Tunisian Crochet Sample – colour changes

As a follower of this blog, you will know that I am new to Tunisian crochet and that the only stitch that I have learned so far is the simple stitch (or plain Tunisian stitch). I’m also having some difficulty with the tension of my work, which can vary greatly. I have therefore been working on a never-ending stream of swatches in an attempt to master the art of maintaining the tension of my work.

Getting extremely bored with just working square simple stitch swatches, I decided to have a go at changing colours. For some time now, I have been working on a chart design for a name, and I decided to use the letter “S” from that name as my first attempt at colour changing. I chose it because of the overall simplicity of the design and the separate blocks of colour.

I have been knitting for many years and understand fully the principals on which colour changing is based. I could have easily used this knowledge to work out how to accomplish colour changes using the technique of Tunisian crochet. However, I decided to see what’s out there in the way of video tutorials for learners like me. I think you can learn a lot from from seeing how other people work, sometimes including how not to do it.

There were lots of videos available and although I did not watch them all, the ones I did watch all had something to offer in terms of ideas and techniques. The most helpful video I found deals with every little detail of the process, which is ideal for the learner.

I learned a lot from this video, including the very interesting use of clothes pegs as yarn bobbins. I doubt I will ever need to use clothes pegs as I have collected many bobbins over the years. My favourite brands are Susan Bates (large) and Clover.

As you can see, my first attempt at colour changing has turned out pretty well. I used the technique of carrying the yarn across the back of the design for the bottom half of the “S” as this involved crossing only two stitches. However, I quickly came to the conclusion that you get a much better finish if you use a separate bobbin of yarn for anything more than one stitch.

I am definitely going to undertake a more adventurous colour change project in the future.