Fairisle Knitting: Crochet Method for Weaving in Ends

Finding a good method for weaving in all those loose ends on a fairisle project requires a bit of experimentation.  I've been trying a few methods, and using a crochet slip-stitch seems to be working for me lately, so I thought I'd share my process here:

1. Pull all the ends down towards the cast on edge, to tight them up:

2. Start at the loose end, furthest from the cast-on edge.  Insert a 4.25 (+/- 0.5mm) crochet hook into a float in this area.

3. Grab the next nearest 2 strands of loose ends and crochet slip-stitch them through that first float, leaving a loose loop for the next stitch.  Put those 2 ends aside out of the way.  They’re pointing “Up” in the completed portion of the image below.  Crochet your way down the column, grabbing 2 new strands for each stitch and putting them aside at the end of the stitch.

4. At the end it will look a bit like this.  Pull the ends a bit tighter to make it look like the photo below:

5. Now trim the ends so that they are all roughly 1cm to 1.5cm long:

6.  Now here’s the right side of that seam.  Can you tell where the crochet column of ends were woven in? 

Not me! I like this sleek looking weave-in, and if you remember to do the crochet loosely enough, you’ll still have plenty of elasticity.

The photo above is of the un-blocked mitten, and below are the final blocked mittens.  If you want to make these yourself, you can download my pattern here!