Front Post Double Crochet Colorwork

Hi, I'm Brenda K.B. Anderson and in this video, I'm going to show you how to work in front post double crochet while working from a colored chart. We're going to talk about how to work a chart in general and I'm going to show you how to make the stitches and how to change your colors to make nice clean color work. So let's get started. So, this is a swatch made from the this color chart here, and we're just going to be working one repeat, which would be about this much for the sample, just so I can show you how all the stitches play together and how to change your colors and all that.

But I'm going to be adding three stitches in front of the chart and three stitches at the end of the chart, because we're gonna be cutting, cutting through our swatch to open it up. This stitch pattern is worked in the round so that means that all of your rounds are going to be right side facing. You're never going to be turning your work to work across the opposite way. So, that is why I need to slice it open in order for you to see it because I'm going to be creating it into a small tube. So, we're going to begin by making a crochet chain that is 12 stitches.

You can see the stitches are numbered down here. So we're gonna do 12 stitches. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. And then we're going to add three stitches for a border over here and three stitches for border over there so, that's a total of six more chains. One, two, three, four, five, six.

And if you want to, at this point, you can just start working in the round by working into that first chain that you made. I prefer to begin working in the round by actually doing one row first. And the reason that I do that is so I can work into the bottom bump of the chain, which I find easier to get my hook inside, into. And the other reason, when you work into the bottom of the chain, than what you see on the edge are these nice V-stitches and it matches what the top edge of your piece is going to be. So we're going to begin working double crochets, so that's yarn over.

I'm going to skip that turning chain that I made and begin working in the second chain. And I only made one turning chain, I should say. Normally, when you make a double crochet stitch, you want to do at least two turning chains, if not three. I only did one because we're going to be working in the round and that can kind of smooth out your join. It doesn't really matter that much for this swatch 'cause we're going to be cutting it anyway, but that's how I normally start working in the round with the taller stitches.

All right, so we're gonna do double crochets all the way across. And we've reached her last double crochet. Yarn over, insert hook. Yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, pull through two. And now we're gonna begin working in the round.

So we just bring the beginning right next to the end and hold it like that. Then we're gonna add our contrasting color. We're gonna lay it right down on top here. And we're going to start by working around the post of this double crochet in a front post double crochet stitch, and I'll show you that in a second. But when you do that, you're also going to be working in front of the blue, the blue yarn there, you don't have to, you can't encase it because normally when you do, like, tapestry crochet or other, where you have to carry a yarn, you carry it on top and then you encase it as you go.

But with double crochet, because you're going around the post, you're not actually encasing that stitch. We're just gonna hold it up here so we have it for when we make our color change. So we yarn over, insert our hook around the back, yarn over, pull up a loop, pull through two, pull through two. Now these are just the three double crochets at the beginning that are not on the chart and then we're going to switch to blue. Pull through two.

And on that last one, we are going to change to the blue and pull through two. And as you work, you're going to let this, this strand lay to the back of your work and you are going to continue with the blue. So we're going to do three blue, two white, two blue, two white, three blue. Make sure that yarn that you're not using is hanging at the back. And we're going to insert your hook around the post, yarn over, pull up, yarn over, pull through two, pull through two.

This loop got a little stretched out so I'm just gonna pull on it a little bit from the beginning. Yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull through two, pull through two. Here's the third one. And then, actually, we're going to hold back on that last yarn over 'cause we're changing color and we're gonna drop the blue and pick up the white. And when you pick up the white, you want to make sure, because it's coming from over here, you want to make sure that you're not pulling it too tightly because that's gonna pucker your work.

You also want to make sure that it's not just super loose and sloppy back here because you don't want to have a bunch of loops hanging off the back of your work. This is actually what it looks like on the back. See, there's all these little floats that connect between them. And that's okay. Every once in a while, when you have, when you're pulling your float a lot further like this float, you can catch it with the other color and I'll show you that in a minute when we get to that, but this is what the back of it should look like.

You shouldn't have a bunch of loops hanging down and you shouldn't have pieces of this pulling it too tight. So we're going to yarn over, pull through, and this is... after you pull it through, that's a good time to just check and make sure that that strand is not too tight and not too loose. And now we're gonna do two stitches in white. And hold back on that last loop.

Pick up the blue, yarn over with that. We're doing two blue stitches. Hold back on that last yarn over. We're holding back on the last yarn over 'cause we're changing. Yarn over with the new color and we'll do three.

One, two, three. So we have three blue, two white, two blue, two white, three blue here. And we should change back to the white. I should have done that in my last yarn over. There we go.

And actually, it looks like there's only two stitches left here. That is because I must have chained one fewer chain than I needed to, but that doesn't matter for this project. We're gonna keep going because we're just cutting through these stitches anyway. There should have been one more chain that I, I mean, I told you the correct amount of chains that I wanted to chain, but I must've changed one chain less than that. Otherwise we would have ended up with three more white stitches left, but for the purposes of this sample, we're just gonna keep going and we'll just have five stitches across the back.

Two over here and three over here. And that is totally okay. All right, so we'll yarn over, stitch into the next two, one... Whoop that, that got a little loose. I'm gonna tighten that up.

One and two. And now we're gonna start at the beginning. We're going to do the three. One. Two.

Three. And again, we have blue that starts right above this blue. So we'll yarn over with blue. We'll switch back to white. Do three white stitches.

And I should have held back on that last one. So I'm going to slide my hook back in here so I can undo that last and pull up the blue. We're just continuing to stitch across, making that last yarn over in the new color right before color change. So here we have, whoops. We've got three more white stitches, one, two, three.

And then we'll change to blue. And then we'll change back to white. All right, and now we're working on round three. I'm gonna move my marker up a little. Whenever you're working from a color chart, it's best to cover up what's happening, what you haven't gotten to yet and leave open what you've already done because that's a lot easier to tell where your place, where you should be, how your stitches relate to the previous round.

All right. So, and as you're working, in order to keep your yarns from tangling, you will always be bringing your yarns to the back of your work onto the wrong side when you're not using them, but you can bring them back like this. You can bring them back like this. You can, if you find that your yarn is twisting up, then you need to take a look at it and untwist it as you go by twisting your yarn in the opposite direction. So, when I'm working or in order to avoid doing that, avoid getting it twisted, if you always put your, the lighter color down in front, I mean, it's still at the back of your work, but it's in front of this strand and you always put the darker color down in back of the strand, then it won't get twisted.

All right, we're working right here. We have one more of the darker color and then we're going to do four of the lighter color. So, because we're doing four, four is probably okay to strand it across just like we have been and not catch that float. The float is just the strand that you're not working, coming across the back, but I'm going to show you how to catch the float because, you know, if you're making something like a mitten or hat or something where you're going to, it might get snagged or caught on something, if it's a garment or sweater, you're gonna want to catch those floats so that there isn't a big, long loop that you could stick your finger in. So, accidentally stick your finger in.

So, we've worked the first stitch, we'll work the second stitch, then we'll catch the yarn, the non-working yarn on the third stitch. So we have the first stitch in white, the second stitch in white and the third stitch, we're going to yarn over, insert your hook, and then you're going to twist the... you can set the one that you're using down and then pick this strand that you're not using and flip it over that one so that you've twisted the yarn on purpose right there. I'm gonna show you that one more time. So you have, we're trying to catch this float.

When we bring it across the back, we don't want it to be super long. So we're going to, we're gonna yarn over, insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop. Oops, let me back up, yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, and then you can pull through those two and then you're gonna twist it around. So set that down and pick it up. So we're twisting that, twisting one color around the other, and then you can yarn over and finish it.

And so what we did there, we just caught it in that stitch that we made. So let's just, let me show you that again. So we'll yarn over, insert our hook underneath that stitch, yarn over, pull up a loop, pull through two, and then you're going to stop in the middle of your front post double crochet. And you're gonna twist these two around each other. So you're going to set that down, set that down and pick it up.

So you've caught that, the dark blue yarn, and then you're going to finish your front post double crochet by doing a yarn over and pulling it through. We'll do the next front post double crochet here. Oops. And we're going to be changing to blue. So we're going to pick that up for that last yarn over.

And we'll take a look at the back. So you can see, we caught our blue strand right here, right there, this little twist right here. So we have blue on this side and blue on this side and we caught it there. It doesn't matter so much for only four stitches. You could probably bring it across those four stitches, but I wanted to show you how to do it in case you don't like the long floats back there, or if you're doing more than four stitches.

So, I would say maybe every three stitches seems like a good amount to carry your yarn but if it's more than that, you should probably catch the yarn in the back. Just depending on what your gauge is, how thick your yarn is, what it's gonna be used for and personal preference. So we're going to do the next two in blue. Holding back on that last one for the color change, yarn over and the next one in white. And blue.

And we're gonna change to white at the very end here. So now we've completed round three of our chart, one, two, and three. And you will just continue working the chart, making your color changes on that last yarn over of the previous stitch. Anytime you need to change color, make sure that you catch your floats if you're working more than three stitches in a row and you will continue to work up to the top of the chart. All right, so we have worked, at this point, we have worked through all of our rounds.

We finished round 12 here and I worked a few of the extra, three of the extra stitches at the back. And I'm gonna fasten off my yarn so we can take a look at what this is when it's cut open. So fasten off and we'll cut through. And if you're making your own project, you, you know, you normally wouldn't cut through a piece like this. You would have to stabilize it first if you wanted to do it in this style.

You know, otherwise it's gonna fray. You'll see what happens when I cut it. But I'm just going to cut between these two rows here. And open it up. Oops, I missed a couple little pieces.

You can see all those floats on the back, stranding across from one to the other. And here it is on the front. That's what it looks like, looks like our chart. One of the things that I particularly like about this stitch pattern is it has a little bit of give and a little stretchiness. It's a little bit more flexible than some of the other color work stitch patterns.

And also, all of your stitches are stacked straight up and they don't veer off to the side, like some other kinds of color work do. So, this is just a great stitch pattern to know how to do, if you enjoy working in color work. And I hope you have enjoyed learning how to work from a chart in front post double crochet.