I made this baby blanket using the Tunisian Entrelac stitch and I absolutely love it!
To do this lovely Etrelac stitch we work in squares but we don’t have to make each individual square and join them together which is great because it would be a pain to have to join all these little squares together.
for this Entrelac baby blanket I used a DK acrylic yarn and it’s a total of 85cm x 51cm including the border.
78cm x 46cm before adding the border.
I started by chaining a total of 100 chains … To do this Entrelac stitch we work in multiples of 9 chains + 1 … So to get the desired width I wanted for this baby blanket I wanted 11 squares across … We need 9 chains for each square so I did 11 x 9 = 99 +1 = 100 chains
I’ve made a video tutorial to show you how to do this lovely Entrelac stitch, which is the easiest way to explain it… You can find the video at the bottom of this page… But a few people have asked me to do a photo tutorial to go with the video so I’ve done my best to explain it using photos here too. (It’s quite difficult to explain using photos)
For the border I did the first round with Half Double Crochet (HDC US terms … UK terms this is HTC)
For the second round I did Double crochet (DC US terms … UK terms this is TC Treble Crochet)
For the third and final round I did another row of HDC (the same as the first round)
The picture above show what this Entrelac stitch looks like on the back of our project… I think the back looks equally as good as the front… It’s got a bit more texture on the back.
To see how to fill in the edges, I have a video at the bottom of this article.
To do this Entrelac stitch, we work each row as a row of squares … So we start with our foundation chains and then build our squares from our foundation chain.
When we have completed each row of squares, we cut our yarn and rejoin our new colour on the right hand side of our work… We always have to do this at the end of every row… We don’t work backwards and forwards across the rows as we traditionally would with crochet.
It may seems complicated when you first get started with Entrelac stitch, but as you get into it you will see that it’s really quite simple and a really relaxing stitch to do. I suggest you watch the video first because it will show you how we work in 5s which makes it easier to remember.
If you subscribe to my Youtube channel HERE and click the little bell icon, you’ll get notified when I bring out new videos … Which will be helpful because I’m going to do another video to show you how I filled in the Edges with this Entrelac stitch
To start us off we need to chain in multiples of 9 + 1 … So for this example I’m going to want my first row to have 4 squares… for each square you need 9 chains … So 4 x 9 = 36 + 1 which means we need to chain 37
Then we place our hook into the 2nd chain from the hook and pull up a loop.
Then pull up a loop in each of the next 4 chains so you have a total of 6 loops on your hook (including the loop you already had on your hook)
Yarn over and pull through 2 of the loops on your hook.
Do that a total of 5 times until you have just one loop on your hook.
Here I’m showing where you will work your next 4 stitches.
Go through this front stitch and pull up a loop.
Do the same for the next 3 stitches (4 x in total) and make the 5th loop by going into the next chain and pulling up a loop… Now you will have 6 loops on your hook.
Then repeat the steps above by yarning over and pulling through 2 loops 5 times.
Repeat the process until you have 3 fully completed rows and on the 4th row instead of pulling up 5 loops we do 5 slip stitches back across the row… The 5th slip stitch is worked into the next unused chain stitch.
The 5th slip stitch is worked into the next unused chain stitch.
That is your first Entrelac square completed.
Repeat the process for all your squares on the first row.
Your first row of squares will look something like this. It’s completely normal for it to be a bit curly, it does straighten out a bit as we continue with the rows… If you think yours is starting to look too curly, then you could try going up a size with your crochet hook
So in this example piece we have 4 squares in the first row, and in the second row of squares we’ll have 5 squares. Join your second colour into the outside corner of the previous row and chain 5.
We work back along this chain just the same as we did in our first row by going into the chain, yarn over and pull up a loop 4 times… For the 5th loop we place our crochet hook into the space where we attached the yarn… Then yarn over and pull up a loop
Continue working this square just the same as we did on the first row of squares, but joining into the previous square instead of the row of chains
Work all the way up and to complete the 4th row slip stitch across and work the 5th slip stitch into the top corner of the previous square… as shown in the picture.
Work the next square by working through the loops of the previous square (as shown in the picture) for the 5th loop place your crochet hook through the corner gap and pull up your 5th loop.
Continue in just the same way by working your rows upwards and joining them to the side of the previous square.
Completing this square just the same as we did before with a row of slip stitches that join onto the top corner of the previous square.
For the final square on this row, there isn’t a square to join them to on the end, so for your 5th loop you go into the v stitch right on the very end of the row … Here I’ve marked where you go through with your crochet hook, making sure to go through both of the loops.
By working your 5th stitch into the side you will end up with a neat edge on your end square. This finishes your second row.
To work our 3rd row of squares, attach your yarn into the top corner as shown in the picture.
Then work your first square of this row inside of the v from the previous row as shown in the picture … Continue this row as before.
You just continue your work following the steps above… So for your next row you would join your yarn as shown in the picture and chain 5 … This is where you will repeat row 2 of your squares.
This is how your rows of square will work up. It is quite difficult to explain this stitch in photos, so I made a video to help explain it in much more detail
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I had lots of people asking me how to fill in the edges of this lovely Entrelac stitch, so I made a video to show you how you can do it.
Some people do like to leave the edges with a zigzag edge which also looks great… But this just gives you another option.
I filled in the edges of the baby blanket in the pictures at the top of this post
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