Jasmine stitch is a beautiful crochet stitch. It’s not for beginners, but for an experienced crocheter, definitely worth having in your repertoire. This is not a tutorial. Just Google “Crochet Jasmine Stitch” and you’ll find all the tutorials you could want. I’ve perused any number of them (my favorite: CROCHET: JASMINE STITCH | Bella Coco Crochet.) Tutorials love to give you tips. But none of them have answered the main issue I have with it.

So to start, folks, for the minimal jasmine stitch, you will need to pull through 13 loops on your hook. OK, no problem. I love puff stitches; I use them all the time, so pulling through lots of loops is routine for me. If it’s hard for you, you can find tips for that here.

But with Jasmine, there’s another complication. You have to pull through all those loops without using your non-hook hand. Or so all the tutorials would have you believe. Even the ones that are chock full o’ tips. Because while you pull through, you have to hold back some of your yarn — not pull all of it through. That holding back is subtle in my first picture; this one is closer to what’s typically shown:

Now you can see I’ve pulled through the first bunch of loops. Normally, I would then move my left hand to hang on to the bottom of the next group of loops (stretch them to make sure there’s plenty of room) before pulling through. Or at least, I would if my hook snagged on one of those loops. Am I the only one? Am I? Well, maybe. If so, everybody just ignore this post.

But if you are like me, and use both hands when pulling through more than 10 loops, I will tell you the solution I found. It’s not that hard. I don’t know why no one else demonstrates this.

The big secret? Instead of just pinching, pull a loop around your thumb to hold back a little more yarn.

Don’t worry, I’m going to show you what I mean. And I made an awkward little video you can check out near the end of this post. But first, I’ll start with a photo showing yarn held around my thumb instead of just pinched.

Now already, I have the ability to slide the finger and thumb of my left hand forward a bit. Once I’m past the first groups of loops, though, I may not be able to reach the rest while still hanging on to that bit of yarn. But guess what? I don’t need to.

Look! I’ve pulled through all three groups of loops, my thumb is nowhere near the held back bit, and there’s enough of it for me to go back and grab it. I win!

And yes, there’s one more little thing. That held back loop is bigger than I want it. Soooo…

I can pinch now, and tug my hook back until there’s just enough yarn held back to insert my hook. This makes a big loop on the hook of course, but before I insert the hook, I can pull on the main yarn with the index finger of my left hand like I do all the time, so that last loop on the hook is properly snug.

I know this looks like a lot of steps, but let’s face it, it takes a little practice to learn jasmine stitch anyway. And it takes fiddling to pull through 13 (or 19, which is more usual) loops on the hook with a nice tension no matter what you do. You develop muscle memory with this, and honestly, it’s faster. At least for me it is.

And the end result? Pretty as can be.