Hue Shift Afghan Tips & Tricks

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I just finished knitting my second Hue Shift Afghan I’m excited to share some tips and tricks with you. My first attempt at a Hue Shift took me five years! I knitted the pastel version and it quickly became my husband’s favorite blanket and he requested one that didn’t look like it belonged in a nursery, so I made this one using the jewel toned color palette. This one only took me three years, so I’m proud of my progress!

I thought I’d throw together a little FAQ on this pattern to help any other knitters who are inspired to make one of these beautiful blankets in much less time than it took me.

How Long Does it Take to Knit a Hue Shift Afghan?

Wait, does this project really take a few years to knit?? No! I am in a Facebook group full of Knit Picks fans and I’ve met knitters who have made dozens of these and they swear they can do it a month or two if they are focused on the project. Mine took so long to knit because I kept getting distracted by other projects. Of course, I have no idea how many hours a day these people knit, but I’d guess that if you sat down to work on your Hue Shift daily and you don’t work on other projects, it’s totally do-able in a couple of months. (This is a great “TV knitting” project!)

What Colors Should I Choose For a Hue Shift Afghan?

The Afghan calls for ten colors to knit all the squares and then you’ll want another color for the border. You want to put a lot of thought into what colors you use and how you arrange them because the colors shift in a really lovely way and you want to be intentional about the flow.

Luckily, Knit Picks has already coordinated some color palettes which is super helpful! I knitted both of my Hue Shifts using their kit-builder and it saved my sanity and a little cash, since you get a discount if you buy the yarn & pattern bundled. They have six palettes in Brava Sport and one in Brava Worsted. I once pontificated that I wished I had made my first one out of a “nicer” wool yarn instead of the acrylic, but I have since changed my mind: the Brava is super soft and has held up very well to wear and washing.

If you want to select your own colors, there is a cool color planning tool out there than shows you what they will look like when they are blended together. This tool will ask if you want to make a 6, 8, or 10 color blanket. Mine is a ten color with a center outwards arrangement. If you pick 6 or 8 colors, you would get a smaller blanket, or you can make the squares bigger by casting on more stitches or using a heavier weight yarn. I suck at color theory, so here is a very non-creative screenshot of the tool in which I mapped out the jewel tone kit colors:

How Much Yarn Do You Need For a Hue Shift Afghan?

If you exactly match your gauge to the pattern specs, you will need one ball of Brava Sport in each square color, then two for the border color – and you will be playing yarn chicken at the end of some of the colors. I played it fast and loose with my gauge and fell a few yards short of colors A, B, and D and had to order more yarn. All said, my jewel tone afghan used about 3,200 yards of Brava Sport. My finished blanket was a 53” square.

Any Tricks to Save Time Weaving in the Ends?

If I could only offer one piece of advice, it would be: don’t wait until the end to weave in your ends!! You’re facing hundreds of them! I took care of the majority of my ends by knitting them in as I worked.

To do this, I had to “cheat” a little whenever I started a new square. Instead of picking up and knitting the stitches, I did a pick up only: I threaded my circular needle through all the existing stitches, then when I added the new color, all the loops from the last square were on my needles already and it was just like knitting a fresh row. When I did this, I could take the tails from the previous square and knit them in as I worked. (If you don’t know how to knit in a yarn tail, here is a photo tutorial – it’s super old, but I think it’s the best one out there.)

The back side looks like this like this:

I left the tails of the woven-in tails long as I worked and then when I finished a section I’d go cut them all off at once. This was a WIP pic so you’re actually seeing what it looked like before I snipped them short. Of course, I wasn’t able to do this with every end piece – there were tails on edge pieces, etc. that still needed to be woven in, but it was much less work than it could have been!!

And… that’s it! My very best tips, tricks, and must-know info about how to knit the Hue Shift Afghan. If you’ve made one of these I’d love to hear how long it took and if you have any tips to add in the comments! I’ve heard that some knitters modify the border to do mitered corners, which sounds neat and I’m sure there are other great mods too. BTW, there is also a free crochet version of this pattern on Knit Pick’s sister site, Crochet.com. So many possibilities!

yarn details

Knit Picks Brava Sport in:
A: Rouge
B: Red
C: Wine
D: Fairy Tale
E: Eggplant
F: Solstice Heather
G: Celestial
H: Marina
I: Grass
J: Dublin
K: Black

Sport Weight
100% Acrylic
Machine Wash & Dry
100 g/340 yd balls

project details

pattern: “Hue Shift Afghan” by Kerin Dimeler- Laurence (available to purchase exclusively on Knit Picks)
needles: US size 6 (4 mm), circular needles – loved my Prisms for this project because the pointy tips made it very easy to pick up stitches.
yarn used: 3176 yards (11.6 balls) – see my Ravelry project page if you desperately need to know the exact yardage of each color
finished size: 53” square
duration: January 2021 – December 2023