Yarn-over vs Yarn-under

Have you ever heard of a yarn under or a yarn over? So yarn under versus yarn over, those are two different ways of treating your hook and your yarn when you're creating a stitch. This is something that you may have come across if you're interested in making amigurumi, because especially lately I've noticed lots of amigurumi makers really enjoy doing a yarn under and they feel like it improves their project. For me personally, I am an amigurumi designer and I've been making amigurumi for a very long time. I usually just do a yarn over, but, um, but I do see the merits of doing the yarn under.

So we're going to discuss both those things in this video and why you can care or you can choose not to care about it. All right, so when you're doing these stitches, usually amigurumi is made by making single crochets for the most part. And when you're making amigurumi, you need to concentrate on making your your fabric very firm. It really helps your project out because first of all, you don't want to see your stuffing coming through. Second of all, it gives it that extra structure and it's just easier to make it take its shape once you stuff it.

Uh, if you are creating a very um stiff, firm, thick fabric. OK, so when you're, when you're stitching along, if you're making a regular single crochet, the yarn over way, which is just the standard way, you would insert your hook into the stitch, and then you would wrap your yarn over your hook. OK? So your yarn really comes from the back of your hook over the top, and then you pull that through, make a loop. Yarn over and you pull through two.

OK, we'll do that just a couple more times. So just really slow mo because you guys, this is one of those things that you get that muscle memory and you don't even realize that you're doing it. So if you want to go ahead, pull out a project and you can stitch along with me to really see what the difference is. OK, so let's do another stitch. We're gonna insert, yarn over.

See how it's crossing over in front of the hook. You're gonna pull it up and you're gonna yarn over, and then you're gonna pull through two stitches. Now if you want to do a yarn under, you can insert your hook, and instead of wrapping your yarn this way, you can just grab that yarn like this, pull up a loop, and then, if you want to yarn under a second time, you can grab that yarn and pull it through to here. So that twists your stitch a little bit, just ever so slightly. And this generally makes your stitches a little bit shorter than if you do the yarn over way.

So there are different combinations that people use, and I, I have seen different people using both two yarn unders at the same time, or one yarn over and one yarn under, or one yarn under and one yarn over because you're, you're using some form of getting your yarn across your hook twice when you're working those single crochets. So, normally, again, we are making those yarn overs like this, and you're wrapping it over your hook. But if you're doing a yarn under, some people will go inside, then they'll grab that yarn from this direction here, and then they'll do a yarn over this way. OK. And that makes your, they, you know, when you do that yarn under, your loop isn't going quite as far, so it has a tendency to squish your stitch just a little bit.

So let me show you that one more time. So, insert, we're yarning over the regular way, pulling up a loop, and then yarning under this way. So, the other method. is where you insert your hook and you're just putting your hook on top of that yarn and pulling it through and then you're pulling, you're, you're doing a yarn under here to pull through, OK? So insert, just grabbing that yarn and then grabbing, you know, you're putting your hook behind and pulling through.

So you can see what. Difference this makes if you do a couple of swatches, and then you see, you can already see this is a little bit shorter where I started doing all of these yarn unders than over here, where it was just a little bit taller. So yarn under, yarn under. Yarn under, yarn under. Yarn under.

See, I have to say it out loud or I can't make my hands do what I'm thinking. It's a little tricky, especially when you get that muscle memory and you, your, your body just wants to do it the way that you're, nor you know, you know, you normally do, um, and you may not, this may not have ever occurred to you to that There's different ways to place your yarn over or under your hook. So I feel like probably the most, you know, the most common way is to do two yarn overs, so this way and this way. And then I think that the next most common is to go yarn over and then do a final yarn under, like that, yarn over, yarn under. Um, but I mean, I can't tell.

I'm just looking at what other, other Amigurumi makers are doing, um, and trying to assess who's doing what, but you can just go ahead and, you know, check it out for yourself, do some swatches, see if it makes a difference for you, see if it's actually making your stitches a little bit more, um, tight and a little bit shorter to do it one way versus the other, um. I just want to show you the difference that it makes here. So here I have my two little cactus friends, my little volunteers. So one of these is yarn over, yarn over, and then the other one is yarn over, let's see, yarn over, yarn under. So this is yarn over, then a yarn under.

This is two yarn overs, like the standard way. So you can see what's happening here with the pots. This is just a tiny, tiny bit taller. Let me just, well, I'm gonna unpot these plants here. We'll pull the little dirt out of the pots.

So you can see just a little better here, there is a slight difference in the shape. They're about the same size, you know, I stitched them up both myself in the same sitting. Um, and so I think my tension was fairly consistent throughout. Really the only difference here is that I was using a yarn under on this one and this one was yarn over. So it's squishing my stitches down a little bit.

It is making them feel just a tiny bit tighter than this, but for me, because I've made lots of Amigurumi and I have no trouble making my gauge nice and tight, I normally just use my regular D. fault for single crochet. I don't normally use the yarn unders. For me, this was an interesting experiment and I definitely see the validity in it, especially for some stitches. It probably does improve their projects, especially if they're having a hard time getting that tension nice and tight, or maybe it's for, you know, maybe it's better on their wrists or their hands to do the yarn under versus the yarn over, so that's just another thing to think about as well.

I just wanted to make this video for you so that you could try out all these different ways of yarn undering and yarn overing and see what you like. And I do just want you to keep in mind that it may change your project just ever so slightly to change up the way that you're looping your yarn over your hook. And for something beyond Amigurumi or something other than Amigurumi, I would just default to doing your yarn overs instead of yarn unders unless there's a particular reason. I know for some people when they do color work they really like to do yarn unders as well. So that's another area that you could do some experimenting to see if that improves, um, the clarity of your color work.

Uh, that's something to think about. But for most stitches I would not just kind of go substituting yarn unders for yarn overs everywhere because it might start to change the look of your more involved stitches. Um, and that might have, you know, cause you to not be able to get the same gauge as the designer for some reason, or, you know, there may be other complications as well. But as far as the world of Amigurumi, you can absolutely just, you know, use whatever combination works for you and get you a fabric that you like as long as you're getting a fabric that you like, it's behaving well, you're able to follow a pattern or make up your own, then you're doing it right. That's the way you should be doing it.

Thanks so much for watching. I hope this is interesting for you and I hope you try out some different ways to crochet. Thank you.