The Puffs and Shells stitch is a beach-inspired textured crochet stitch pattern. It reminds me of pebbles and sand on the beach and is a unique crochet stitch for blankets and scarves. It’s one of three crochet stitches in my free textured blanket pattern “Stay Wild Moon Child” throw blanket. You might also like the Astro Cluster Stitch and the Spiked Arcade Stitch.
Video Crochet Tutorial
Scroll down for the written pattern.
Yarn
You can use any yarn and matching hook for this stitch pattern. I’m using one of my favourite yarns, Sirdar’s Sublime, Extra Fine Merino Worsted. It is a a beautiful soft superwash merino that comes in many different colours. It is the same yarn in my free shawl pattern Atomic Spring Wrap.
The yarn is Aran/worsted weight; 109 yards/100 m per 50g ball, and I used a 5mm hook. If I use a double knit yarn, I’d use a 4mm hook.
Pattern
The stitch pattern is in multiples of 6 plus 3 stitches, and add on 3 chains for your starting chain. My swatch is made using 27 stitches which is 3 lots of 8, plus 3. I started with 30 chains.
This pattern is in US terms. I have added UK terms in ( ) below.
Abbreviations
- Chain: Ch
- Chain space: ch-sp
- Double crochet: dc (tr)
- Repeat: rep
- Right side: RS
- Single crochet: sc (dc)
- Stitch: st
- Stitches: sts
Special Stitches
Puff St: [Yarn over, insert your hook into the st indicated, yarn over and pull up a loop] 3 times in total, yarn over and pull through all 7 loops on your hook.
Shell: Work 3 dc into the ch-sp as indicated.
Chain a multiple of 6 plus 3, plus 3 (see above for explanation).
Row 1 (RS): Starting in the 5th ch from hook (missed sts count as first dc), dc in each st across, turn. (27sts)
Row 2: Ch 1 (does not count as a st), sc in first st, *[sc, ch 4, puff st] in the next st, miss 2 sts; rep from * across, sc in each of the last 2 sts. Turn.
Row 3: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), dc in the next st, shell in each ch4-sp across, dc in each of the last 2 sts. Turn. (28sts)
(Note: the st count increases by 1 stitch in Row 2 which you may notice in Row 3 and think you’ve accidentally gained a st, however it decreases by 1 st in Row 4 to even out.)
Row 4: Ch 3 (counts as your first dc), dc in next st, [miss 1 st, dc in each of the next 2 sts, working around the last 2 dcs, work a dc into the missed st], rep across the row until 2 sts remain, miss 1 sts, work a dc into the last st. Turn. (27sts)
Row 5: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), dc in each st across. Turn.
Rep Rows 2-5 for pattern.
Stay Wild Moon Child Blanket
The Puffs and Shells Stitch, Spiked Arcade Stitch and Astro Cluster Stitch are all in my free textured blanket pattern “Stay Wild Moon Child” throw blanket.
