When you are working a striped shell design, adding a simple, decorative border to your change color row allows the new color to peek though the shell edge.

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Video: How to Crochet a Shell
(If you don’t know how to make the shell stitch, read the blog or watch the video demonstrating the shell stitch.)

After working a single crochet shell row (a row that begins and ends with a single crochet and shells in between), turn the fabric to the wrong side.

(Note: You can work on the wrong side of a half shell row also. However, it is easier to demonstrate the edging on the wrong side of a single crochet row. It may also be easier to make the edging after completing a single crochet shell row. Which method you use will depend on how many shell rows you have in each stripe.)

On the wrong side join the new color into the first single crochet of the previous row. Make a regular single crochet with the new color in that same stitch.

Across the double crochets of the previous row’s shells, work a front post stitch using a single crochet. Of course, you can use a half double or a double crochet if you prefer.

Front Post Single Crochet (FPsc): Insert the hook from the front to the back (the reason it is called a front stitch) and to the front again under the first double crochet post of the shell, lifting the post up. Yarn over, pull the yarn around the post, yarn over and pull through the two loops on the hook, completing a single crochet.

Repeat the FPsc across the double crochet posts of the shell. (It’s usually five, seven or nine posts per shell.)

Work a regular single crochet in the top of the previous row’s single crochet. Continue in the pattern ending with a single crochet in the last single crochet of the previous row. When you turn the fabric around, you can see the new color peeking through the shell edge.

To begin your new color shell row (only work in the new color); this will be a half shell row. Since this pattern consisted of five double crochets, a half shell will be three double crochets. Chain three for the first double crochet. Make two more double crochets in the same stitch. A half shell is now complete.

Working into the new color, skip two FPsc and make a regular single crochet into the third FPsc behind the previous row’s double crochet. Skip two more FPsc and make a five double crochet shell in the new color’s single crochet. Continue the pattern across the row, ending with three double crochets (a half shell) in the last single crochet of the previous row.

Pops of color peeking through the shell edge adds an interesting touch to any plain shell project.