Every Tuesday, I post a helpful tip… and this week, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to handle the unused yarn while crocheting with two colors. (It’s funny: you wouldn’t think there would be trends in customer questions, but there certainly are!)

For today’s post, I’ve made a video showing you how to strand your yarn while working color changes.

Which technique should you use?

When you’re working with two colors in crochet, there are a quite a few ways that you can handle the color changes. You can:

• Cut and re-join the yarn at every color change
• Use separate balls of yarn for each section of color (called ‘Intarsia’, this technique works best with large blocks of color and when working in rows)
• Carry the unused yarn along the back of the work (called ‘Stranding’, and works best over short color-changes)
• Strand, then cut and tie the yarns (a technique I developed for handling long color changes, worked in the round)
• ‘Crochet over’ the unused yarn (this resolves some problems caused by stranding, but the unused yarn is often visible through your crochet)

That’s a lot of choices, right? Which technique you use will depend on how many stitches are between your color changes, and whether you’re working in the round or in rows.

How to use the stranding technique: the video

Stranding is best used for short color changes, and can be used in rounds or rows. Therefore, it’s a technique that comes in handy, often!

Here’s the video where I show you how it’s done!