English abbreviation · Crochet
What does hdc mean in crochet?
hdc means half double crochet.
In French: demi-bride
How to work it
Half double crochet, written “hdc”, sits between single crochet and double crochet in height. Its trick is that it uses a single pull-through at the end, where the double crochet uses two.
Start with a yarn over, before entering the fabric. Insert the hook into the stitch the pattern points to.
Yarn over again and pull the yarn back through the stitch. You now have three loops on the hook: the first yarn over, the loop you just pulled up, and the one that was already there.
Yarn over one last time and pull through all three loops at once. One loop is left, and the stitch is complete. Do not stop after two loops: that would be a different stitch. For a turning chain, patterns usually say “ch 2”, and unless they write “counts as hdc” you can treat it as a hinge that is not a stitch.
In a pattern
Row 2: ch 2, hdc in each st across, turn (18)
Take the row “Row 2: ch 2, hdc in each st across, turn (18)”. “Row 2” is the second row. “ch 2” is the turning chain: two chains that lift the hook to the height of the new row. Because the pattern does not say “counts as hdc”, they are not a stitch. “hdc in each st across” means one half double crochet in every stitch of the previous row, starting in the very first one. “turn” means flip the work. The bracket says the row must end with 18 stitches, and since the chain is not counted, those are 18 real hdc.
US or UK?
Half double crochet is the American name. A British pattern writes the same stitch “htr”, for half treble. So hdc (US) equals htr (UK). Unlike dc and tr, the letters hdc do not exist in British notation, which makes this one easier to spot: if you see “htr” in a pattern, it is British, and you should read any “dc” in it as single crochet.
Common mistakes
- Pulling through only two loops instead of all three. The stitch then comes out shorter and looser, and the count on the hook is wrong. Check that you have exactly three loops before the last pull.
- Counting the turning chain as a stitch when the pattern says nothing. If the count in brackets is off by one at the end of the row, this is almost always the cause.
- Working through the front strand only. Half double crochet leaves a small horizontal bar below the top; if it looks lumpy, you probably put the hook under only one strand of the “V”.
A tip
Half double crochet has a tell-tale horizontal bar just under the top “V”. You can count those bars from a distance, and you can find the stitch you are working into without touching the fabric. Move a marker every ten stitches.
British notation
A British pattern writes “htr” for this stitch.
Try it with a row from your pattern
Here is a row that uses it. Replace it with a row from your pattern: every abbreviation the reader knows is underlined, and its meaning shows on hover.
Row 2: ch 2, hdc in each st across, turn (18)