The Waistcoat crochet stitch can be made in rows and in the round, but the Vs will line up more neatly when made in the round rather than in rows where the pattern looks more staggered.

Being a single crochet stitch, the Waistcoat stitch works up rather slowly so is best used with chunky yarn so your project doesn’t become overly tedious

This how to guide is part of The Cool Crochet Society Stitch Vault collection. Have you seen all the other stitches in there? You can take a look here

The pattern is written in US terms, but the UK translation is below in brackets along with the abbreviations we will be using

• Chain = ch
• Single crochet (double crochet) = sc

The Pattern

You can use any number of stitches for the Waistcoat stitch. There is no pattern, the look is made by the way the stitches are formed. It us important that you work with a loose tension, otherwise you will find your stitches very hard to work into

Row 1. Sc in every stitch of your foundation ch, making sure you keep a loose tension

Row 2. Keep your tension loose for all your waistcoat stitches.

Turn, chain 1. Make a waistcoat stitch into what will look like the 2nd stitch (in the middle of the upside down V make a sc) 

make a waistcoat stitch in each stitch across including in the chain 1 at the end of the row

Repeat row 2 until you reach the height you need.

You can find more crochet stitch guides in the stitch vault. Why not follow us on Facebook for more crochet tips and useful info from around the crochet world