A while back, while working out the stitches for my Sampler Squares Afghan I played around with some variations on a spiked puff stitch. My goal was to make something relatively simple, that you didn’t need to do a lot of stitch marking for.

I came up with a very simple one that didn’t require pulling through crazy numbers of loops, which I wrote in the pattern.

The key to finding the hook insertion points without using markers? Add an extra chain between a pair of stitches two rows below the puff stitch row. And then not work into that extra chain on the following row. The not-working-in part also makes a visible space, if you look carefully. Those spaces will be used later in the puff stitch row. That’s a lot to parse, so I’ve got a photo and a video, as well as pattern-style description to explain.

This video shows some variations I experimented with. The variation I did in blue is the first one I did in the video:

For my current project (shown in the featured photo), I’ve done another variation (not in the video) that I’m really happy with. Here’s a written description for each stitch

Small Spiked Puff Stitch

1. Insert hook in indicated st, yo, pull up a loop,
2. yo, insert hook in space under the st just worked into (between 2 hdcs),
3. yo, pull up a long loop, (4 on hook)
4. yo, insert hook in ch sp 2 rows below, pull up a longer loop (6 on hook),
5. yo, insert hook in sp just below next st (between 2 hdcs), pull up a long loop (8 on hook),
6. yo, insert hook in next hdc (the one directly after the hdc you started in), pull up a loop,
7. pull through all 10 loops on hook
8. close with a chain.

Wide Spiked Puff Stitch (WPS)

1. Insert hook in indicated st, yo, pull up a loop,
   yo, insert hook in space under the st just worked into (between 2 hdcs),
2. yo, pull up a long loop, (4 on hook),
3. yo, insert hook in chsp 2 rows below, pull up a longer loop (6 on hook),
4. yo, insert hook in st just below the chsp, pull up an even longer loop (8 on hook),
5. yo, insert in next st (just after the chsp) 2 rows below, pull up a loop (10 on hook),
6. yo, insert hook in next sp between hdcs 1 row below (missing 1 hdc), yo, pull up a loop (12),
7. yo, insert hook in next hdc, pull up a loop, pull through all 14 loops on hook,
8. close with a ch.

So the 4 pattern rows (for the Wide version) go like this

1. hdc in first 5 sts, ch 1, (do not skip a st), hdc in each of next 5 sts across.
2. hdc in first st and each hdc across (skipping the ch sps)
3. Join new color, ch1, sc in first 3 sts, work WPS over the next 3 sts, ch1, sc in each of next 2 sts; rep between *’s across, hdc in last st.
4. Change colors back, hdc in each of first 4 sts, hdc in closing ch of next WPS, hdc in 1st loop of WPS, rep between *’s 30 more times, hdc in each of last 4 hdcs.
   

The pattern for the more narrow version is the same, except that it’s only worked over 2 rows.

Finally, if you have a hard time pulling through that many loops, here are a few tips

Lots of Loops — You can do it! (Yes, you can)