What is Half Double Crochet Two Together HDC2TOG Decrease Stitch

HDC2TOG crochet stitch is a variation on the basic HDC stitch and is used to decrease the number of stitches in the row.

What is HDC2TOG Crochet Stitch

HDC2TOG stands for Half Double Crochet Two Together, as in taking 2 HDC stitches and making them into 1.

Sometimes you can see it referred to as DEC HDC or HDC DEC, which means Decrease HDC.

Half DC2TOG is a stitch that takes 2 HDC stitches and makes them into 1 HDC. 2 HDC stitches are crocheted together, getting rid of one and leaving the other.

What can you make with HDC2TOG

The decrease can be used for shaping of things like accessories, clothes (things like armhole), amigurumi, purses, fingerless mittens and so on.

HDC decrease is one of the stitches that takes your rectangular items to triangles and other shapes, as well as makes circles into purses or beanies.

Things to know about HDC2TOG:

• This stitch is essentially created by making 2 half-complete HDC stitches and then finally joining them into one HDC stitch. A word of warning with this particular stitch decrease is that it does come out a bit bulky.
• If you are using HDC2TOG for shaping and decreasing, you will be using it mostly the edges of your work (unless you are creating something like amigurumi, a beanie crocheted in a round, or a bottom of a drawstring purse, for example).
• When you are working HDC2TOG as a part of the design, when you get to the next row, you will have new stitches going into the top of your HDC2TOG below.
• If you are crocheting regular HDCs over the HDC2TOG stitches below, you will most likely be inserting your hook into the large loop at the top of the cluster (that is that single loop that joined 2 HDCs together).
• Sometimes HDC2TOG is called a cluster stitch, just like a lot of other ‘tog’ stitches are called cluster stitches.

Here is how crochet HDC2TOG

Here is how you crochet HDC2TOG starting in the middle of the row

Yarn over, insert hook into first stitch (front to back), yarn over and pull the loop through. You have 3 loops on the hook.

Yarn over and insert into the next stitch, yarn over and pull the loop through. You have 5 loops on a hook.

Yarn over and pull through all 5 loops at the same time.

And done!

Here is how you crochet HDC2TOG starting at the beginning of the row

When you are doing HDC2TOG at the beginning of the row, you would first CH 2 (to create first regular HDC). Turn your work.

Yarn over, insert hook into next available stitch (front to back), yarn over, and pull the loop through. You have 3 loops on the hook.

Yarn over and insert into the next stitch, yarn over and pull the loop though. You have 5 loops on a hook.

Yarn over and pull through all 5 loops at the same time.

And done!

To see how this stitch is done, take a look at the handy video below:

If you want to learn about other basic crochet stitches like SC (single crochet),  HDC (half double crochet), or DC (double crochet) you can find helpful posts about these on my blog.

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