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Sanity Saver: Working Over Your Ends

Apr 4, 2012 by Sarah Read

Any time you have to change colors or join a new yarn to your work, you're creating ends-those pesky detriments to finishing your work quickly, and often the culprit of unfinished objects.

If you're participating in the Meadow Shawl crochet-along, you're staring in the face of 8 colors, 147 motifs, and about 643 yarn ends. In thread. It's almost enough to make even the most masochistic stitcher flee from such a beautiful project. But wait, come back! You don't need to weave in those ends—and I don't mean leaving the back side of the shawl fringed.

Learning how to crochet over your ends is a great way to hide and secure those tails as you go, leaving only light weaving and trimming at the end of your projects, instead of a time and work commitment that can rival the stitching itself. Here's a quick demo, using the motif pattern from the Meadow Shawl as an example.

When you've changed colors, gather the new and old tails, and hold them out in front of your work.
 
Lay the tails along the top of the stitches of the previous row. Insert your hook as you normally would, and pull up a loop. Instead of brushing your ends out of the way, leave them atop the stitches you are working into as you yarn over to make your stitch. This encloses the ends inside the working stitch.
 
Continue to carry the ends along your work, enclosing them in each stitch as you work your new row.
 
You can see that the ends are well hidden, and, when trimmed close to the work, are safe from reveling as well. I recommend working over at least a few inches of the tail, in order to ensure that it is secure inside the work.
 

It's also important to not pull the tails too tightly, or your work may pucker a bit. This technique might not always work for your project (working lacy patterns with teeny yarn and a larger hook complicates the end hiding process regardless of your method), but it should work quite well for most items.

Happy stitching!

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Comments

 
Laurinda3 wrote
on Apr 4, 2012 5:30 PM

After I learned Tapestry crochet, I used to work over all my ends like this. But have learned to still leave a couple inches to weave back in the opposite direction, or all those ends will likely come loose after a couple of washings. Still less weaving in than it would be, but then ends are then much more secure. Perhaps this is not necessary with thread, but I have found thicker yarn, especially with looser sts needs to go in at least 2 directions to stay put. :)

pattyb1 wrote
on Apr 4, 2012 5:41 PM

I do this too when I can & it does save time!!

Bloss90 wrote
on Apr 4, 2012 7:42 PM

That certainly is a sanity saver and a great time saver too!

plopmail wrote
on Apr 9, 2012 11:40 AM

That looks pretty good, but, how do you do the end so it does't show like a spiral?

www.jocurile.us/cat-jocuri-barbie.htm

Lorymw wrote
on Apr 12, 2012 7:27 AM

I agree to that , for it just hit me one day to do it .

How to Crochet wrote
on May 18, 2012 5:15 PM

You know those inevitable little yarn-ball leftovers from all your crochet projects that are not-quite

How to Crochet wrote
on Aug 21, 2012 1:45 AM

I love learning new crochet tips and techniques. Over my years of learning to crochet, I have been fascinated

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