Picot Stitch

How to make it look neat

Updated 01-14-2021

A picot stitch is a decorative element which can be used as a finishing stitch or in the body of a pattern. It brings some special charm to a stitch pattern and often is used as a picot edging for the finished project.

Picot is a very well-known element but at the same time it is an additional headache for many crocheters. It's so hard to make it look neat.

Picot Stitch

The way it looks depends on many things: type of  yarn, number of hook, yarn tension. This is a regular set of factors which have to be watched to make a good job.

Meanwhile, there is one more not that well-known fact. A picot  can be crocheted at least in three different ways.

Picot Stitch. Variant 1.

 A picot can be made with any number of chains, but the most common case a three-chain picot. To make a picot: chain 3, slip stitch in 3rd chain from the hook. The result can be seen at the right side of the picture.

This is the most common classical, way to crochet a picot. A video below demonstrates this classical way of crocheting picot with three or more chains.

Variant 2.

Here is another way to crochet it.

Chain 3, slip stitch into the top of the single crochet where the chain of 3 comes from. The result can be seen at the left side of the picture above. It is a matter of your preferences which variant to choose.

Let's compare Variant 1 and Variant 2. There are three obvious observations about the results of crocheting. You can easily see them on the picture above.

  • Crocheting in the top of the single crochet (Variant 2) produces a better shaped picot.

  • A Variant-2 picot is a little bit large than a Variant-1 one.

  • Variant 2 is a little bit simpler to crochet. It is easier to make a slip stitch in the top of the single crochet versus making the slip stitch in the 3rd chain (Variant 1).

Variant 3.

This video demonstrates one more way of crocheting picot.

A single crochet stitch is used to close a picot ring instead of a slip stitch. As a result, our picot will be a little taller than in Variants 1 and 2 and its the very top will be somewhat "sharper". Let's watch the last variant of crocheting a picot.

Doesn't your picot stitch look pretty? As I've already mentioned above, the way it looks depends on many factors. Here are a few more ways to try to make it look decent if you are crocheting edging:

  • Picot stitches in decorative edging are separated from each other by a few (one, two, or more) single crochet stitches. Try to play with the number of those stitches skipped.

  • Experiment with the number of stitches which form the chain of the picot "body".

  • Try different ways (Variants # 1, 2, and 3 above) of crocheting the picot.

  • Change the size of the hook or, maybe consider a different yarn to crochet the edging. Best of luck!

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