A must for your crochet repertoire: the diamond stitch

If you really want your crochet to stand out, you'll love this three-dimensional, satisfyingly textural stitch. It looks impossibly complicated, but you'll soon see that a mixture of chains, single crochets and trebles rapidly build up to this attractive pattern.
This great video from Meladora's Creations for Crochet will walk you through the steps:
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How to crochet the diamond stitch video tutorial:
Diamond stitch written pattern:
The first thing to remember when tackling the diamond stitch is that you need to work in multiples of 4 plus 2. These two extra stitches are your turning chain. So you'll start off by chaining a number divisible by four, then add two extra chains. Now turn your work, miss out the first two chains, and single crochet all along the row. Chain one and turn your work. Single crochet again all along the row, then chain one and turn. Repeat the process (single crochet every stitch, chain one and turn). You should now have three rows of single crochet. Now, in the fourth row, you'll be creating the first stage of your diamond stitch with a triple crochet, which you will work around the front post of the second stitch in the first row of single crochet stitches that you worked.
The next steps sound a little complicated, and this might be the moment to refresh your memory by taking a look at the video. But put simply, you'll need to locate the second double crochet in the first row of your work. Now push your hook behind the stitch, so the "post" of the stitch stands out from the rest of the stitches. This is where you need to be working. From the beginning of your fourth row, take your hook, wrap the yarn over twice and take the hook behind the second single crochet in the first row. Then yarn over and pull up a loop. You'll now have four loops on the hook. Then yarn over and pull through two loops at a time. You'll be able to do this three times and will have formed a front post triple crochet, leading from the fourth row down to your first row, in a diagonal line.
Anchor this by doing a single crochet in the second stitch of the fourth row. You then put a single crochet in the next three stitches, giving you a total of four single crochets in a row. Now you are ready for your next front post treble crochet (fptc), which will form a V-shape with your first fptc. This time, you'll be working in the stitch next to the first one you worked into, which will be the third single crochet in the first row. Once this stitch has been worked, you immediately move on to the next fptc by yarning over twice, then counting along five stitches on your first single crochet row and working the stitch into this single crochet. Then skip two stitches on the fourth row, and do four single crochets before starting again with a fptc into the stitch right next to your last fptc.
As you can see, the pattern involves a bit of attention and some careful counting, but the stitches themselves are not tricky at all. Expect a little bit of trial and error, but you'll quickly achieve beautiful results with this intricate-looking and beautifully textured pattern.
What can you create with the diamond stitch?
The diamond stitch makes an absolutely beautiful blanket, a snuggly scarf or a chunky hat. One of the great merits of the stitch is that it is complicated enough in itself to give lots of visual interest. This means you don't need to change colors of yarn (unless you want to), so there's a lot less in the way of tidying ends to do when you're finished — always a bonus.
Something rather special that you can make with the diamond stitch is this very effective basket from Make My Day Creative, using several strands of DK yarn crocheted together:
You'll also love this impressive-looking chunky cowl, also from Make My Day Creative:
For a slightly more feminine-looking cowl, try this pattern from Moogly:

Once you've got the hang of the stitch, you'll be able to attempt pretty variations, like this diamond hat from Linda Made:
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