With a little practice, you can master these techniques and they will When you have several stitches worked in one colour, the unused strand "floats" across the back of the work. pattern), the first stitch is worked in C1, the next in C2, and the following two stitches are worked in C1. September 29, 2021 @ We just don't get along. If you finish knitting something and onlythenrealize that you should have trapped the long floats dont worry! sometimes called Scandinavian knitting, is the one endorsed by Elizabeth Zimmerman in Knitting This email came at the perfect time. Thanks! Maureen Murley To accomplish this, you need to invisibly tack down or "catch" the float on the wrong side of your work as you knit with the working yarn. Read More. knitting your multi-color project. conscious of carrying the unused colors at the back of the work loosely. This distinguishes it from other colorwork methods like mosaic knitting or intarsia. September 29, 2021 @ Ideally, as a rule of thumb, you want your floats (those unworked strands that end up behind your work) to be less than 1"/2.5 cm. 5:52 am. tangled, then, is key to working with multiple colors. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Theresa Hofstetter I recently completed a color work sweater and the yoke is snugger than the body. This effect is referred to as. The only Marie Wallin garment Ive knit, I adapted to be knit in the round and I steeked the armholes and front neck. So, dont let the fear of making mistakes stop you from trying a new technique. Add a key, so you remember the boxes with dots are purls, and the boxes without dots are knit. 6:17 pm. So Im sorry Im not the most helpful person for that! What are your thoughts on this? I so appreciate it and YOU! Ive never knitted a scarf in the round; it forms a tube and when youre done knitting the main part of the scarf, you knit the front and back together with a version of the three-needle bind-off without actually doing the bind-off part. But after a couple of hours of practice, everybody manages to get the hang of it. Plus, use your imagination to modify, deconstruct, and combine the unique motifs to create your own designs. Don. The project is a scarf called the Ajiro Scarf. Why would the shape be different from the color dominance? If you hold your yarns in each hand, check out this video for a slightly fancier way of trapping: To join a new yarn, just leave a yarn tail and then get started with the new yarn from the beginning of the next round. If a pattern row has you knit two white stitches, then two black stitches and repeat that to the end of the row, you could literally knit the two white stitches, drop the yarn, pick up the black yarn and knit two stitches, drop it, etc. Thank you so much! My UPS gal surprised me again the other day with several new Interweave books full of wonderful, inventive projects. What exactly is color work? Tension is my struggle-any tips or videos on how to tension properly to avoid floats? This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Bringyour working yarn betweenthe needles as though you are going to knit but don't complete the stitch. Lisas List: 10 Reasons Knitting Is Better Than Dating, Spurned Gifts: When Knit & Crochet Gifts Went Wrong. We believeswatchingis an important part of the process of beginning any project. I knit continental style, with two strand on left hand. I don't want to have long strands of floats inside the hat, nor do I want it to be too tight. This was all very helpful. Insertyour right needle intothe nextstitch like normal. 1) Holding the yarn. Finally, spread out your sweater and leave it to air-dry. ), Heres the tutorial for you! September 27, 2021 @ If you're unsure about what patterns to start with, we recommend the following form our Pattern Database (from left to right): Lucerne, Morse, Seeds, and Sommers. In other words, when you alternate between colors of yarn, the previously unused strand travels behind the stitches just worked until it is ready to be used again, resulting in a horizontal strand on the wrong side (WS). No need to trap floats there. Insert your right-hand needle into the next stitch, but dont wrap your working yarn around the needle yet. the colorwork portions of a garmentusing US 9 needles on a colorwork yoke of a sweater thats otherwise Thank you for the simple, easy to follow directions. Whichever camp you fall into, note that you must have normal (non-wrapped) Start small! In this example, the dominant yarn is the floating yarn, while the background yarn is the working yarn. (Don't know what the proper terminology is). Traditional Fair Isle (or stranded knitting) color knitting specifies no more than two colors per row and sequences of no more than six stitches of one color. Alexa Ludeman trapping long floats carrying both yarns in your left hand, trapping long floats while using the two-handed stranded colorwork method, DIY: Knit Laurus Hat and Free Pattern by Dianna Walla - Kiku Corner, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sex1qLRd_I&t=7s, Something spooky this way comes Halloween inspired knitwear | Wolfish Written, On Dasher, on Dancer the Fallow Jumper | Wolfish Written. Ive heard of some people switching to a larger needle for the color work. Likely because I need to work on the tension of my floats. And you can see these steps in action here: trapping long floats carrying both yarns in your left handfromDiannaonVimeo. I often stick with what I know instead of trying new things. We recommend starting with a hat and only two colours just dive in and enjoy the learning process! Your explanations and videos are so helpful (as always). needle and wrap the yarn from your right hand around the working needle as if to knit itbut Or, you can be a lazy ass like me I just tie them to the next colour, trim them fairly short, and then hope that, with plenty of time and wear, theyll eventually felt themselves together into a nice, solid, woolly mess. (Photo 1) Keep the stitches on your right needle stretched out as you bring the unused color behind them. September 27, 2021 @ 11:25 pm. Weve got some handy tips on making this dream a reality. A critical thing to keep in mind when knitting colorwork is where you're holding your main color (MC) vs. left-hand Colorwork Without Interlocking Floats - Technique Tuesday - YouTube Kelley Hobart from Alpaca Direct shares tips on how to knit colorwork without the need for interlocking floats as. Thanks again! The basketweave pattern is reminiscent of fishing nets, so I chose blue and natural colors to accentuate the ideas of sea and shore. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete. starkly different results in colorwork knitting; this concept is known as color dominance. The dont. Hi Anna For the odd 3 colour round I usually have one yarn in my right and two yarns in my left, but I drop and pick up with the two in my left hand. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. But since youre here and maybe youre in the mood lets talk about some of those details. you get. I may seem biased in encouraging you to knit with wool, but seriously the natural barbs in wool fiber will cling together, helping the stitches to stay in place. When you go from knitting one stitch in the MC to one in the CC, they dont sit as perfectly as they might if they were done in the same colour. Winter begins to feel interminable around this time of year. Working continental on left hand and throwing (english) on the right hand ..your Q & A video showed a way of simply holding up the work and turning it through 360 deggiving that a go if all else fails (thankfully its not a jumper size or such like. CARRYING YARNS WITH THE TWO-HANDED METHOD. and thought I might start poking around to find tutorials for beginning colorwork. I get this question a lot, and its a tricky one to answer. Colorwork motifs are often presented in charts, as this is an intuitive and shorthand way of showing how the motif builds round by round. actually a pretty fun experiment to try this, switching which color is dominant and which is not, you Ive taught countless colourwork classes and literally NEVER had a student who couldnt learn to do colourwork using this method but they did find it difficult it at first (theres always a bit of cursing). Emily Wessel Hats or even can koozies can be excellent That will trap the float. Get your copy of Vintage Modern Knits today and queue up your version of the Ajiro scarfor one of the other 25 designs in this fab booktoday! With two hands, color work is both addictive and soothing. Hi Julie The key to tension in colourwork is keeping those floats nice and loose. When knittingstranded colorwork, the unworked yarn color "floats" behind the worked stitches in the back of the work. Twist your float yarn around your working yarn. Keep in mind that wrapped floats may sometimes be visible from the front of the work, so test My blue floating yarn is trapped on either side of the 6th stitch. The pattern can have a million different colors included, but only two are used within a single row. Stretch Gently stretch out the stitches on your right needle as you strand the unused yarn across the back of these stitches (Photo 1 below). In typical fair isle knitting, as you switch from one color to another, the inactive color drops to the back of the work. If you're unsure about what patterns to start with, we recommend the following form our Pattern Database (from left to right): Customer accounts enabled in your Store Admin. Whether you hold the yarn . There are several ways knitters do this, and the right choice is the one that feels most comfortable The two-handed method is great because the two yarns do not get tangled. For more information, please see our Unlike other types of colorwork knitting techniques (such as striping or intarsia), stranded colorwork requires you to carry along the strand of yarn not in use across the back of the work. Some knitters go up a needle size (or two or three) just for Contains spam, fake content or potential malware, https://www.interweave.com/store/vintage-modern-knits-ebook, Free Resin Jewelry Video: Yupo Paper, Alcohol Inks, and Resin, Knitting-Themed Artists We Love: Inspiration from Fiber & Needles, Celebrating Beadwork Artists on International Womens Day. . Enjoy! While you moon sprites & icelandic wool month at tolt, Float is a common term for the strand of yarn that runs across the back of colorwork fabric the strand that makes colorwork, So, if Im knitting a piece that has long floats, how often should I trap them? If you dont, its a good bet that youll pull the non-working yarn a little too tight, causing puckering problems. Required fields are marked *. Without This past week I was thinking, Maybe if I had someone really break it down for me . Thank you!! You want the design to appear as if its laid over the top of the background color, rather than trying