I have an excellent new ribbing for you!

I've been playing around with the Top Stich and found a very, very neat way to make an awesome ribbing. I haven't seen it anywhere else. So I dare to call this NEW!

• Is extremely flexible 
• It has a very soft structure
• And the stitch pattern looks great

Stitch Pattern

The stitch pattern is more flat than a knitted ribbing, but can still be stretched considerably.
It stretches in both directions, though the most flexible direction is the direction you crochet in.

Back and front looks the same.



The rib stripes are made by alternating 2 rows of Top Stitch and 2 rows of Reversed Top Stitch. Click the links to see my tutorials. Both stitches are easy to do and any ribbing of maximum 20 cm wide should fit on a regular 15 cm long and straight crochet hook. (In other cases, see my first-aid article here: You Don't Need a Tunisian Crochet Hook)

Yarn

I used a nice soft Merino wool for the samples here. One, that has some springy effect in it, although it is not exactly elastic. But I tried the stitch pattern on a stiff cotton yarn as well. The cotton ribbing still works - though as expected - being a little less effective. It does, however easily pop back into ribbed shape after being stretched.

Hook

The hook should be TINY! I used a 4mm hook. Yarn label says to use 3mm (for knitting). So I'm actually using a pretty small needle, compared to what you would recommend for Tunisian Crochet in general and this stitch pattern in particular. I've tried the stitch pattern on bigger hooks. No good.

Use it for...

This could of course work well for ribbings of any kind. On hats, on clothes, for scarfs. Besides that, I think the pattern would look very good for washing clothes, dish clothes or used in a baby blanket.

I'm sure you can think of other perfect uses for this.

Links

Check out all the other ribbing themed articles I got for you.