Happy New Year! You're reading issue #56. 
I'm inspired lately by subtle changes I can make in my crocheting so that I can get more rainbows out of yarn. These coin-sized cuties each require 36" or less. (That's 91.4 cm, or nearly 1 meter.)

Would you expect to make buttons, flowers, and 1" squares from 36" lengths of yarn? I did, but kept running out of yarn too soon. I needed to stop wasting inches.

Maybe this sounds crazy, or not fun? Stay with me though. I'm surprised by how addicting it is. My fantasy is to have a "designing keychain" that is as charming as a bracelet. Each crocheted color "chip" can be held up to clothes in my closet, or other yarn colors. Each can be independently layered or tiled with other color chips (unlike, say, a striped scarf of 14 attached colors).

I wouldn't have thought to put grey, magenta, and plum together, but that's what happened when I "let the chips fall where they may." (top left corner of photo)

Crocheting Close to the Bone

The first obvious strategy is to use the shortest possible beginning yarn end. (Normally my yarn ends are at least FOUR inches long, but for this newsletter topic I'm setting aside "normal.") A yarn end won't stay woven in if it's too short, or can't be woven in at all. For color chips I find I can work with a 1" yarn end instead of leaving it unwoven. Surprisingly, switching to an "Adjustable Slip Knot" gives me more control. http://bit.ly/an8His

The one-yard flowers at right require lean centers; a chain-loop center takes too much yarn!

Somewhat common strategy: Omit the beginning slip knot altogether, or unknot it later when weaving in the end.

Include the yarn end in the foundation chs. I found a video of the way I do it: see the Youtube link at bottom of right column. 

Slip stitch to join or to fasten off? NOPE! Can't spare precious millimeters of yarn. Instead, I slip the slip - my name for when you remove the hook from your st and pull the lp through the place where you would have sl st'd it - like completing a classic popcorn. (Some antique sources called this a sl st...) See abbreviations at end of this column.
Low-fat picots: I might slip the slip that closes a picot. Or, merely hinting at a picot can work: ch 1, sl st in the back bump of the ch just made. (You could also call this a tight love knot.) The pastel tiles at left have fat-free picots in the corners.
Abbrev's: ch=chain, lp=loop, sl st=slip stitch, st=stitch.