Mark the rounds in a crochet work is useful to avoid mistakes, to keep track of work done and see how it’s growing. It also makes it easy to count the rounds!

Safety pins, stitch markers, paper clips, bobby pins… anything can work. But using a tail of contrasting color yarn is definitely the easiest and fastest way to mark your rounds!

Before going into the actual tutorial I’d like to share a few tips:

  • use a contrasting color tail of yarn so it stands out of the crochet fabric.
  • prefer a thinner – or same thickness – thread otherwise you may notice small holes in your work after removing the tail.
  • do not remove the tail of yarn until you’ve completed your work. If you’re making an amigurumi, the marking thread can be useful to count the stitches before securing the safety eyes or to sew pieces in the right place (eg. when a pattern says “place the eyes between the 4th and 5th st of round 6” you can count it easily).
  • you will move the marking thread back and forth, make sure to not catch that thread in your work while crocheting. If it happens, and you notice it, just use the crochet hook to untangle the thread before you go ahead.
How to mark your rounds with a tail of yarn? Here’s the step by step photo tutorial:

come segnare i giri nel lavoro a uncinetto con un filo

1. Use a tail of yarn (thinner and in contrasting color than the working yarn). Place the yarn after the last st of the round.

come segnare i giri nel lavoro a uncinetto con un filo
2. At the end of the next round move the yarn tail from the front to the back.

come segnare i giri nel lavoro a uncinetto con un filo
3. At the end of the following round move the yarn tail from the back to the front. Continue for the following rounds.

come segnare i giri nel lavoro a uncinetto con un filo
4. It looks like a dashed line. Just pull on the end to remove it.

Are you wondering why I love this method?

There’s more than one thing that makes it my favorite way to mark the round in a crochet work.
The running thread is always there and I can count stitches from all the rounds – pretty useful to place amigurumi pieces in the right place.
When I’m crocheting on my sofa the last thing I want to do is stand up to look for a stitch marker. Although I pin them in every single project bag I never have one handy when I need it!
I used this method for some of my patterns (you can see the running thread in the step by step images), because it makes my and your life easier when it comes to seamless amigurumi, like Kimi the Cat!

I hope this little tutorial helped you to get the hang of how to use a simple thread to mark your rounds. There are more tutorials and tips available on my blog, you can see them here.

I hope you liked this free tutorial! Pin it on Pinterest board or save the image below!

how to mark the rounds on crochet with a tail of yarn