Sunday, September 2, 2012

Colorful Crochet--Doing Color Changes

I'll be doing the Patchwork Squares afghan as part of the Crochet Society's Fall CAL (Crochet ALong) and because it has so many wonderful color changing opportunities I thought I'd like to check out some methods to do the color changes easily, and with as little weaving-in of ends as possible.  I hate weaving in ends.

There are really two issues at hand:  changing colors without knotting the ends of the color together, and hiding the tails for the 2 colors at each change of color.

I found a few vids on YouTube:

Crochet Tidy Away Ends and Color Changes, from Megan E. Mills


From All Free Crochet:  How to Change Color Without Knots, right-handed

How to Change Color Without Knots, left-handed

If you're more of a text person, or want something in writing that you can print out, here are a couple of choices.

Here's a short demo/explanation:
http://www.crochetme.com/blogs/crochet_me/archive/2010/03/11/quick-and-easy-color-change.aspx

Crochet Cabana has a thorough explanation, along with photos; it shows how to do it at the beginning of a row, and also in the middle of a row.
http://www.crochetcabana.com/tutorials/join-new-yarn.htm

(And if you are also doing the Folding Fans Scarf in the CAL, the "Crochet Doctor" in that issue of Crochet Today is about color changes and color work in crochet.)

It takes a little bit of practice to work crochet around tails, but it's not difficult and, for me, it's much less discouraging than having to weave in ends.

If you find it to be not your cup of tea, here's a video from Red Heart on weaving in ends. f  It is something that you can do while sitting in front of your favorite televisions show.  For some projects, maybe your favorite show's last season or two.
http://www.redheart.com/learn/videos/weaving-ends-crochet

Enjoy the CAL, and don't forget to post photos of your yarn choices and progress on Ravelry!



No comments:

Post a Comment