Tutorial – Changing Colors

When changing colors, the goal is (usually) to get a nice, clean edge between your color sections. You don’t want to end up with any part of the first color showing in the stitches of the 2nd color.

Changing Colors – Photo Tutorial:

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Here I have a row with a few single crochet, and I’m going to change from green to blue. Take a look at the green working loop that comes out of the last stitch. That loop is going to become the top of the next stitch.

If we just start the next stitch with blue, we would end up with the bottom of the stitch being blue and the top of the stitch being green. That’s not what we want.

In order to make that top loop blue, we need to change to blue in the last part of the previous stitch. So let’s rip out this last green stitch and do it again. We start the stitch just like a normal single crochet by pulling up a loop. Now we have 2 loops on the hook.

Instead of pulling through them with green, let’s use blue. This leaves us with our last green stitch completed, and a blue loop on the hook.

Now when we work the next stitch in blue, you can see the top and bottom of the stitch are both blue. This gives us a much cleaner transition between the colors.

The same technique works for double crochet (or any other crochet stitch). Whatever stitch you’re working, use the new color to complete the very last part of the stitch.

This is in the middle of the row, but the same thing can be done at the end of a row. Change colors in the last stitch of the current row – that way your starting chain will be the right color.

If you’re working an hdc, there will be 3 loops on the hook when you change colors. With a fancier stitch like a cluster or popcorn, there may be more. The key is to make the color change in the very last step of the stitch. When working in the round and joining each round, I usually change colors in the slip stitch that joins the round.

Changing Colors – Video Tutorial:

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