how to crochet | three colour staggered blocks

I had seen this stitch, which is a very basic combination of double and treble crochet stitches, used with three colours in a vintage copy of Golden Hands magazine.

How amazing is this dress?

I had been trying to swatch it up but the vintage pattern has you working something called a knot stitch in the wider sections and I couldn’t quite figure out the instructions for this stitch because they seemed to be deliberately elusive - or it could just be me!

I tried a number of times but it never really looked amazing like it does in the vintage dress and so one day, in a fit of petulance, I worked it with plain trebles instead.

Bingo!

I worked it up in two colours but it didn’t look anywhere near as nice so enjoy the video and note the pattern written below is in UK crochet terminology, if you want to convert to US terminology just change all the doubles to singles and all the trebles to doubles.

For reference I used Cascade 220 in three smashing colours; Cotton Candy, Primavera and Mint together with a 5mm hook.

You will need three colours of any weight yarn and a corresponding sized hook. The colours are worked in the same order throughout with each colour worked for two rows. You can carry your yarn if you like but I found this looked messy on the rows that start with treble stitches.

THREE COLOUR STAGGERED BLOCK STITCH | UK TERMINOLOGY

dc - double crochet (single crochet in the US)
tr - treble crochet (double crochet in the US)
ch - chain
st/s - stitch/stitches

Chain in multiples of 8 and then add 5ch.

Row 1. in your first colour work 1dc in 2nd ch from hook, 3dc, *4tr, 4dc* to end, turn.

Row 2. ch1 (never counts as a st), 4dc, *4tr, 4dc* to end, turn and change to colour 2.

Row 3. in colour 2, ch3 (always counts as your first tr), skip first tr, 3tr, *4dc, 4tr* to end, turn.

Row 4. ch3, skips first tr, 3tr, *4dc, 4tr* to end, turn and change to colour 3.

Row 5. in colour 3, ch1, 4dc, *4tr, 4dc* to end, turn.

Row 6. ch1, 4dc, *4tr, 4dc* to end, turn and change to colour 1.

Rows 2 - 6 form pattern working through your three colours in order throughout.

If the pattern seems to not make sense then you can watch the tutorial here.