How to Carry Yarn Up the Side of a Crochet Project

How to carry yarn up the side of your crochet project when working with multiple colors. By April Garwood of Banana Moon Studio.

Hi friends! Lately I’ve been working on a new design project. It will be on the blog soon. In the meantime, I want to share a tutorial about one of the skills involved. This is a striped crochet project, which means color changes.

Pros and Cons:

When you are changing colors, you can cut your yarn at the end of each section, and leave a tail hanging off. This simplifies things a little as you go, since you don’t have to carry the unused yarn. Of course, that will mean weaving in all those ends later. It also means that your crochet project will use up more yarn.

In this project, the edges of each piece will be inside the finished project, as well as being inside a seam allowance, so the edges won’t show. This means that I can carry the unused yarn up the side of my crochet project, and those bits of yarn that are carried won’t show when it is finished. This means that I don’t have to cut my yarn when I finish a section, and I won’t have nearly so many ends to weave in at the end! Brilliant!

Supplies:
For this project I am using a size I/9 crochet hook and Zombie Yarns Monster, a dk weight superwash wool.

Here’s how to carry yarn up the side of your crochet project:

You begin carrying when it is time to work the last stitch in the row above your color change. First insert your crochet hook into the last stitch of the row you are working on.

Yarn over (this just means to wrap your yarn around your crochet hook), pull that yarn through the stitch.

Now this is where the magic happens! Take your unused yarn and pass it between your working yarn and your crochet hook, then let it fall to the back of your working yarn.

Keep the unused yarn out of the way while you pick your working yarn back up and wrap it around your crochet hook as usual to complete the stitch. Your unused yarn should now be trapped.

Complete the stitch as usual, and your unused yarn will be secured inside of that stitch. Just be sure you are doing this with the last stitch along the side so that these carries stay right on the edge. You can then pass it around your working yarn again just before you make the first turning chain for your next row. Keep working up the side like this, passing your unused yarn around your working yarn every time you work a stitch or turning chain along that side.