Left Hand Fair Isle CrochetTutorial #4: How to Work Fair Isle In Rows

Hey everyone, it's Deja Yetmir from CrochetEverAfter.com, and today I'm going to show you how to do I'm going to show you how to do fair isle color changing when you're working in rows. So I've been getting a lot of requests on how to actually do floating color changes when working in the row. So from the front, this just looks like it could be an intarsia project or a tapestry project, but behind And behind you can see That I run my purple along the back of the work. I'm not running it through the stitch, so I get nice clean color changes on the front. But the back, you'll see that I have my floats. And these little spots in between are where I've caught my floats because they are longer than seven stitches. Usually if it's seven single crochets or more, I'll catch my floats so that it doesn't snag as easily. Now, a couple important things to know if you choose to do Fair Isle in rows instead of the round. You're going to have these floats hanging out. So if you're making a big blanket and you don't want all of these floats showing on the back, you can always do another layer of just regular single crochet, like all purple, and then seam it together. Or maybe get a fleece backing if you like to sew. Okay, I'm going to repeat the example that we just looked at, so that way you can see not only how to run your floats along the back side of your project, but also how to catch your floats when they're a little bit long. So I'm going to do four single crochets and then I'm going to switch to my contrasting color. So I work up to the last step in my fourth stitch and I stop there and that's when I'm going to join my new color in. So I grab my CC, my contrasting color, and I lay it over my hook and then I just pull that through those last two loops. Then I'm going to start doing 8 single crochets in my contrasting color. Because I'm doing 8, usually anything over 7 stitches, I like to catch the float. That way when I go to pick up my green, my main color again, down near the end of my row, I'm not going to have one really long float that will be easily snagged. So, as you notice, I didn't tighten down anything over here. When I weave my ends in, it'll tighten down the end of my orange. And when I catch my float, it's going to tighten down that last green stitch. So, on my fourth stitch, I insert my hook into my stitch. Then I just lay over my main color right over the top of my hook. Then I catch my contrasting color and pull up that loop and finish off my single crochet. Now I have caught my green main color, so my float is much shorter. Then I just do my last four in my contrasting color, the orange. Once I get to the end, I'm going to switch colors again. So I'm going to work up to that last step of my fourth, or technically eighth, orange. And then I'm going to pick up my green and just bring it right over the top of my hook and pull it through. If you need a more slower example of this, just go to my Fair Isle tutorials and go to the How to Change Color tutorial. This is kind of more to focus on how to run your floats all on one side of your project, so if you're working in rows. So I'm going to do my last four single crochets. And I just leave my orange because I'm going to pick it up on my next row. I don't have to catch anything or run floats because we're turning our work. So as you can see... Okay, alright, I finished the first row and now it's time to do the hard part. We need to keep all of our floats and tails on the front side or the wrong side of our project. So this is the part that everybody is wondering about when they're converting their patterns. How to do this. Yes. So. I'm going to do my four stitches in my main color, and then we're going to change color to our new color. Normally, I would leave the tail on the back of my work and change colors, but if I do that, my float is going to be along the right side of my project, which I don't want. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring my tail to the front and just lay it over my stitches. I'll grab it with my thumb to keep it out of my way. Then I'm going to pick up my orange and join that in. So I made my color change, I have my tail in front. And now I'm going to do four stitches. Now when I do this, I don't want to go into this stitch here because I would be skipping a whole stitch. I have a stitch that's kind of hidden by all of these tails that we have going on here. So make sure you don't miss that stitch. Kind of just pull everything over to the side and you'll see that stitch right there. So make sure you get that first stitch before you start just working away without looking. So I'm going to do four. Again, and then catch my float and I want to show you how to catch the float in the front So this is why I wanted to do kind of a long color run So to do this kind of float with it in the front what you're going to do is you're going to take your yarn That you need a float and just lay it between Your hook and where it's going to go next the next stitch it needs to go into So just lay it right there and put your hook through Now I can't leave it on this side because then I'll have my tail on the front side again and I don't want that. So I'm going to lay it back over my hook. And then when I pull my loop up, you'll see that I've caught it. So let me show you that one more time. Take your float, lay it over in between your last stitch and the stitch you're about to make. Stick your hook through and just lay that back over your hook so it's out of the way. And then pull up your loop. Then you're going to finish that stitch off and you can see it's nice and caught. So now I'm going to do four more stitches then we're going to switch back to our green. Remember when you switch your colors when you're working on the wrong side of your project you need to bring that tail to the front. If I leave it here it's going to be on the wrong side when I finish this row. Bring it to the front. And then switch colors. When you switch, you'll notice that it feels a little weird because you have to bring it in front and then all the way around your hook. But once you pull it through, it just kind of works itself out, so don't worry about how strange it feels. You'll get used to it and it'll be easy to do. And then I'm just going to finish off this row. So, you can see that I can easily work Fair Isle. Working in rows, as long as I remember, to just bring those tails to the same side that I'm working every time. So I would just turn my work, and now since I'm on the right side of my project, everything is nice and simple. I don't have to do any extra steps. I don't have to think about really what I'm doing if I'm familiar with color changes. I just grab my working yarn, slack there, pull it through. And just start my stitches. As you work, because you're working in rows, just give yourself a little tug every once in a while to make sure that all of your floats are nice and slack so that you don't start puckering your project. But once you finish this, if you want to put something on the back of the project to keep the snags down, depending on what you're going to be using this for. If it's a wall hanging, it wouldn't really matter because it's going to be against a wall, but if it's going to be a blanket for a baby, they're going to get their toes stuck in here a lot, so make sure that you put a backing on it. So if you have any questions or any clarification on any part of this, let me know below and And I'll try to help you out as best I can. But that's how you're going to... Change, um, Fair Isle or do Fair Isle when you're working in rows.