Full-Row Colorwork Using Tunisian Simple Stitch

Hi, all! Mary Beth Temple here, talking about one of my favorite techniques, Tunisian crochet. Now, a lot of people learn Tunisian, and all they learn at first is the simple stitch, and they feel like there's not a lot that they can do with the simple stitch. But I'm here to tell you that you can change colors on your forward or return passes and get stripes or beautiful tweedy effects, and it doesn't change the stitching at all. It's still really easy to do.

So let's take a look at some full row colorwork in Tunisian simple stitch. I have a little two-color swatch going on here, but the first thing I want to talk about is making a stripe. And to make a stripe, all you're going to do is do your Tunisian simple stitch. The forward pass and the return pass is always going to be in the same color. So that's how you would do a stripe, and you can adjust the height of your stripes, of course, by adding or subtracting rows.

So that's the first colorwork thing I want to talk about. Now, I'm working in simple stitch. If you don't know how to do the Tunisian simple stitch or start a project, we have some other videos that you can learn that. And then I'm gonna come to the end and go under my two strands, and then here is my regular return. Yarn over pull through one or chain one, yarn over draw through two...

All the way 'til the end, 'til I only have one working loop on my hook. So there is the beginning of my stripe, right here, that blue row, because the forward and return pass are the same color. Now, to do this two-color colorwork that I wanted to show you, and again, this is full row colorwork, so you're changing the yarn colors at the beginning and the end of the row. You're not doing anything fancy in the middle. That's intarsia, and that's a different skill.

So I'm going to go forward in one color. Let's call this A, because that's the color that was hanging out. So I'm gonna go forward in A. And now here's where it gets a little different. So I finished my forward pass in my A color.

Now I'm going to do my return pass in my B color. And to join the yarn, we only have to join it that one time. After that, you're just using yarn as it's waiting for you I'm just gonna pull up a fold four to six inches in from the end, and leave the tail hang, I can weave that in later. I don't like to tie knots in my work. So there's my chain one, or my yarn overdraw through one.

So I'm returning in B. Now, for the two color colorwork, you are only changing colors on the left hand side of the work. So I have returned in B. There's no yarn over here waiting for me, because I'm only changing my colors on the left-hand side. So I'm going to go forward in B.

So I'm here, I'm finishing my forward pass in B. So I know on my two color colorwork I'm going to change on the left-hand side. I'm going to drop my B color, because I know I need to change it, and I'm gonna grab my A color. 'cause it's right here waiting for me. So I'm gonna return in A.

Once again, there's no yarn over here waiting for me, so I know I'm not going to change there, I'm going to go forward in A. So let's take a look at what that looks like. There's my little stripe, right? So I'm talking about actions, I'm talking about passes, I'm not talking about rows, because remember that each row of Tunisian has two parts, the forward pass and the return pass. So to make a stripe, the forward pass and the return pass of a single row are the same color.

That gives you a stripe. For two color work, the forward pass and the return pass are not the same color, but you're doing two actions in each color. So forward in A, return in B, my second action is forward in B. Drop that yarn, return in A, forward in A. That was two passes, but they weren't passes on the same row.

I hope that makes sense to you. But if you look really closely here, what you get is this sort of tweed effect, and you can see that the vertical bars alternate color in the fabric, as well as the material that's between the vertical bars. It's going to alternate colors, and it's going to do that just by that yarn placement. Now, what would happen if I wanted to add a third color? For three color colorwork, we only do one pass per color.

One pass per color, not two. So we would go forward in A, return in B. Forward in C, return in A. Forward in B, return in C, and I'm back to A. so let's take a look and see what that looks like.

So I'm going forward in A. And then I'm going to return in B. And now I'm going to go forward in C. What I like to do is do my last yarn over in the new color. It just makes the edging a little neater.

It's not an emergency, it's not a deal breaker, but it is one of those little details that makes your work nicer. So I'm dropping B, and then I'm going to go forward in C. And once again, I joined it on the last yarn over of the previous row, and I just pulled up a fold four to six inches in from the end, and I'm gonna leave that tail to hang, and I'll tighten it up when I weave in my ends. So now I'm going forward in C. So remember, one pass per color, A, B, C.

So for three color, I'm going to remember that I'm changing colors at every pass. So I know I'm going to drop my C color. And I might try and remember ABC, ABC, ABC, but honestly, once I drop that yarn, A is the only color that's waiting for me. So you don't have to really think about what color to go to next, because the next color that you want is going to be the only color that's hanging out, waiting for you to pick it up. So I'm going to return in A.

Once again, I have one yarn over left. I'm going to drop my A color, and the only color that's waiting for me is B, so I know that B is going to be next. So again, if you're working along and you can't remember what's A, what's B, what's C, in this technique, since you know you're changing colors every pass, you know that you're going to drop the color that's in your hand, and you're going to pick up the only one that's waiting for you. So that's the only thing there is to know about this full row three color simple stitch. Now, both the two color and the three color variations only work in simple stitch.

They do not work in Tunisian knit or Tunisian purl, because of the way the fabric is constructed. So this sort of tweedy colorwork thing, you're only going to do that if you're working in simple stitch. All right, I'm dropping B. The only one that's waiting for me is C, so I know that's the one I'm gonna use. And also, I'm floating these colors up on the side.

I'm certainly not cutting them off and trying to weave in ends, because it's such a minuscule amount of inches that the yarn colors have to travel. It's definitely worth it to float them and not to cut and weave in ends. So let's take a look and see what that looks like. So once again, here's our stripe forward and return in the same color. Here's our two color.

Two actions in each color after the first one. The first action is where you're going to set up. And then here is my three color. I've added my gray and you get, really, a super tweedy sort of a look. Only one action per color.

Let's take a look at the wrong side of the work. On the wrong side of work for all of these techniques, we get stripes. So it doesn't look the same on the back as it does on the front, but it certainly doesn't look terrible. So that's what I wanted to show you about full row colorwork. So now you know you can get all kinds of beautiful colorful effects on your fabric, even if the Tunisian simple stitch is the only one you want to make.

I also neglected to mention and want to point out, if you use a multicolored yarn for either your A color or your B color, you get a really beautiful look, because you have the solid and then you have that repeating color. Gives you a really, really interesting fabric, and is a great way to try out some new yarns. So I'm Mary Beth Temple. Thank you for joining me for another Tunisian class, my favorite technique. I'll see you around here real soon.

Thanks for joining me.