Stitch Masterclass: Mosaic Crochet

Push your skills with this fascinating technique that creates a never-ending pattern!

Mosaic knitting is a popular technique amongst our two-needled friends that uses colour changes to create gorgeous repeating patterns in your work, without the need to change colours mid-row – meaning no colour pulling, no untidy colour changes and a beautiful finished object! This same principle can be translated to crochet through – you guessed it – mosaic crochet.

Above: Infinite Love Shawl by Magdalene Lee featured in Crochet Now magazine

There are differences in each person’s chosen way to perform this technique, but we are going to do our best to show you our chosen method.

Mosaic crochet

Before you start, you should always have at least 1 row of foundation stitches to work from, this could be a foundation dc chain, or in the case of the shawl pattern overleaf it will be the end of the ridged section. In this example we are going to follow the first 10 sts of the chart overleaf.

Start your work with your solid foundation base. Following the colours and stitches indicated (dc, ltr, ch) work your first row. Work into the previous row unless otherwise indicated.

Turn your work. On the WS you will work the same stitches again as indicated. So all dc in sts (dc and ltr) and ch over chains. You will have two rows in CC.

Change to MC, do not cut CC. Now work row 2 – working into the previous row unless otherwise stated. In our pattern, lrt is worked 3 rows below so this is worked over the 2 rows of CC to the last MC.

Now you can see the MC is joining the previously worked MC to create the colour effect. Work your WS as instructed.

Change back to CC and continue with the next row. Work the RS and the WS as before and don’t cut your colours.

How to read a mosaic crochet chart

• Start reading the chart from bottom to top, right to left (alternate rows read left to right)
• Each square represents a stitch – if you work chains in one square, you miss 1 stitch on the row below
• Each row of the chart will represent two rows of crochet, a WS and RS.
• If the colour not being worked appears on your row, you chain two and miss that stitch on the current row
• Always read the pattern instructions carefully before starting as every designer has a slightly different technique for mosaic crochet.

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