Changing color · Easy
Carrying yarn
To change colors in crochet without cutting the yarn, leave the color you are not using attached and carry it. For stripes, run it up the side edge of the work to the next row that uses it. For colors that swap within a row, lay it along the top of the row and work the stitches over it. Either way there are far fewer ends to weave in.
How to work it
Pick the old color up again
On the last pull of the last stitch of the stripe, take up the waiting yarn and finish the stitch with it. The strand now runs up the side edge past the rows it was not used in. Leave it just slack enough to lie flat against the edge.
Or carry it along the row
Where the same color is needed again within the row, do not leave it behind. Lay the yarn you are not using along the top of the stitches you are about to work into, and make each stitch over it: the hook goes into the stitch and under the carried strand, so the strand ends up inside the new stitches, ready at the next change.
At a glance
- Used for
- stripes of two or four rows; two colors that swap back and forth within a row
- Up the side suits
- Narrow stripes of an even number of rows, so that each color ends at the edge where it was left.
- Along the row suits
- Colors that change within a row, as in tapestry crochet.
- The strand up the side
- Often called a float.
- How slack
- Flat against the work. Too tight and the edge pulls in; too loose and the strand hangs in a loop, and the stitches next to it work loose.
- Cut instead
- When the color is not used again, when the float would be long enough to snag, or when the carried strand shows through.
A float is short when the stripes are two or four rows deep. With deeper stripes it grows long enough to catch on things. It can still be carried if it is caught in at the edge as you go: at the start of a row, cross the idle yarn over the working yarn, so that the edge stitch or the turning chain holds it.
A strand carried along the row is hidden inside the stitches, and the fabric comes out the same on both sides. It shows through most where the two colors contrast strongly or the stitches are loose. Tight stitches hide it better.
Carrying is for colors that come back. A color that is not used again is cut, leaving a tail, and woven in.
When it goes wrong
- The edge with the carried yarn pulls in and puckers.
- The float is too tight. Pull the work back to the color change and pick the yarn up again more loosely, so that the strand lies flat along the edge.
- Loops of yarn hang off the side of my stripes.
- The float is too loose, or too long. Take up the slack when you pick the color up, and with deep stripes catch the idle yarn in at the edge every row or two.
- The carried color shows through the stitches.
- Work the stitches more tightly, so that they close over the strand. If it still shows, cut the yarn at each change and weave in the ends.
Left-handed
The pictures show the hook held in the right hand. For the left hand, read each picture as its mirror image.
Questions
- How do you change colors in crochet without cutting the yarn?
- Leave the old color attached when you change, and pick it up again where it is next needed: at the side edge for stripes, or from inside the stitches when it has been carried along the row.
- How many rows can I carry yarn up the side?
- Two or four rows is the usual case. Deeper stripes leave a long float, which snags unless it is caught in at the edge on the way up.
- Does carrying yarn work with an odd number of rows?
- Not as it stands. After an odd number of rows the hook is at the opposite edge from the waiting yarn. Cut the yarn and join it again at that edge, or plan the stripes in even numbers of rows.