Back-knitting is just as easy with two strands of yarn as a single strand. See our post on selecting color palettes for color inspiration. For example, if there are 3 stitches in a row of one color, the other color will need to be carried behind it for 3 stitches. I havent written it up in a blog post, but I covered trapping the non-dominant float in my video on Youtube about stranded colorwork. The mechanics are REALLY that simple, and if you know how to follow a chart, then you can stop reading, grab one of our free colourwork patterns (like the Anthology hat and cowl or the Clayoquot toque), and start knitting right now. Lisas List: 10 Reasons Knitting Is Better Than Dating, Spurned Gifts: When Knit & Crochet Gifts Went Wrong. yarns at a time. 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. For example, in Round 1 of the colorwork chart below (adapted from the Lucernepattern), the first stitch is worked in C1, the next in C2, and the following two stitches are worked in C1. According to designer Courtney Kelley, This scarf was inspired by a picture in Handschuhe, a vintage knitting book from Germany by Eva Maria Leszner. Alexa Ludeman Because knitted fabric is elastic, the floats traveling behind worked stitches must be long enough to span the width of those stitches, both when stretched and relaxed. This scarf will keep you warm even on the coldest windswept shore.. colourwork, techniques colourwork, tutorial. Thank you so much , Mona Wadington With this weather were all having, doesnt this scarf sound tempting? Regardless of how you hold your yarns when working stranded colorwork, To swatch for a stranded colorwork motif, we recommend the Speed Swatching method for circular knitting; because most stranded colorwork patterns are worked in the round, it is best to swatch in the round as well. This effect is referred to as. Thank you so much! 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). Going up a needles size can help compensate for this tighter tension. What are your thoughts on this? When knitting the MC with my right hand, I throw (English style), and when knitting the CC with my left hand, I pick (Continental style). Shop our 50% Off Online Workshop Sale! Whichever camp you fall into, note that you must have normal (non-wrapped) Also, if you need to catch floats in a bunch of rows dont catch in the same place every row. Hi. All Rights Reserved. 9:04 am. CraftGossipAbout CraftGossipContact Us | Privacy and affiliate policy, This Colorwork Cowl is a Great Way to Play with Color, Grab a Deal on Knitting Designs through 11/29, How to use a reusable adhesive to make reverse stamps, Spring Minis and What to Do with Mini Cross Stitch Patterns, Fun Games for St. Patricks Day Class Parties, Free Knitting Pattern Twisted Stitch Blanket, 20+ Airplane Themed Quilt And Block Patterns. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. With two hands, color work is both addictive and soothing. I thought you said to put the red yarn in your left hand to make it dominant, but then I thought you said to make a diamond shape stand out, you would put the yarn in your right hand. The relevant part starts at 23:15 so you can skip to that to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sex1qLRd_I&t=7s, [] started knitting the colourwork chart using the dark orange and the black. Ive done a couple colorwork projects and I appreciate all of this good info in one place! To accompany the colorwork charts in our patterns, we provide a key showing which colors should be held as the Dominant Color and the Background Color. Likely because I need to work on the tension of my floats. Katherine Hill Winter begins to feel interminable around this time of year. Keep one ball of yarn on either side of you while youre knitting, so youll not only keep the Completethestitch withyour working yarn. These cookies do not store any personal information. When you come to the stitch you want to wrap, put your working needle into the stitch on the These patterns are particularly well-suited for practicing stranded colorwork as they're smaller projects, worked in the round, and feature motifs that don't require working with more than two strands or colors of yarn in the same round. Nervous about your first colorwork project? The Knitting Man's Tiny Shorts, How to knit stranded colorwork NO FLOATS METHOD - in just 3 minutes - colourwork fairisle techniques tutorial Teaching and g. I found this page which shows a technique for capturing the floats & providing a nice stretch. September 27, 2021 @ You can find more information about Knitter's Pride needles from these retailers: Bryson Distributing Accessories Unlimited Knitter's Pride Shop finder 8:59 pm. You can seein the photo abovethat Ive worked the first 5 stitches of my 21-stitch span. Our Jeanette Scarf is a nice choice because its knit in a small tube in the round (its also available as a free download when you sign up for our newsletter!). My first stranded colorwork project was the Herringbone Hat by Anne Mizoguchi, who has several other similar free colorwork . Mary can make the fabric look strange. Hi Julie The key to tension in colourwork is keeping those floats nice and loose. Follow the instructions in theSwatching for Circular Knittingsection of ourSwatching 101article to learn more. If you stop here and look at your float, youll see that its caught in the space between the stitch you just knit and the previous stitch. Holding both strands of yarn too tightly can result in fabric that is taut and puckered. I get this question a lot, and its a tricky one to answer. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. tutorials Andrea Rangel July 26, . Insert your right-hand needle into the next stitch, but dont wrap your working yarn around the needle yet. If the floats are too tight, they will draw your fabric in, causing puckering which will change the look and fit of your finished item. Heres an extra special tip for you: I use the tacking technique to weave in ends as I knit all kinds of projects, color knitting or solid knitting! Someday I may get to this, but as of now Ive never really purled colorwork (beyond a small swatch with short floats). If the floats are too loose, they can get caught when you wear the garment or the stitches may recede in the background. You can work any increase or decrease stitch in the colour shown. the other, as is the case when just carrying two yarns in one hand without the Yarn Guide. With colorwork, the float (or non-working yarn) is traveling in a straight line between stitches (black, in the example above), so it doesn't have the same slack to stretch with. Otherwise, the fabric will be tight and compressed horizontally, which is NOT fun as you knit it and it doesnt look good when its done, either. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. But after a couple of hours of practice, everybody manages to get the hang of it. To keep the back of your work tidy, you may want to consider securing the longer loose strands, or This looks like a really fun project, and the authors have included a little tutorial about how to deal with long floats, too, which is one of the challenges lots of Fair Isle knitting projects. Start small! The long float pictured at the top of the swatch is trapped twice so that the blue float never carries across more than fourstitches (it looks like three shorter floats instead). Ill be using myHearth Slippersto demonstrate in the photos, as this pattern involves a very long float the first time you work Chart C. Im working the Large size, and the float is carried across 21 stitches. A colourwork chart is typically read right to left, starting from round 1 at the bottom of the chart and working your way up to the top, one round at a time. There are other ways to trap floats, but in my experience, this is the most common (and its a pretty simple way to trap floats as youre working, so theres less finishing after the fact). Omit them, of course! Thanks again! Give it a try and see if its the solution for you. Tears. When knitting colourwork patterns, you use two colours (sometimes more) in a single row or round. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Thank you so much! Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete. I am a knitting chicken. Knitosophy Designs uses cookies on our site to improve your experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. If your stitches are twisted, then you are bringing the yarn through the wrong way. 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. Its possible to trap those long floats as youre weaving in ends after the fact (and if there isnt a long end to weave in where you need to trap a float, you can take a spare bit of leftover yarn and just weave it into the wrong side of the fabric as if it were an end, trapping the floats as you go). Dive into stranded colorwork with confidence with a section on reading charts, working floats, and choosing . In the swatch pictured above, there are two long floats where the blue yarn is stranding across twelve stitches on the wrong side of the fabric. The floats across the back of the work need to be flexible enough to allow the front of the work to lie flat. So for knitted fabric thats likely to come into things that may catch on floats, like fingers and toes, we musttraporcatchlong floats to anchor them to the fabric. For YEARS, well into her career as a pattern designer, Emily knit colourwork this way: Knit with the MC colour and then drop that strand. I am sort of figuring it out as I go but it is a little wonky. Some motifs, however, involve longer floats and long floats are exceptionally good at catching on fingers, jewelry, or other things that can work their way between the knitted fabric and the float. Once you have gone over all the puckered fabric in this manner, repeat from the start - until the floats have stretched sufficiently. Knit Picks and KnitPicks.com are registered trademarks of Crafts Americana Group, Inc. Thank you!! How can one get a copy of the pattern? What a great tutorial! The only color you knit to create a new stitch is the one from your right hand. The long float pictured at the bottom of the swatch isnt trapped at all, so its floating across all twelve stitches. This scarf is knitted in the round, which simplifies the Fair Isle patterning (no wrong-side rows) and creates an insulating double layer of fabric. Now Introducing: Brown Sheep Fiber Arts Schoolhouse, Choose the Perfect Yarn and Needles for Any Pattern, Contains spam, fake content or potential malware, 9+ Colorful Patterns to Brighten Winter Knitting. Tension is my struggle-any tips or videos on how to tension properly to avoid floats? Complete thestitch with your working yarn. click here to sign up for our newsletter & well send you a free PDF download of the Jeanette Hat & Scarf Pattern, Guide to Subbing Brown Sheep Yarns in Knit & Crochet Patterns. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. trapping long floats while using the two-handed stranded colorwork methodfromDiannaonVimeo. October 5, 2021 @ knitting words, by repeating the same word in a row, but then stacking the words in a quote, phrase or sentence. This email came at the perfect time. This was only in two colours, and I caught the floats every other stitch because I like having a neat back to my work and less things to catch on when [], Your email address will not be published. When carrying both yarns in the left hand, you may need to use your thumb to hold the floating yarn (blue) out of the way. My blue floating yarn is trapped on either side of the 6th stitch. The basic idea is simple: knit each stitch in the correct colour according to the pattern, carrying the unused colour behind and across the back of the work. Here's a video from Tiara the Unicorn explaining three different ways to catch floats, followed by written directions below that. Emily Wessel Hats or even can koozies can be excellent The guidance suggested catching the floats (the stitches youre carrying of one colour behind the colour youre working with) every [], [] After that I got to start on the yoke and the colourwork. Hi Lisa Yep, lots of folks find going up a needle size very helpful! That will trap the float. There is enough of the contrast grey []. For just a few stitches, this is fine and tidy! sometimes called Scandinavian knitting, is the one endorsed by Elizabeth Zimmerman in Knitting A huge thank you for sharing your wisdom! But if you're not working one color for a longer bit, that float can get so long that it is at risk ofsnagging on things (like fingers or earrings) or pulling and stretching your work. How To Make Intarsia Knitting Patterns Use some graph paper for your chart. 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. If you do come to a spot where its necessary to carry your yarn across more than 5 stitches, remember to catch your floats every so often. Itll make the finished knit look a lot better because it will even out the stitches and help the yarn bloom. The project that that strikes my fancy for todays post is from Vintage Modern Knits by Courtney Kelley and Kate Gagnon Osborn.