Basic Border Edgings

How to Crochet Three Basic Border Edgings

I’ll show you how to crochet three basic border edgings, including the traditional, picture frame, and padded.

Crochet borders and edgings always add a nice finishing touch to blankets and scarves and other items. While there are a bazillion different edgings out there, there are only a handful of ways to connect the edging directly to the main crochet piece. In this written pattern and video, I’ll show you three different ways to accomplish this.

Traditional Edging

I like to use contrasting yarn for my borders, but feel free to use a softer or more subtle one. In the traditional edging method, you will start by crocheting 3 stitches in a corner, followed by 1 stitch along the sides. Each corner will get 3 stitches and each side will get 1 stitch per stitch. While I am using half double crochet (HDC) as my sample stitch, feel free to use single crochet (SC), double crochet (DC) or treble crochet (TR).

Picture Frame Edging

The picture frame edging produces a neat and clean edge around your crochet work. This is accomplished by making slip stitches (or surface crochet) first around the entire piece. Then you’ll make the traditional border using the back loops only of the slip stitches. This helps frame your work and produces smooth stitches, especially when using contrasting yarn.

Padded Edging

The padded edging reminds me of a traditional quilt binding. With this edging, you’ll make the picture frame edging on both the front and back side of the crochet work. Then you’ll combine the pieces and single crochet them together along the top edge. This creates a bit of a padded border, plus looks the same on both the front and back side of the work.

As always if you need any help with the basics of crochet, please see my beginner crochet videos on YouTube for the right hand as well as crochet for the left hand.