How to Make a Half Double Crochet

The half double crochet is a handy basic stitch that builds a fabric slightly taller than single crochet, while still working up nice and fast. In US crochet terms, it's known as the half double crochet, shortened to hdc. Over in UK terminology, the matching stitch goes by half treble crochet (htr).

Below is a step-by-step walkthrough showing you how to work half double crochet stitches.

Step 1. Begin from a working position, with the working yarn (the strand marked in red in the image on the left) sitting in front of the hook, and yarn over first. Then push the hook into the next stitch. At this point you'll have 4 loops on the hook.

Step 2. With all 4 loops on the hook, yarn over once more — but this time draw the yarn through only the 2 loops closest to the tip of the hook. Those 2 are the loops that stand for the stitch you inserted into. Once you've done that, you'll be left with 3 loops on the hook.

Step 3. Yarn over again and pull the yarn through all 3 loops at once. You should now have a single loop on the hook — and that's it, your first half double crochet is complete!

To get a better feel for what this stitch does, take a look below: the right side is worked entirely in hdc stitches, while the left uses regular single crochet (sc). Notice how the span of that half circle on the right reaches noticeably wider than the left.

Once the rhythm of the motion sinks in, the hdc / htr turns into a smooth, easy stitch to work. It's a versatile one that shows up across loads of crochet patterns, so picking it up early really pays off.