Sewing in the Ends

When making any crocheting project there is usually always a "tail" to be sewn into the project. This happens often with graphgans because of the colour change. They are really easy to sew in and once you cut away the extra bits of yarn you can not even notice where you sewed in the tails. Sewing in tails helps make the project more professional looking than just tying a knot and it secures the end. This makes sure your project will not unravel.

This is a picture of a graphgan I made. As you can see with each colour change, I left a long tail to sew in.

Sewing in the tails is an easy process, you have to threat a needle with the ends. (Most people like a tapestry needle for this but anyone you're comfortable with will do.) Next to want to sew them through two or three stitches in your project.

You want to make sure you go side to side a total of three times. This "locks" it in place, because your work can not go in both directions at the same time. 

You may notice holes in your work where the colour change happened, sometimes this happens because the yarn isn't the same, sometimes this happens because the tails weren't pulled tight. If you find the holes are two big you can always sew the parts together while hiding the tails. This will cause the project to become tighter. 

Once all the ends are sewn in, you can cut away any excess, you should have a clean and crisp looking final project. It is important to make sure you are sewing the ends into the making colour. (In the example above, the yellow got sewn into the yellow stitches and the blue into the blue stitches.) 

This video is a good visual aid to help out with sewing in the ends.

Graphgans

What is a graphgan?
A graphgan is an Afghan that is made using a graphing pattern.

What is a graphing pattern?
A graphing pattern is a picture that has been made into a graph. A graph is a bunch of boxes over a picture in a grid-line form to symbolize stitches.

How do you read graphs?
Some graphs have written instructions. Some do not. When looking at the graph, each square represents one stitch.

What stitch should be done with graphgans?
Most graphgans use single crochets, half double crochets or tunisian crocheting.

How do you change colours?
There are a few ways to change colours on a project. These can be very complicated and stressful sometimes so here will be a post dedicated to how to change colours.

How do you start a graphgan?
Graphgans start the same way any other crocheting project starts, by chaining. (Most graphgans are 150 chains by 200 rows).

Do you have to follow the graph?
You don't have to however I suggest you do for the first few graphs you try until you become comfortable with the way they work.

How do you finish a graphgan?
You finish the graphgan the same way you finish any other project by pulling a long tail through the last stitch.

What is the most important thing to remember when making a graphgan?
The most important thing to remember is to count your stitches. This is especially important when you're just starting to learn how to make graphgrans. You stitch count should always equal the same number as your starting chain. (For example: If you start with a chain of 150 every row from start to finish should have 150 stitches.) If at some point you have more than what you started with you can always do a decrease by one, where needed. (It is rare you will lose a stitch, most often you gain one; this is usually because the colour change is done incorrectly.)

What can be made into a graphgan pattern?
Any picture can be make into a graph.

On the left is the original picture I used for my project. On the right is what the graph will look like that I need to follow to make the graphgan. 

Crochet Stitches (Symbols)

This chat was found of Facebook and illustrates the symbols a pattern could call for.

Skin Colour Yarns

Some projects whether it be knitting, crocheting, cross stitching, etc; require exact colours. This often is when doing portraits of people, or characters. It is not always easy picking the right colour for a project, often times picking yarn is like picking a crayon out of the box, there are all kinds of different shades of certain colours and it can be hard to pick the perfect one. The following image was found on facebook to help with picking skin tone yarns.