into one or two of the horizontal bars on the next forward pass—often enough that there's a pretty standardized stitch symbol for each.

When the return pass has a diagonal strand wrapping around it, I find that students easily understand it to be the VB of the Tunisian Yarn Over (TYO) stitch. It's a named stitch and loop. It's often crocheted into on the next forward pass.

 

What Could This Mean?

There's structurally very little difference between a tall regular stitch, a tall Tunisian stitch, and a return pass. This is especially obvious, like with Aquarienne, when there are several TYO mixed with tall stitches. In other words, when doing Tunisian filet lace. 

Even without tall stitches and TYO, though, we still do regular crochet versions of Tunisian crochet. We just call it linked stitches. The big difference is that linked stitches lack names for parts!

Our linked stitches always seem to be made by pulling up a loop in what is called the horizontal bar or cross bar (the diagonal yarn-over strand of the tall stitch). Most people notice after awhile that it looks like Tunisian simple stitch (TSS) done sideways, and it is. In Tunisian crochet it's the front VB.

Thanks to Tunisian, we can see what happens in regular crochet if we link to some other strand(s) in the stitch stem:  try Tunisian Knit Stitch, Purl Stitch, Reverse Stitch or Full Stitch sideways. It also means that we have names to use for those other strands of the stitch stem.

Tunisian Terms Aren't Perfect

Not every place in a Tunisian stitch has an established name. Only one or two of the three horizontal bars is consistently named, for example. 

I don't know what it would be like to apply existing Tunisian terms to very tall stitches, like a Tunisian Double Treble (Tdtr, or in UK/AUS: Ttrtr).

A Tdtr has three initial yarn overs. It's the vertical equivalent of three TYO. The Tdtr has 3 sets of [3-strand bundle of 3 VB, 1 front horizontal bar] and then the final front and back VB at the top. I'm not sure of the clearest way to refer to a different strand of each bundle in the vertical stack.

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