Mattress Stitch Join Tutorial

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to use Mattress Stitch to join your crochet motifs together with a perfectly invisible seam. This method is mostly used to join crochet squares or garments and honestly it isn’t the fastest way to sew fabrics together but trust me the end result is worth the extra effort.

I have used this technique to make my Granny Pinwheel Blanket.

First of all, I recommend BLOCKING your crochet motifs before start seaming. 

Joining two fabrics

Place two pieces of your crocheted motifs and lay them on the flat surface RIGHT SIDE facing in front of you. Then, thread your yarn needle with the same yarn that you have used for crochet your motifs (for my tutorial I have used contracting red yarn to show you the mechanics of the Mattress Stitch more easily).

To begin, take the first square and insert the needle from the top of the first corner chains and then out the needle from the bottom to top of the second corner chains. Pull the yarn through.

Proceed in the same way with the second square beginning at the far right chain corner as below.

Pull the yarn gently but not too tight. At this point, it’s important to have a good visibility for all stitches.

Next, back to the first square. Here you have to insert your needle in the same chain where it came out the last time and bring the needle out of the next stitch working behind the back loop.

Again, take the second square and do the same thing here. Insert the needle from top between the front and back loops of the chain where the yarn came out before and make the needle exit from the centre of the next stitch.  

Then, repeat that sequence until you’ve run out of stitches and have reached the corner chains of your squares. Work back and forth between the squares and occasionally stop to pull the yarn ends tighter to make the yarn between stitches invisible.

The seaming yarn disappears.

It is very important to ensure that you select the corresponding stitches and chains on the both squares. Make sure you work the last stitches into the corners. Then, fasten off and weave in the loose ends.

As you can see below, the red yarn now doesn’t show, and the seam is totally invisible. When worked correctly, the squares beautifully zip together without distortion. This is the magic of the Mattress Stitch.

Here, you can also see the back of the seamed motifs and the stitch is almost invisible even there.

Joining sets of fabrics

I love Mattress Stitch for the perfect connecting all the corners together. The joining looks absolutely clean and invisible.

Above, you’ve got to know how to join two squares together working from one corner chains to another. Now I’d like to show you how to join corner to corner using the Mattress Stitch and achieve a neat joining for block of squares

Take two sets of crochet squares joined before with the Mattress Stitch as above. Start joining them from the right corner chains across the stitches until you have reached the all four corners.

At this point, make sure that you work through the correct stitches and corner chains before start joining the corners.

Step 1: In the square 1, insert the needle into the top of the last stitch and out of the first corner chain.

Step 2: In the square 2 repeat the Step 1.

Step 3: Here, the needle goes into the top of the corner chain (where it came out of before) in the square 1 and up out of the top of the corner chain (right at the first stitch) in the square 3.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 working between square 2 and 4.

Step 5: Insert the needle into the top of corner chain and up out of the top of the next stitch in the square 3 and then repeat this is in the square 4.

Pull the yarn tight and as you can see the corners came beautifully together. Next, work Mattress Stitch across until you’ve run out of stitches and have reached the corner chains of your squares. 

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Thank you for stopping by and Happy Crocheting!

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