Intarsia Tutorial #2: Hiding Your Tails When Color Changes Jump

Hey everyone, it's Deja from CrochetEverAfter.com. Today's tutorial is going to show you how to hide your tails when you're doing intarsia crochet. So not the tails that, like when you add your colors, because those you're simply going to weave in. So these little tails that we have when we join colors, those are getting weaved in. But I'm talking about the tails that when you have to make big jumps, So this is going to make more sense as I show you, but if you have a graph or a pattern that you're following and you have a big jump and you've already tried to do it and you're like, how am I going to get this yarn that's way over here all the way over here and still have a reversible fabric, that's what this tutorial is going to show you. So, the basics of intarsia, I have that tutorial available. I'm not going to go over the basics in this tutorial. This is just about hiding your edges or hiding your tails. So if you need that, go check that out first. But we're just going to dive right into hiding the tails. So as you can see, what I have here is a makeup of this little pattern. So you see our teal and purple. We have the different colors. And now we are already up at this. So I've already done this row here, row 15, I'm now turning my work and I'm going to be working back across row 16. So as you can see I have 7 stitches in green and then I'm switching to purple. And from my last row where I left my purple tail hanging, which is, this is my working Working yarn of purple, I have four stitches that I have to jump. So we want to start hiding our tail so that it's not visible. So let me show you what happens if I didn't hide my tail. So I'm going to chain one, start single crocheting seven times, and I'm going to change my color on my seventh stitch to purple. This green tail is my tail that I need to weave in, so pay attention to that. Here's seven. So if I just grab my purple tail from my previous row and I join it in and I start working my You'll see that I now do not have a reversible fabric. I have a back side or a wrong side that has a tail going across. Now if this was a project where you're going to be sewing two sides together like maybe a hot pad, that's not going to matter. But if this is a blanket and you want both sides to be able to show, you don't want that big tail there. So that's what I'm going to show you how to hide. So what you need to do is you have to make a conscious effort to hide it as you're working. And how you're going to do that is kind of like tapestry crochet. You're going to bring up that tail and start crocheting it in to your green stitches that you're going across until your color change. So when I pull that up, and you can see I already did one stitch in the purple, usually Usually you don't have to start right. Where your color starts because of how This tail is, you could start right there, but it's a little bit easier to bring it to the second stitch. One in the purple, then I bring up my tail, and I stick my hook, so I just put it right between the two stitches. I stick my hook under the next stitch, and then I lay it across the top. I yarn over and pull up my green loop. It's now trapped a little bit in between that stitch. And then once I finish the stitch, it's completely trapped in that green single crochet. So now instead of that really long tail, I just have this little short one that kind of blends in with my purple. So it creates a much nicer looking effect on the back side of my stitches, so I can still have that reversible fabric. Then when I'm ready to change colors, as on this stitch, I work up to that last color, or the last step of my green, and then I just grab my purple and wrap it back to front and pull it through. Remember I, oops, you know what, this is the wrong side row, so don't forget that you want to bring your color that you're not going to be using to the front of your work before you change color. All of our wrong sides, we want to put our tails in front, and that's covered in the basics of intarsia, so if that looked really strange, go check that out and it'll explain it. And then you're just going to keep going because. This is our purple, purple tail. We don't have to hide. We don't want any kind of purple when we drop it, but now we have a green tail that's going to get pulled all the way over here. Yarn over and pull it. Don't pull it too tight because it's going to pull all your whole work over. You have to make it very slack. The reason is because you're going to work around that stitch, so make it slack enough That it will lay flat once you work through all the stitches. But not so slack that it's going to be hanging down and sticking out as you work. So I've brought my purple tail to the front, or the wrong side that we're on, and then I'm going to start working my green. And I'm going to do the same thing. Even though this is attached, I still want to work around it to hide it. So I'm going to stick my hook in my next stitch, and you'll see the green just kind of automatically lays right where I need it to lay, so that's good. And then I'm going to single crochet. As normal, but I'm going to ensure that that tail is caught in between my stitches. And that way, I have a reversible fabric that I can use. So I'm going to do that one more time. I'm going to do this, um, this next row is just a repeat of the previous row, but there's no jumping of colors. They're all weaving off right where they left off before, so we don't have to hide anything. So remember, if you're doing A reversible fabric, this is a good technique to use. It's probably not the only technique, it's just the easiest, fastest one that I've come up with. So if you have your own technique, please share it, because I would love to learn a different way if there is one. So again, we're here at the color change, so we stop with our green and we grab our purple, my bobbin here. If you don't know what this is, check out that Basics of Intarsia, it'll explain these bobbins and why they are helpful for intarsia. I'm gonna leave my green in the back because this is my right side, so the tails stay behind now. The reason that you want to have a right side and a wrong side is because of those little tails. So the little pieces that kind of cross over, if those were kind of alternating on each side, you might notice them. But when they're all on just one side, it looks like part of the stitch. So that's why it's good to keep all your tails, sorry, all your tails on one side. Okay, now I'm going to put my green. Then our next row is going to be a wrong side row again, and it's going to have that big color jump again. So you can see one more time how to work that. Now if you're wondering what kind of hook I'm using, this is the Clover O'Moore, but this is a USH. This is worsted weight yarn, and an H is a smaller size hook for worsted weight yarn. But with intarsia, you don't want big, gappy holes in your project, because what you want to shine through is the picture. So when you're using, when you're doing intarsia, remember to use kind of a smaller hook for your yarn so that your pictures will be nice and dense and condensed, you don't want real gapey type stitches for your intarsia. So again, it's the same stuff, we're doing three Green and green, and then we're picking up that purple. So this is... I chain one. This is kind of like the reverse of what we did last time, because remember our purple was all the way over here and we had to move it that way. This time we're doing like the green. We're bringing the purple all the way over. You'll see that my yarn over is kind of weird because it is going like all the way around. So just bring your yarn all the way around so you can catch it all the way through, but with enough slack that you don't fold your project up. You don't want it really super tight where it's going to fold it in half when you're done. The green is very loose. That's okay, you can either leave it or you can just grab your tail and pull it a little bit. When you come back to it on your next row, it's going to tighten down. So remember, this kind of lays right in the right spot, so it's easy to crochet around. Just make sure you catch it so that it doesn't show through. So we go all the way across again. And this time we have to remember, because our green is now where our purple was in that previous row that we had to fix, I just remembered that I did not bring my green to the front. I'll fix that in a little bit. Remember, bring your tails to the front. This isn't a normal project I'm working, so it's not ingrained in my brain yet. So this, we're going to have to start hiding this green. So remember, usually I start hiding it on the second stitch of the color, because it's just a little bit easier, because it kind of ends right on that second stitch. So I'm going to do my first stitch in purple. And now I'm going to bring up my green and start hiding it in my stitches. Not only do I have to hide it for a couple of stitches. So I lay it right on top, grab my yarn, pull up, another one, and this is where I'm going to change my color, so I'm going to go up, I still want to catch it, still want to put it in between. Now I'm going to grab it, pull through, and finish off my stitch. So, except for this lone tail over here, you can see... At the front of my work, this is that stitch from my tail I just pulled and it tightens it right up. The front of the work and from the back of the work, with all my tails weaved in, I will have a pretty much reversible fabric. So if you're working blankets, this is a great technique to use. If you're going to be sewing two pictures together for a hot pad or anything else, you can just run those tails. You don't have to worry about it. But if you want that reversible fabric, then use this technique. So if you have any techniques, let us know below. Or if you have any questions, let me know. And any requests, those are also always welcome. And thank you for watching.