Picot Edging

First of all, I want to say that I've made this hanging kitchen towel thingie many times and have never given it a picot edging. I've never started and ended the edging with a slip stitch before either. But, there's always a first time for everything.
-- I have always made it with an edging, though.

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After finishing the buttonhole and weaving in ends, start with thread in the same or a different color. As usual, for starting any crochet project, make a slip knot around the hook. Then to get an almost invisible start to the edging, slip stitch into the bottom of the first sc in the project.

The picture shows the thread after it has been pulled through the bottom of the sc but before it's been pulled through the starting loop. To get the yo through the starting loop more easily, hold one edge of the loop (the part of the loop with the loose end) with your left hand as you pull the thread through. That completes the slip stitch.

Then, sc into the edge of the next row, a sc row.

Make a picot into that sc.

I used the first method of making picots (as described in the American Thread Company brochure excerpt). I chained 3 and then did a slip stitch into the top of the last sc. NexStitch has a nice video of the stitch.

As you can see, it is a bit tricky. That's probably why there is an alternative way to do the picot (as mentioned by both the booklet and NexStitch) -- namely, instead of doing a slip stitch, make another sc (or whatever stitch the picot is on top of) "in the same space" or, in other words, as if one were doing an increase.

Just doing a sc without either the slip stitch or the "increase" would make the picot too open.

One isn't limited to doing just 3 or 4 chains for a picot. It just depends on how large you want it to be. However, with more chain stitches, the inside of the loop of chain stitches becomes more visible, and it comes closer to being a chain loop. One is also not limited to doing picots on top of sc's. It can be done on top of most any stitch. Picots also don't have to be restricted to edgings.

To finish this edging, repeat *sc 4, picot* around.

When adding an edging in knitting, one has to be careful about row and stitch gauge. A knit stitch is about 1 1/2 times wider than it is tall (at least for a gauge of 4 sts and 6 rows per inch). So, the number of stitches to be picked up along a vertical edge is different than the number of rows along that edge. Although, when crocheting along a knitted edge, one generally crochets one stitch for every two knitted rows.

On the other hand, a single crochet stitch is pretty much as tall as it is wide. When crocheting along a vertical edge, crochet 1 st off of a row of sc's and 2 sts off of a row of dc's and 3 sts off of a row of tr's (triple crochet sts), etc. (A dc is about twice as tall as a sc, and a tr is about 3 times as tall.) The picture shows a crocheted edge (plus some picots).

For the buttonhole, crochet as many stitches as were skipped at the bottom of the buttonhole. End the edging with a slip stitch.

To finish, sew on a button. And you have the finished product.