How to Crochet Better Color Changes

The Top Loop
This is the top of the single crochet. It is made first, by pulling through the two loops from the previous stitch with a new loop. Often this is thought as finishing up a single crochet, but you can think of it as starting a new stitch as well. The top loop can be any one solid color.

The "V"
This is the V like formation seen from the front of the stitch. This is made secondly for a single crochet and can be made a different color than the top loop.

The Back Loop
This is the horizontal bar on the back side of the single crochet below the top loop. Normally you don’t see this part of the stitch when making amigurumi because you usually don’t turn. The back loop is always the same color as the V and is made simultaneously.

Now let’s look at how each one of these parts of a stitch performs after working a few Rnds of stitches. I’m making the tops of these 3 stitches shades of purple and the bottoms of the stitches (the V and back loops) different shades of green. I’ll continue to make the same color changes in the exact same spots in the next round to look at how the stitches change positions and what they look like.

Okay I’ve finished a few more rounds. Let’s look at what happened to our stitches.
The first thing to notice is the stitches are pulled to the right. As we continue making rounds you’ll notice more and more that stitches kind of veer off to the right. The amount that it moves over depends on your gauge, but it’s usually around one whole stitch over every 3 Rounds.

There’s not a whole lot you can do about this other than using a different stitch, like the Split Single Crochet Stitch, with comes with its own drawbacks.

The best way I’ve found to combat this is to work with it, anticipating it moving slightly over to make better angels in my color changes. And if you want a better vertical line, try moving the color change over one stitch to the left every 3 Rounds. It won’t be perfect but it’s not too bad.

Now let’s look closer. The stitches top loop sits between two V stitches, the one from the next Rnd that is worked into the same top loop were looking at, and the next stitch in the next Rnd. This means that while the stitch as a whole is being pulled slightly to the right, the top of the stitch is moving slightly to the left.

This is important to know; let’s say you’re trying to make a circle with color changes. To get a defined top of the circle, try making half color changes before you start the full color stitches in the circle. Because the tops of the stitches get pulled slightly left, you can add one full color stitch more than you have half color stitches in the round before and get a more round top to your circle. Using this top loop correctly can be tricky and seem insignificant, but make a big difference in the end.

The top loop can be really beneficial for making a solid line between Rnds too, this is something that I talked about in a lot of detail in my tutorial for making the perfect stripes.

If you want an even more defined line of color change try working in the back loops only of the stitches. This will leave a solid bar between rounds. The only problem with this is that it will show this little spike of color. I’ve used this to my advantage though with things like my Piranha Plant pattern, whereby working into the back loops only it creates little spikes white teeth!