hey crochet besties ready to level up your crochet game with inaria this technique might look intimidating but I promise it is totally doable even for my sweet little newbies hi I'm Tony of TL yarncrafts and I'm about to break down color changes that'll make your projects pop plus a little tip for cleaner color changes grab your 6mm hook your favorite colors of worsted weight yarn and let's dive in if you're ready to crochet with me hit that like button and subscribe while you're at it for even more tutorials product reviews and crochet in B this video is one of many helpful tutorials to accompany the crochet Amore sampler a beautiful 20 block afghan that teaches new crochet stitches and techniques with every Square to get the rowby row instructions for this square and find out how to make the entire sampler blanket visit the link in the description it's time to crochet okay all right look I know that was a bad joke but we are about to do some in tarer crochet and there is a good bit of prep that we need to do before we start first off we need to determine how many little skain of this yarn that we need to make I'm using Lion Brand pound of love this is the color Olive and this is the color straw I'm going to use this for my background and this for my foreground so the first thing I need to do is look at my chart which you can download using the link down in the description and I'm going to determine how many of each color I need to have because we want a separate ball of yarn for each of our color change throughout our chart so I'm going to make more skain than I probably need but I like to have them so then I don't have to make more in the middle of the project so you know you do whatever makes most sense for you so what I like to do first is count how many balls of yarn I'm going to need for the background so I look for the area where across the row I have the most of my background color the most color changes so that's looking like maybe right about here I have 1 2 3 four five color changes kind of right in this area um I can count down here too I have 1 2 3 4 five color changes so I'm going to createa prob six or seven little balls of my background color my green and then for my letter color I've got let's go about here one 2 3 4 here 1 two 3 four I have like four so I'll probably create five or six and let me show you how I make my little balls of yarn but you can make them however you like when it comes to making my bobbins I mean they're not really pretty but they're just like these little butterflies right so I'm going to show you how to make those so you're going to grab your yarn end and and I like to put the tail kind of through my thumb I like to pinch it like this because I'm going to make the butterfly around my hand and I want to hold this to make sure I can still do a center pull so I'm going to start going over or under it doesn't matter and I'm going to go around about 40 times I lost count but that feels like 40 okay so now I'm going to slide this off my finger making sure I don't lose that tail on the inside and I'm going to fold this in half like this and just kind of hold it now I'm going to take the end that's coming from the ske and I'm going to wrap it around the butterfly like 10 times not too tight because we still want it to feed but strong enough to hold the bundle okay just like that and now I'm going to hold it here I'm going to snip it above my fingers and I'm going to take my crochet hook slip it under the wraps and then just pull pull this tail through so now I have a center pull bobin so I've made a bunch in green and a bunch in my straw color and now we can jump into our chart I do like to use a chart keeper and I have this one from wi crochet you open it up and it's just got a series of magnets so you can slip the magnets out put in your chart and then use the magnets to hold it down oh my goodness they're really strong magnets so I'm going to put one there and let's put one down in this corner and then I'm going to use this to kind of help myself keep track as I'm going and I like to put the bar underneath where I'm working some folks I know like to put the bar above where they're working so they can kind of see what they've worked already and then where they're headed I personally just this is how I learned so that's how I do it but there is literally no right or wrong way just do it however you want to okay let's jump in so taking a look at the chart that I'm working from I have 39 stitches here at my base if you are working from the crochet am more sampler make sure you follow along with the chart in that pattern this is just for tutorial purposes so I'm going to start with a foundation row of 39 stitches if you prefer to work off of chains you can chain 40 and then single crochet in the second chain from the hook I just prefer Foundation stitches because they're a little bit stretchier and easier to work into than the initial chain so to make those I'm going to start with a slip knot place that on my hook and I need to chain two here's one one and two after I do that chain two I'm going to get into my first chain yarn over and pull up a loop from here I need to yarn over and pull through one Loop and then yarn over and pull through two now that first chain that I made that yarn over pull through one created a chain and that chain has two Loops at the top you can see one here and one here I'm going to use the tip of my hook to get under both of those Loops of that chain yarn over pull up a loop yarn over pull through one and then through two again under two Loops of that chain yarn over pull up a loop yarn over pull through one and through two what's important is when you pull up this Loop here and create this chain that this chain isn't too tight because that is the chain that we then need to work into yarn over pull through those last two Loops again under the chain yarn over pull up the loop yarn over pull through one and then through two and we're going to repeat that that until we have 39 total stitches and here's how you count them you can lift your Loop up and out and flip to the top of the work where that working Loop is coming out of now we can count these V's here so I have 1 2 3 4 five six stitches so far I'm going to continue until I have 39 you do the same and meet me back here and if you're doing Foundation stitches you can then jump into row two in the pattern all of my Foundation stitches are now complete you can see I've got a nice stretchy base to the base of my project if you ever have challenges working into beginning chains Foundation stitches might be the way to go give them a try so since we've worked essentially our starting chain and our first row stitches at the same time that accounts for Row one on our pattern and we can see that row two and Row three of the chart are just white squares our white squares are our background color the same that we worked our foundation with so I'm going to go work these other two rows just in single crochet straight across and then we'll jump into row row four the beginning of the color work together I've got my first one two three rows complete we can now move into row four on our chart so I'm going to take my magnet here and for the sake of this tutorial just put it right above the row that I need to work so this is row four now row four is worked from the left to the right but just keep in mind that row four is the wrong side of the work all of our even numbered rows are the wrong side of the work and they are worked from left to right odd rows are the right side of our work and they're worked from right to left okay so that you'll need to keep in mind because it will impact where we keep our yarn Tails after we're done working them so for row four remember we're working from left to right and we have 1 2 3 4 five 6 seven stitches still worked in our background color because our white squares are our background color black squares are our foreground colors so again we have 1 2 3 4 4 five six seven stitches so to start that row we'll chain one turn our work and working in single crochet we have one 2 3 4 5 6 seven stitches and on our last single crochet here we're going to work it until we have those two Loops left on the hook so this was our sixth single crochet we'll pull up a loop in the next Stitch and leave this right here usually we'd yarn over and pull through but since we're changing color I'm going to bring that work to now the back of my work okay cuz we're looking at the wrong side of our work and now I need to grab one of my foreground colors and I'm going to yarn over keeping that tail again to the back side of my work pull through those last two Loops just like that now we can count we have 1 2 3 4 five six stitches in our foreground color so let's jump into that 1 2 3 3 4 5 and six and I know you're going to ask me Tony how do I keep my yarn from getting tangled I don't know I've never been able to figure it out if you know somebody who does know you please tell me because it just be it's just going to be Tangled it's going to happen and occasionally you stop and you untangle okay that's the strategy so now we have switched to our background color again and we've got 1 2 3 4 five six seven stitches 1 2 3 4 5 six 7 bring that then to the back of my work going to yarn over with my next bobin of my foreground color keeping that tail to the back pull through and I've got 1 2 3 4 five six seven stitches here we go one 2 3 4 5 6 seven stitches keep on going we're going to grab our next background color bobbin yarn over pull through and we've got three stitches to make just one 2 three right in the middle of that K there you get out the way so again pulling that two the back of the work we're g to grab our next foreground color pull through and we've got 1 2 3 4 five six seven stitches so here's one 2 3 4 5 6 and 7 pulling that again to the back and we're going to grab our last background bobin pull through and we should end up with two stitches on the end fingers crossed here's one and two not too much of a gamble we did great okay let's move on to row five but before we do that I'm just going to mark off row four here to remind myself that I did it and I'm going to move my magnet up I do love these little chart Keepers they really do help a lot with maintaining exactly where you are okay especially because this tabletop is going to get real wild real quick so now we're ready for row five I'm going to chain one and turn my work and I've got three stitches that I need to work in my background color but I want to do something a little bit different as I transition from the same color to the next color so here's my first color my first Stitch now my next Stitch usually I would put that in the top two Loops of this Stitch but what that's going to do is leave these bars here and it just ends up looking really choppy so instead I'm going to work this stitch in the space between stitches so I'm going to keep this green bar on this side of my hook and this tan bar on this side so I'm going into that space between stitches and that just makes that color change a little bit cleaner don't worry I'm going to show you that a few more times so that was my first two green stitches and here's my last one and I can get that bobbin out of the way and grab the next one just going to pull this over here and grab my tan color yarn over and pull through just tighten everything down a little bit so I have 1 2 3 4 5 six of my tan color here's 1 2 3 4 five and again I'm transitioning between colors so I'm going to work in between these stitches and what I'm essentially doing is working into the space between this tan bar and this green bar so right down into that space pull up the loop and I will complete the Stitch with my next bobin because it's time to change color and that bobbin is here underneath all of this mess I'm not going to bother with that right now and pull through I have three stitches here in my green color in my background color so here's one two and again we're transitioning from a green to a tan so I'm going to go down into this space so I'm just splitting where this green and this tan bar are just to make the color changes a little bit smoother so now I can drop that Bob in grab the next one which is right here and complete the Stitch now I like to in my head say that this color change is top of the same so that means that I'm going to go from working into a tan Stitch and I'm going to end working into a tan Stitch and then do my color change but if if you just want to count it's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 it's just easier for me to remember top of the same inside of my head so I'm working the same color into the same color remember we're working on the right side of our work so we're dropping our color changes to the back so again not going into this space here instead going in between right here I can drop that grab my next color let me get this tail out of the way pull up that Loop and complete that Stitch lovely so now that's the two bottoms of my K here I have 1 2 3 4 five six in green so here's one 2 3 give me some more 4 five and six change to my next bobin there we go and now I have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine stitches so here we go one 2 3 4 5 6 oh now I'm at a transition so here's 7 8 and 9 and now I can grab my last background color right here yarn over pull through and I should have one two 3 four five stitches left let's see if I did this right one 2 3 yay four and five lovely so we can see that by using that little trick at the transitions we're going to have just cleaner color changes it's one of the challenges I know most of us have with inaria crochet is that the color changes are really Jagged so with this technique it should make them a little bit smoother in most places okay so I'm going to reset my mess here it will come back and do row six together with row five now complete I'm going to mark it off and I'm also going to move my work up now remember with our even rows we're working from left to right and this is the back side of our work now with that little trick I was showing you to work between stitches in the color change that's only for the right side of the work there is no um no mirrored technique here on the backside to accomplish that we'll just do that on the front so on the back we're just doing regular old color changes so working from left to right we have four stitches in green here so I need to start with my chain one and work four stitches one 2 3 and four going to bring that to the back of the work get that out the way I can grab my next bobin right here and pull through now since I have a stitch in between here I'm going to work over this strand to catch that float just like that okay and I have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 stitches so there's one here's 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 here's 10 and 11 moving this out of my way don't work with the Tails work with the bobin don't ask me how I know also a long story 1 2 3 4 5 six in green one 2 3 4 5 and six bringing the green out the way grabbing my next bobin yarn over pull through then I have 1 2 3 4 5 okay oh we're grooving now grabbing the next bobin well we were okay here we go now once again we have a stitch here so we're going to work over this float and we have 1 2 three stitches to do so here's one 2 3 move that out the way next bobin is here pull through working over that float just catch it and we have 1 2 3 4 5 six stitches so that was one here's two 3 four five and six move that out the way and then with our last bobin we'll yarn over and we should have 1 2 3 four stitches to go working over that float for one here's two 3 and four and complete so now we can mark off row six and move this on up I'm going to reset my situation here meet me back here for row seven moving right into row seven we start with 1 2 3 3 four five stitches in our background color oh we also need to chain one first and then work five stitches one 2 three here we are transitioning between colors so we're going to grab in between that tan and green here there we go so that's 1 2 3 4 One More makes five we'll move that out the way and grab our tan then we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 and 10an so here's 1 2 3 4 working in between here's five and six next bobin working the front is just so dang on easy we only have two stitches here so there's one and two next bobin and we've got 1 2 3 4 so here's 1 2 3 and four background color next and we've got 1 2 3 4 5 6 remember we're transitioning between colors here so we're going to start here with one two 3 4 five and six next bobin it's here pull through transitioning between colors so our very first Stitch is going down into this space right between there so there's one and we have four and then we've got a color change so there's one two three four so I'm going to move this bobin out of the way I need to grab another green bobin so I'm going to grab a fresh one for this fresh color change start pulling that from the center and we have three stitches in green leaving a long enough tail to weave in later pull through and complete three stitches in green 1 2 3 move that out the the way we also need a fresh bobbin of our tan color we're getting bobbin crazy over here yarn over pull through and we have 1 2 3 4 five six stitches in tan 1 2 3 4 here's five add a transition five and six and now we've got our last bit here and there should be three stitches one two three so at this point we're kind of starting to see the vision right we've got the base of our cave we've got the beginning of our o and you're getting the gist of it we're just continuing that up working in single crochet changing color as marked in the chart and trying our best to grab between stitches so we can have some cleaner transitions here between our color changes is so I'm going to continue working my chart I want you to go all the way through row 17 so all the way through all of your letters join me back here and we'll take a look together make sure we're on the same page hello and welcome back doll fa okay so I continued working on my block and I just finished row 17 and after row 17 there are no more black squares so I just went ahead and fastened off all of my bobbins because I'm done with those and now I can move into row eight but I just wanted to give you a peek at what this looks like now of course with inar your crochet it's nearly impossible to get like perfectly crisp edges but I think with that cute little trick that we did on the right side we've got some pretty clean lines going on here compared to what it could look like otherwise right so I just wanted you to have a peek at that I also wanted to show you what the back looks like so these are all the Tails from when we added in our new skes of yarn but if we weave these Tails into like colors you're going to get a backside of this that actually looks pretty good it's not going to be completely reversible but it's not going to have a bunch of Tails and floats all over the place that your little fingers and toes can get stuck in okay so all we need to do now is finish out our chart and if we look at Row 18 19 and 20 there are no black squares in those so we're just going to single crochet all the way across so I'm going to finish those three rows we'll come back and wrap things up all righty darling just a couple stitches left and I have to say this Swatch has me like re-evaluating my life because now I'm wondering why I was so nervous about even trying this type of color work because this is new for me too but you know what I think we ate baby I think we did it I don't know about you and I don't know about yours but mine looks pretty darn good I'm really really happy with these lines that we created it clearly looks like an o and a k I'm going to have to like get this Frame put this above my office uh computer for the really rough days maybe I'll put one in my in my bathroom I put one in the kitchen because I think they going to put me on macaroni and cheese for Thanksgiving Lord help me but that is inaria crochet not as scary as you thought huh you got a lot of ends to weave in but you know what worth it and let's not worry about that right now let's not okay because you did a fantastic job and I'm very curious what do you think about this technique where you're able to grasp it are you like no I'm going to just go back to my stranded I don't need this kind of headache did it alleviate some of the concerns you had about doing Color Work does it make you excited to try other charted crochet projects I want to hear everything let's have a whole conversation down in the comments because I think for all of this work we need to at least talk about it amongst ourselves okay but until the next tutorial I hope you really enjoyed this hit that like button and subscribe to the channel cuz I do stuff like this all the time but I will see you in the next one babes have a fabulous day bye